Hank Williams

Hank Williams
11" x 8.5", 2013
ink, watercolor, pencil on paper

The world of a music fan, like myself, is like the universe: ever expanding. With accelerating pace I discover new music and start to like music I didn't like before, while it rarely happens that I dislike music, a musician, style, or period I used to like. The Top 100 just isn't big enough to do justice to the thousands and thousands wonderful recordings and musicians that are out there deserving the pedestal. That certain musicians that used to be regular contenders in the Top 100 haven't been there anymore is not because I don't like 'em any more but because I haven't heard them. From the millions and millions of recordings out there available for me to play, I tend to play those things I haven't heard before. And when a certain music, musician, style, or era, suddenly makes a comeback, it is by chance. I may have found a new record I hadn't heard yet, a movie may have highlighted some music I hadn't heard in a while, or some musician may suddenly re-enter the limelight (because of the inclusion in a movie, because another musician may have played his or hers music, or because he or she died). Hank Williams was on the shortlist for inclusion in the 100 Greatest Recordings Ever that I compiled to celebrate 30 years of list keeping with his classic I'm So Lonesome I could Cry but was only edited out at very last moment. It's was a while since Hank Williams make the list (the last inclusion was in 2008, the year I found his Luke the Drifter in a thrift store) so when his music was featured in the Moonrise Kingdom movie, I didn't have to think long about his nomination for this year. I singled out Ramblin' Man, another of Williams' classics to be part of the Top 100 2012. It simply may be that the stars of the Top 100 have a cycle in which they shine bright every so many years. Some stars are more distant than others, Hank Williams' is pretty bright.