"Shit, That Sounds Tremendous!" Tom Jones On His 13 Favourite Albums | Page 4 of 14 | The Quietus

Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

3. Hank WilliamsHank Williams as Luke the Drifter

That’s when he did all talking songs. He had this pseudonym, Luke the Drifter, but I remember it for ‘Beyond The Sunset’ and every track was where he sang a little bit, but he talked a lot. The earlier ones that I heard Hank Williams doing were the classic hits that he had, ‘Cold Cold Heart’ and ‘Your Cheating Heart’. This one I came to later. I heard Hank Williams as Luke the Drifter first in America. When I first went to the States in 1965, I was finding albums in the Colony record shop, right in Manhattan.

It was the honesty of the songs – they were very well written, the lyrics, which were tremendous. That’s what I liked about it and what I still do. The ones were he talks, that’s another thing again. He went a step up there: it was great to hear him talk as well as sing. ‘I Dreamed About Mama Last Night’, that’s a great song, just about life, talking and singing.

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