Hank Williams on Stage cover

Hank Williams on Stage

Hank Williams and His Drifting Cowboys

Album · 1962

Hank Williams on Stage was issued by MGM in 1962 (E-3999 mono, SE-3999 stereo), nine years after Williams’s death on 1 January 1953. It is credited to Hank Williams and his Drifting Cowboys with Audrey Williams, who sings harmony. WSM announcer Grant Turner introduces the songs and wrote the liner notes.

The notes say the album was recorded before an audience at the Castle Studio in Nashville’s Tulane Hotel in October 1949. The performances came from the Health & Happiness radio shows, which Williams recorded at Castle that month to promote Hadacol, a patent tonic. Discogs’ notes on the US pressings point out that there was no audience in the room and that the tracks were studio performances. The band is the Drifting Cowboys line-up Williams had put together in 1949: Jerry Rivers on fiddle, Don Helms on steel guitar, Bob McNett on guitar and Hillous Butrum on bass.

The fourteen tracks mix gospel songs such as “Where the Soul of Man Never Dies,” “I’ll Have a New Body” and Williams’s own “When God Comes and Gathers His Jewels” with “Lovesick Blues,” “Lost Highway,” “Wedding Bells” and the fiddle tunes “Joe Clark” and “Bill Cheatam.” “The Blues Come Around” is his 78 rpm studio recording, not a radio performance. Eight complete Health & Happiness programmes were issued on two CDs in 1993, and those releases have since replaced this LP.

Tracklist

  1. 1 Introduction (2019 - Remaster) 1:08
  2. 2 Where The Old Red River Flows (Acetate Version 206) (2019 - Remaster) 4:23
  3. 3 How Can You Refuse Him (2019 - Remaster) 1:49
  4. 4 Alabama Waltz (2019 - Remaster) 4:12
  5. 5 Lord Build Me A Cabin (2019 - Remaster) 3:10
  6. 6 Nobody's Lonesome For Me (Acetate Version 1) (2019 - Remaster) 2:52
  7. 7 Gathering Flowers For The Master's Bouquet (Acetate Version 1) (2019 - Remaster) 2:55
  8. 8 The Blind Child's Prayer (2019 - Remaster) 3:43
  9. 9 When God Dips His Love In My Heart (Acetate Version 1) (2019 - Remaster) 3:06
  10. 10 A Mansion On The Hill (2019 - Remaster) 3:15
  11. 11 Nobody's Lonesome For Me (Acetate Version 2) (2019 - Remaster) 2:59
  12. 12 I'll Have A New Life (Acetate Version 2) (2019 - Remaster) 2:40
  13. 13 Everything's Okay (2019 - Remaster) 3:41
  14. 14 Mother's Best Theme (2019 - Remaster) 0:27
  15. 15 I Heard My Mother Praying For Me (Acetate Version 4) (2019 - Remaster) 2:28
  16. 16 Move It On Over (Acetate Version 3) (2019 - Remaster) 3:26
  17. 17 I Saw The Light (Acetate Version 3) (2019 - Remaster) 2:16
  18. 18 Seaman's Blues (2019 - Remaster) 3:27
  19. 19 Something Got Hold On Me (2019 - Remaster) 2:46
  20. 20 Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain (2019 - Remaster) 3:38
  21. 21 I've Just Told Mama Goodbye (2019 - Remaster) 3:32
  22. 22 May You Never Be Alone (Acetate Version 5) (2019 - Remaster) 3:13
  23. 23 Dear Brother (Acetate Version 5) (2019 - Remaster) 2:12
  24. 24 They'll Never Take Her Love From Me (2019 - Remaster) 3:03
  25. 25 Wait For The Light To Shine (Acetate Version 5) (2019 - Remaster) 2:12
  26. 26 Pins and Needles (In My Heart) (2019 - Remaster) 3:12
  27. 27 Heard My Mother Praying For Me (2019 - Remaster) 2:56
  28. 28 Cool Water (2019 - Remaster) 4:56
  29. 29 Lonely Tombs (Oh Those Tombs) (Acetate Version 7) (2019 - Remaster) 2:20
  30. 30 I Just Don't Like This Kind of Living (2019 - Remaster) 3:16
  31. 31 Jesus Remembered Me (2019 - Remaster) 2:43
  32. 32 On The Banks Of The Ponchatrain (2019 - Remaster) 3:58
  33. 33 Calling You (2019 - Remaster) 1:55
  34. 34 My Sweet Love Ain't Around (Acetate Version 8) (2019 - Remaster) 4:04
  35. 35 Where The Soul Never Dies (2019 - Remaster) 1:32
  36. 36 Mind Your Own Business (Acetate Version 9) (2019 - Remaster) 3:27
  37. 37 When God Dips His Love In My Heart (2019 - Remaster) 2:06
  38. 38 Cold Cold Heart (Acetate Version 10) (2019 - Remaster) 3:37
  39. 39 Sally Goodin (2019 - Remaster) 1:04
  40. 40 Dear John (Acetate Version 10) (2019 - Remaster) 2:48
  41. 41 Something Got Hold of Me (2019 - Remaster) 2:28
  42. 42 Move It On Over (Acetate Version 11) (2019 - Remaster) 3:08
  43. 43 I'll Have A New Life (Acetate Version 11) (2019 - Remaster) 2:12
  44. 44 Faded Love And Winter Roses (Acetate Version 10) (2019 - Remaster) 4:14
  45. 45 I Saw The Light (Acetate Version 11) (2019 - Remaster) 2:59
  46. 46 At The First Fall Of Snow (2019 - Remaster) 4:16
  47. 47 When God Dips His Love In My Heart (Acetate Version 11) (2019 - Remaster) 2:10
  48. 48 Wedding Bells (2019 - Remaster) 4:13
  49. 49 Where the Soul of Man Never Dies alt version 2:09
  50. 50 Why Don't You Love Me? (2019 - Remaster) 3:06

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