Darrell Scott Does Hank Williams

Posted on May 1, 2020 in Album Reviews

We review Darrell Scott

By Rob Dickens

Darrell Scott

Darrell Scott Sings The Blues Of Hank Williams

Full Light

24 April 2020

We all know Hank Williams‘s place as a music great of the twentieth century. His importance to country music, in particular, is impossible to overstate. In only five years, he recorded over two hundred songs and had eleven number one hits. Add to the commercial success, his tragic health issues, his early and lonesome death, as well as the emotional outpourings at his massive funeral and you have the stuff of legends.

We are used to hearing Williams’s songs through a country music lens – plenty of skip and twang, videos in black and white with a sort-of-gangling-smiling singer – all this despite the often incredibly sad lyrics.

Darrell Scott knows a thing or two more though. Inspired by his late father Wayne’s love of Williams’s work, Darrell delves into the songs and draws about the emotion – the heartbreak, the lost loves, the complex relationships with women and, above all, the sheer poetry.

Scott breathes new life into nine classic songs, rejuvenating them with a blues sensibility, a full-band sound and electric urgency.

Scott has enlisted veteran musicians, Hammond B3 player Reese Wynans, drummer Marco Giovino and bassist Danny Thompson as the core studio band, with additional contributions from Todd Phillips, Shad Cobb and Steve Conn. An especially moving moment is “When God Comes And Gathers His Jewels” performed by Wayne Scott.

“I heard Hank, I heard my dad, and I heard the blues that was only a guitar grab away for me,” Darrell Scott says. “It did not occur to me to play or sing it like Hank; but, I strive to be true to the spirit and throw my version of the blues towards Hank songs. This recording is that.”

Darrell Scott Sings The Blues OF Hank Williams is a gift from a wonderful artist, a timely invitation for us all to re-evaluate the mastery of Hank Williams.