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This is something special.  More to come…

Saguaro put a special playlist together summarizing some of our current and past releases.

Track Listing:
Edwin McCain – Walk With You
Blind Boys – Perfect Peace
Patty Loveless – Busted
Susan Ashton – Revelation Song
Collin Raye – She’s With Me
Rebecca Lynn Howard – Sing Cause I Love To
Adam Hood – Buzzes Like Neon
Tanya Tucker – Love’s Gonna Live Here
Hank Williams – Hey Good Lookin’

Today we have a very special announcement about Hank Williams the movie. The movie will be based on Hank’s biography established by writer Collin Escott and will include music from the the Unreleased Recordings box set. The movie will be produced by Marc Abraham.

Read about it in Variety by clicking HERE.

You can now preorder the Hank Williams Unreleased Recordings Vinyl LP at Amazon. There will also be an MP3 version of this available as well.

Track Listing

Side A (Lovesick Blues/On Top of Old Smoky/Columbus Stockade Blues/The Prodigal Son/The Mother’s Best Song/Theme/Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain)

Side B (Lovesick Blues/Have I Told You Lately That I Love You/The Mother’s Best Song/Sally Goodin/When the Saints Go Marchin’ In/Theme/Dust on the Bible)

Buy HERE

• Tanya Tucker exceeded the 1k friends mark on Facebook this week. She has a lot of Norwegian fans. Can someone out there explain that phenomonen?
• Tanya is expected to perform June 10 at Fan Fair (CMA Music Festival) and sign for the GAC table on June 11
• Saguaro unveiled a new Tanya Tucker track this called “Big Big Love.” Hear it again.
• Saguaro may also unveil the Tanya Tucker iPhone application to pre-release streams from the new album. Would you download the Tanya app?
• Collin Raye is also set to perform at Fan Fair and is signing for GAC as well. Collin is just returning from a successful 1 week tour in Ireland. If there are any Irish fans out there, please let us know how you enjoyed the show.
• Collin Raye’s “You Get Me” is still the most popular track from Never Going Back.
• Pre order the new Adam Hood Deluxe Version album which includes 7 new bonus tracks. Download on Amazon MP3.
• The new Patty Loveless record is set to release September 29th. Expect a sound much like Mountain Soul.
• Hank Williams The Unreleased Recordings is now available for digital download excluslively on Amazon MP3. That’s 54 tracks for only $27.99 and synchs right up with iTunes upon download. Download here.

Now exclusively on the Amazon MP3 store is Hank Williams The Unreleased Recordings, 54 tracks for only $27.99. All tracks are DRM-free which means they are transferrable and playable across computers and MP3 players like iPods or iPhones.

Product Description on Amazon Page
At the peak of his career in 1951, Hank Williams recorded 143 songs for the Mother’s Best Flour Company. Hank sang with his regular studio band and recorded his hits as well as many songs he never recorded commercially anywhere else. From this amazing legacy, Time Life is proud to release this historic 3 CD, 54 track collection drawn from the very best of the Mother’s Best recordings.

Hank Williams – Gospel Keepsakes
By Brian Turpen

When the name of “Hank” is spoken in country music circles, nearly everyone immediately thinks of the legend, Hank Williams Sr. There is absolutely no denying his immortal stature. And when thinking of Hank, the vast majority of the average country music fans will recall his many successful popular tunes. Most may not know or realize the actual importance that gospel music played in both Hank’s life and career. In fact, most scholars would agree that it was gospel music that first sparked Hank’s interest in music.

In the Deep South during Hank’s youth, many were deeply tied to religious lifestyles, with their first music experiences being gospel. That is exactly where Hank’s first taste of music came from. His first and fondest memories were that of a very young boy enthusiastically singing gospel hymns while his mother Lillie played organ at the Mount Olive West Baptist Church. Years later in a rare interview with Jazz journalist Ralph J. Gleason of the San Francisco Chronicle Hank stated, “My earliest memory is sittin’ on that organ stool by her and hollerin’. I must gave been five, six years old and louder’n anybody else.”

Lillie encouraged Hank’s interest in singing. In the midst of the depression, as a single parent, she scraped together a few dollars and for two years straight she sent him to a Gospel shape-note singing school at the Oak Grove Methodist Church in Avant, Alabama.

Black church music also entered his young life too, as he could hear their music from his Georgiana home. Hank is said to have once commented to a boyhood friend while listening to the black church singing, “One day, I’m gonna write songs like that.”

The hymns Hank learned and heard colored his approach to music as nothing else ever would and those experiences would help shape Hank’s musical career. There is little question that Hank developed an early understanding and enthusiasm for gospel music, which was huge part of the background of his earliest days. The old hymns helped to teach him what he would need to know about writing and performing music. The melodies should be simple and the words plain spoken. Hank also learned how to express sincere feelings and to sing them as if salvation rested upon it. He came to appreciate the warm feeling components of a spiritual song. Gospel music would remain with Hank throughout his life.

Continue here to read the whole review

Snippets:

Rolling Stone – “But the 54 performances in this three-CD set pack a magical, concentrated immediacy that is, in its time and way, as electrifying as Johnny Cash’s Sixties prison shows or Bob Dylan’s early acoustic concerts.” – David Fricke

Tennessean – “Hank Williams at the peak of his powers, transported, soaped, baked, litigated and transformed into the new digital century.” – Peter Cooper

Newsweek – “The recordings are so clear and intimate, you can hear Williams, then 27, chide his band members (known as the Drifting Cowboys) for hitting bum notes and joke about how he’s ‘wrote so many songs with the same tune,’ he forgot ‘which a one’ he’s signing.” – Lorraine Ali