Hank Williams III – Risin’ Outlaw

Just as critics reduce Hank Jr. to the party animal cartoon he became, so they’ll doubtless be falling all over themselves to tout his kid as the second coming of Hank Sr. Granted, there are some striking similarities between first and third generation Hanks: III is pale and gaunt like his granddad; he sings with much the same coondog whine as ol’ Hank did; and he plays Sr.’s haunted, hell-bent persona to the hilt. A good third of the songs on III’s not-so-Nashvillian Nashville debut, Risin’ Outlaw, are gutbucket 2/4-shuffles a la “Your Cheatin’ Heart”, right down to the sobbing steel and tic-tac guitar. The record’s lean, scratchy production at times goes for a faux acetate effect as well.

Still, from the album’s title to its Outlaw-styled Southern rockers, there’s as much Hank Jr. here as anything else. In other words, all of this is just so much family tradition. But as Hank III’s dad learned when he tried it, it’s one thing to summon Hank Sr.’s ghost; it’s quite another to become an artist in your own right. It wasn’t until Bocephus reinvented himself as his own man with albums such as Hank Williams Jr. & Friends that he became more than just living proof.

So as pleasing as Hank III’s debut is to the ears, it’s still old hat, one that his latter-day hero, Wayne Hancock, wears with greater ease. At this point Hank III would do better to take a cue from a guy like Buddy Miller, whose “Lonesome For You” he covers here. As much as Miller loves the records of Hank Sr. (as well as those of George Jones, Porter Wagoner, and others), he never merely apes them, but rather taps their spirits to create contemporary honky-tonk that’s all his own.

And to set the record straight, just as his dad wasn’t really a junior, Hank III, born Shelton Hank Williams, isn’t a “IIIrd” at all: His father’s name is Randall Hank Williams; his granddad’s was Hiram.