Hank Thompson – Seven Decades

“It used to be you never got old in country music,” Hank Thompson said as I slipped on a Nudie jacket from his attic closet at his home near Fort Worth. “My gosh, look at rock stars — that’s like country music used to be. Some of the rock stars that are still performing, they go back to the ’50s and ’60s. Why not in country and western music?”

It’s a good question, and as if to prove there’s still “Sting In This Ole Bee”, as the title of the first cut on his new record puts it, the 75-year-old Thompson has produced an album of western swing that rests among the best of his storied career. Melodically bright and breezy with fiddles and steel, and lyrically punctuated with the wordplay he’s known for (“Lobo The Hobo”, “Abdul Abubul Emir”, “Condo In Hondo”), Seven Decades includes standards (Jimmie Rodgers’ “In The Jailhouse Now”), a trademark nursery rhyme song (“Then I’ll Start Believin’ In You”), and an ode to a brothel (Tex Williams’ “Nancy Ann’s Hotel”).

Merle Travis’ guitarist son Thom Bresh (that lick is genetic!) and pianist Mark Jordan, who also arranged many of the tunes, share credit for the music’s success, but it’s Thompson’s easygoing, joy-filled spirit that engages the listener. The vocals are correctly up front, and he’s in amazingly fine voice — check out the Nat “King” Cole inspired down-tempo ballad “Dinner For One, Please James”.

Here’s to seven more decades of Hank Thompson.