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Music CD - Hank Williams III: Straight to Hell
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Music CD: Straight to Hell
Artist: Hank Williams III
List Price: $18.98
Our Price: $12.90
Your Save: $ 6.08 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Bruc Records
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. Satan Is Real, Straight to Hell
2. Thrown Out of the Bar
3. Things You Do To Me
4. Country Heroes
5. D Ray White
6. Low Down
7. Pills I Took
8. Smoke & Wine
9. My Drinkin Problem
10. Crazed Country Rebel
11. Dick in Dixie
12. Not Everybody Likes Us
13. Angel of Sin
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0715187886926
Format: Explicit Lyrics
Label: Bruc Records
Manufacturer: Bruc Records
Number Of Discs: 2
Publisher: Bruc Records
Release Date: 2006-02-28
Studio: Bruc Records
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Modern Day Outlaw
Comment: I can't imagine a more poignant middle finger to the Nashville music establishment than this album. It's both good and bad at the same time: good in that it is a spirited, irreverent tribute to Hank III's country heroes and the music and style they represented and bad in that in order to show yourself as an outsider, with talent, you have to be the direct opposite of the sappy pop-country that Nashville thinks we should be getting.
This album grows on you with the songs like Country Heroes, Low Down, Pills I Took, and Angel of Sin. Why can't you hear this coming out Nashville? This is great road trip music.
Should you be worried about losing your religion listening to this album? Well, I think it's like when they issue a tornado watch--the possibility is there, but most of the time things are unchanged as before.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Real Deal
Comment: I don't care what the so-called critics say, Hank III is the "real deal" to me. He's got his Grandfather's looks and voice and his own way of delivering the goods. It must have been those pills he took. Carry on, Hank.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best cd I have heard in a looooooong time
Comment: Best cd I have heard in a long time in ANY genre.
If the record companies put out more albums like this, maybe they wouldn't be whining about losing money. I just wish that the radio stations could play it. The rock stations could maybe get away with it. If country stations tried, the FCC would send EVERYBODY to satellite radio.
That said, this should be required listening for any rock band starting out today. This one cd has more attitude than the entire catalogs of any ten bands on the radio. They are too busy selling out for the bucks. Hank III may get famous (Infamous?), but he'll never get rich. Somehow, I don't think he cares.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Tells it like it is...whether THEY like it or not!
Comment: After three generations, could one feel so close to the style and strings that made Hank Williams such a star in country western music? Hank III seems to grab a handful of his grandfather's attitude and sound and leapfrog his dad into the 21st century with all the raw, genuine lyrical lashings one could imagine. Make no mistake about it; this album will make anyone feel like they are having a major "old school" experience while still being able to muse at the modern day snippets that are found throughout the track listings.
In listening to the album, one might imagine a saloon or down and out ranch hand, with Billy the kid blending into a mirage that also conveys old pickup trucks. One thing about it, it is nothing like so many other acts calling themselves "Country" today. When listeners wonder if Gap T-shirt clad Keith Urban or singers with Cowboy hats who grew up in an apartment in Atlanta would even know which side to mount a horse from, Hank drives the point home with some pretty direct bashings of today's country music scene. If he can be given credit for anything, it is speaking his mind, even if fans of Carrie Underwood don't want to hear it.
The greatest thing is the fact this is not really some re-hash of old country. Hank III does evoke a lot of the spirited vocals that might remind original Hank fans of days gone by, but he also puts a huge amount of emphasis on simple storytelling. This music has a lot of mood, with simple tones that make one almost see the tumbleweeds tumble across as the song moves along. This is music that tells a story, and does it well. Someone looking for technical proficiency and multiple musicians won't necessarily find it here, but the acoustic guitars and cameo fiddles are harmonious enough to do just the job, and that is keeping it subtle while allowing Hank to sing his raucous tunes.
They probably cuss him in more circles than one could ever count, but this two disc offering, despite it's obvious razzings found on a couple songs that some might find a tad overbearing, is quite a keeper for the fan who doesn't really care for Country, but only because they haven't gotten the true taste of what the attitude and storytelling really is about. You will find that here, on straight to Hell by Hank III.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: the trail to REAL country music
Comment: Here's an interesting thought experiment--had popular country NOT gone the way of soulless formula that catered more to conservative punditry than its actual constituency, would Hank III's music still have such an angry-roots edge to it? In other words, if country stations still held true to the traditions of Hank I and played country music that sang of true heartache and trouble and anguish and the joys of drinking, would Hank III be playing in the style that he is playing today?
With Hank III's previous release, Lovesick, Broke & Driftin', I would have said yes, since that album is such a strong release of hardcore twangy country, where every other word is whiskey and you want to find the closest hardwood floor to stomp your heels on. But with Straight to Hell, I wonder if Hank III just needs a tradition to revere and a trend to rail against. While "Thrown Out of the Bar" and "My Drinkin Problem" are tight songs done with spirit and a sense of clop, "D Ray White" and "D*ck in Dixie" are a little too bird-in-the-face and feel more like expressions of the need to rebel than being comfortable in their musical style. Of course, the spirit of real country music is based in rebellion and wailing against the fat, wealthy (and white), but it usually does so with its own sense of joy, making it such close kin to blues.
Not that Hank III isn't carrying a worthwhile banner--his allegiances to his gradndaddy, Hasil Adkins, Wayne Hancock, and all kinds of country that keeps it real shows that Hank III's heart is in the right place, and maybe because of his name he can get a little more attention to the couse of heartfelt (rather than pocket-lining) country music, but I think Lovesick did more for his cause than this release in the end, because let's face it, "Nighttime Ramblin' Man" is probably one of the most scorching country tunes of the past decade. Even some of the solo renditions during the 42-minute miasma on disc 2 of Straight to Hell are just amazing country music, but the latter efforts get lost in a wandering mix.
I support Hank III's cause and will gladly mash Brooks & Dunn's custom 'cowboy' hats into mush if ever given a chance--but I also hope that Hank III knows that his best weapon is making damn fine music. And I'll keep dancing to it (and none of that achey-breaky crapola).
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Editorial Reviews:
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A new album from Hank Williams III is always a revelation: first, because it came out at all (his relationship with his label is as stormy as the marriage of his legendary grandparents); and second, because of its content and execution. So it's something of a miracle to see a 2-CD set of some of III's most hardcore Hellbilly (as opposed to the relentless screaming of his Assjack), especially as a number of the songs had been scheduled to appear on his unreleased 2003 album Thrown Out of the Bar. Hank III calls the new offering--recorded mostly on a $500 machine, for a DIY sound--a "thrill ride into a life of sin." This may explain the fact that Straight to Hell, which opens with some old-fashioned gospel and abruptly ends with the sound of a belly-laughing Satan, comes with a parental advisory sticker. He earns it, all right, especially on "Dick in Dixie," which is not a song about a man named Richard. As usual, III spends a lot of time pointing out what's wrong with Nashville; worshiping pills, weed, and wine; and self-mythologizing. But when he gets down to business, putting his graddaddy's bray on such songs of misery as "Angel of Sin," well, all is forgiven. III also gets big points for the second disc's 42-minute hidden track, a self-indulgent but brilliant pastiche of sound comprised of a Hank Sr. song ("I Could Never Be Ashamed of You"), snippets of a Wayne "The Train" Hancock tune, a fragment of a song III wrote with ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons, a little Cheech and Chong, as well as assorted sounds of a speeding train, runaway horses, pig snorts, a gunshot, and some hellfire-and-brimstone preaching. A drug-laced dream? The soundtrack to that journey to Hades of the album title? Damned interesting, either way. --Alanna Nash
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