This is a pretty hokey video but it is as least an accurate original recording of one of the most influential and covered songs in all of Country music. I was at the Woodbine Opry earlier this evening when the band played this song. This crowd broke out in spontaneous applause and three couples started dancing. Despite the fact that it was played in Woodbine, Georgia in a refurbished school house by an all volunteer band the power of the song reached out across the sixty years and gave me chills.
I love Hank. Hank Jr. is OK and Hank III is doing well but the shoes they have to fill are just too big. No one could channel pain and loneliness like the Lonesome Drifter and on this song you can feel the despair, the pain. Like most great art is it deceptively simple and unadorned but very powerful. This is the best Country music has to offer.
Most of what passes for country music today is simply over-produced pop music. It has no heart, no soul. Break out the Hank, the Ernest Tubb, the Jimmie Rogers, The Carter Family, the Stonewall Jackson to hear good Country music.
There are many new photos at The Bosom Serpent.
