Long Gone Lonesome Blues / My Son Calls Another Man Daddy - Hank Williams
Why included: 1st in RYM's Top 10 singles of 1950
A-side: Long Gone Lonesome Blues
Apple Music link: https://music.apple.com/us/album/long-gone-lonesome-blues-single-version/1434905254?i=1434905510
To me, this one stakes its place out of Hank's dozens of classics out of the sheer suspense it manages to generate. One of his greatest assets of Hank is that, unlike so many performers of his time, there are very few artistic layers he builds between you and himself: what you hear is the real deal, and whether it be the deadly seriousness of "Ramblin' Man" and carefree friendliness of "Hey Good Lookin,'" he is able to powerfully communicate his inner spirit through masterful phrasings and arrangements. This song, in contrast, works a bit differently than the directness we're used to from his material. It almost sounds like Hank tried to sing in his typical lonesome style, but the lyrics triggered such painful memories that his inner turmoil would come in brief pangs of groaning pain in between verses. This is where his crying wail from "Lovesick Blues" was truly bottled up as a powerful weapon, using that cracking moan in the song to literally inflict his audience with visceral pain when they least expected it. I guess we should expect a song with such suicidal lyrics like "I'm gonna find me a river, one that's cold as ice / And when I find me that river, Lord I'm gonna pay the price / I'm going down in it three times, but Lord I'm only coming up twice" to be deeply affecting, but only a genius like Hank could have figured out such a striking way of communicating a persisting troubled state.
B-side: My Son Calls Another Man Daddy
Apple Music link: https://music.apple.com/us/album/my-son-calls-another-man-daddy-mgm-single-version/1434905254?i=1434905511
Generally seen as a lesser track of his, I happen to view this humble little cover as a minor classic. After all, he probably empathized with the subject matter on a deeply personal level, having dealt with incessant marital and family problems his whole life. His phrasings are just as astonishingly beautiful as usual, elongating and stretching out just the right syllables to make the message of his song clear and heartbreaking. Even then, guitar players Bob McNett (electric) and Don Helms (steel) are equal heroes here, coating the end of each verse with flurries of soft-pinging notes or human-like moans to emphasize the delicate melancholy to this story. It's a shame that a song of such high quality is relegated to mere B-side status, but once you get into the deep richness of the Hank Williams vibe, you'll realize that the man practically did no filler and even a minor B-side can be more emotionally moving than some artists' entire oeuvres. And hey, at least it made it onto his classic 40 Greatest Hits compilation, hopefully allowing people to place it on the same plane as "Settin' The Woods On Fire" and "Howlin' At The Moon."
Verdict: Essential Listening
For a man with a well-defined style and personality, it's amazing how many submoods and ideas he was able to explore within this range. That's why listening to 40-50 songs of his in a row is such a delight: with each song, you get a more and more multi-faceted, humanistic portrait of who he was as a human being. Yes, he had his flaws, shortcomings, and embarrassing moments just like the rest of us, but they only served to make him feel more real and organic. In a way, this confessional artistic paradigm was incredibly modern for his time and thus allows his music to be absolutely timeless, able to be revered by the snobby hipsters of today just as much as country music fans back in 1950. So, even if this is perhaps not his single greatest achievement, it is one of his most quintessential and intriguing successes by the greatest artist of his genre. What bigger recommendation could I really give?
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