Various Artists – The Songs Of Hank Williams Jr.: A Bocephus Celebration
Executive producer Danny Kee — known for his work with Kathie Lee Gifford and Kenny Rogers — got at least one thing right on this sixteen-song tribute: If you’re going to celebrate Bocephus with the worst of his catalog, you may as well enlist the worst of today’s country and southern rock artists.
What could be more insufferable than Blake Shelton bragging through “Young Country”? Match him with Trick Pony, Darryl Worley, and a psuedo-canned psuedo-choir. Or give the competent Montgomery Gentry the indescribably dumb lyrics of “Women I’ve Never Had”, then have sleepwalking session hacks phone in their parts, and then make sure the connection is lousy. Or perhaps relegate George Jones and John Anderson to singing second-fiddle in service of Chad Brock on “A Country Boy Can Survive”, the equivalent of booking Elvis and Sinatra to back up Daffy Duck.
Even Hank Jr.’s better songs barely rise to the level of travesty; witness Dusty Drake on “Heaven Can’t Be Found”, Aaron Tippin on “Family Tradition”, Andy Griggs on “Old Habits”. If the three intended sly send-ups of Bocephus’ karaoke cult, their miserable oversinging might then, and only then, be considered listenable.
Compared to such claptrap, Tracy Lawrence almost sounds convincing, turning the admittedly formulaic “Outlaw Women” into a Bad Company allusion. Kudos could go to Alan Jackson for “The Blues Man”, the best moment on the disc — except that cut is a cheat, previously available on Jackson’s 1999 covers collection Under The Influence.
The undisputed ripoff kings, however, remain Lynyrd Skynrd, who, with fellow dinosaurs .38 Special and the Marshall Tucker Band, toast Jr. with little more than watered-down redneck metal, as if militating for a new legal concept: self-slander and auto-defamation. Some tribute albums just suck; this one ingurgitates.