Livin' For a Song - Hank Cochran

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Reviewed by Kathy Coleman

As far as songwriters go, Hank Cochran remains one of the finest examples living. Having turned out classics of country music such as "I Fall To Pieces," "Make The World Go Away," "He's Got You" (also recorded as "She's Got You"), and "Ocean Front Property," and has been recorded by artists from Patsy Cline to George Strait. Hank's also had a formidable recording career of his own, from recording with rocker Eddie Cochran (no relation, although they billed themselves as "The Cochran Brothers"), and then going on his own as a country artist. He was inducted to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1974. He has won dozens of awards not only for his own recordings, but for the many number 1 hits he's penned for Ray Price, Eddy Arnold, Elvis Presley, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Merle Haggard, George Strait, Ronnie Milsap, Vern Gosdin, George Jones, Jeannie Seely, and many others.

With this new disc, his first since the 1996 release, "Desperate Men: The Legend & The Oulaw," Hank salutes the art of the song. With his own powerful, raw vocals taking on many new songs of his own as well as others, he chooses songs that are all individual, rare, and glorious. He begins Livin' For A Song with a startling hardcore rockin' version of the classic "Honky Tonk Angels" (written by Arlie Carter). It's a hook that grabs and keeps the listener paying attention throughout the whole. He follows it with a searing fiddle-drenched tune, "Something Unseen." Hank's voice wavers with emotion, sheer golden country tones. Hank proves he remains a writer of real country, music ripped from the heart's blood to burn into the soul, with each of the songs he has penned on this album.

"I Fell Apart," and "He Little Thinged Her" are both superb examples of pure country music writing. Hank teams with Red Lane for "Nobody's Fool," a toe-tapping, laid-back, bluesy number. Other collaborations include songs written with Dave Kirby, Craig Dillingham, Kirk and John Roth, Bo Roberts and Dave Hoister; songs Hank didn't write himself include tracks penned by Andy Wrenn, Rock Killough, and Jim Vest with Arti Portilla.

There is little spit-and-polish on this album; it's unvarnished country, pure and undiluted, not overrun through a producer's board or tweaked for modern commercial consumption. This is a real country disc for the real country fan, a cheer for those people who still write a country song and those who still want to record them, and, in the process, made for those of us who still want to listen to them. Fiddle and steel, solid high lonesome blues and beer-drenched sorrow, it's all here. From tracks like the extremely impressive "You Let Me Down" to the sweet, introspective "The Pen," which asks almost the same question as George Jones' classic "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?" Hank produces an album that is so worth hearing, so rich, and so classically country it's sure to be overlooked by the mainstream, and that's a shame.

Hank closes out the disc with the title track, "Livin' For A Song," which is perhaps an autobiographical tale, the story of the hard life of a songwriter, and how it feels to put your feelings to music. "I have slept on life's highway/muddy tears painting my face/a rhyme or two was a big pay day/Living for a song. Using words for my lifeline/forsaking all just for a rhyme/building steps I know I can't climb/Living for a song."

It's a beautiful album, and a touching, wonderful salute to the usually hidden hero of the song not just the singer, but the one who found the words and made them rhyme. The songwriter.

1. Honky Tonk Angels
2. Something Unseen
3. I Fell Apart
4. He Little Thinged Her
5. Nobody's Fool
6. You Wouldn't Know Love
7. You Let Me Down
8. Magic In The Band
9. When Cotton Was King
10. Sometimes Mississippi
11. The Pen
12. I'm Goin' Home
13. What a Beautiful Woman
14. Livin' For A Song