Album: Various artists, The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams (Egyptian / Sony)

A dozen unrecorded songs composed by the archetype of modern country songwriting, retrieved after his death and now sung by a rather obvious posse: Norah, Sheryl, Merle Haggard, Jack White, Bob Dylan...

Tasteful, reverent, in the tradition. Neat, honky-tonkin' sketchmaps of a route back to the source. And while nothing grates, all it really achieves is to make you want to hear Hank sing them. Levon Helm comes closest to taking you there.