Hank Williams - Turn Back The Years: The Essential Hank Williams Collection

Hank Williams began recording in 1946, and until his untimely death in 1952, he'd laid down 88 tracks under his own name, and many more as the gospel singing "Luke the Drifter." But for all the shortness of his life and career, Hank Williams changed the face of country music with his frank, ribald, and unfettered approach. His music was raw, ragged, and brilliant. Hank will live forever through music that is real, touching the heart, the mind, and the soul.

It's hard to believe that if Hank Williams were still alive, he'd only be 82 years old. He's been dead for more than half a century, but his shadow is still stretched over music, all music, from Nashville to Austin to Bakersfield to Memphis. Without Hank, Elvis couldn't have been. Still, every country music singer since that cold New Year's Eve when Hank went to sleep in the back of a Cadillac and never woke up has felt the touch of his hand, heard the sound of his voice. He was too rowdy for the Opry, too wild for the times, too crazy, and yet in his death he became the great martyr, the Patron Saint, the man who for all time would hold sway over the sound of traditional country music.

What we forget these days is that Hank was far from traditional. He incorporated drums in his music. He rocked the traditionalists. He turned country music on its ear. He sang about the wild life with straightforward honesty and frank passion, his own vices laid out bare and plain for all the world to see. And all the world loved him for it, because for all of it, he showed a man who was purely human. He struggled always against his base nature and, as "Luke the Drifter," displayed himself as a deeply spiritual man of great faith.

This collection shows all sides of Hank, from his wild "Honky Tonkin'" and "Howlin' At The Moon" to gospel standards "I Saw The Light" and "A Tramp On The Street." Every song has been remastered and the sound is truly timeless