Search - Hank Thompson :: Dance Ranch / Songs for Rounders

If they're in print at all, recordings from honky-tonk's golden age have usually been presented as patchworks of greatest hits while original albums get consigned to oblivion. That trend has been reversed: witness these two platters from Hank Thompson's prime Capitol years. Dance Ranch, recorded in September 1957, features a lively (albeit Merle Travis-less) band, distinguished by Western swing fiddler Harold Hensley, takeoff guitarist Joe Maphis, and underappreciated steel-guitar savant Bobbie White. Stellar cuts include the 1940s classic "Drivin' Nails in My Coffin," the regretful weeper "Headin' Down the Wrong Highway," and four big-band-inspired instrumentals, all bubbling with spontaneity. Songs for Rounders, on the other hand, lingers in the seediest honky-tonk corners, a remorseless document of lying, killing, drinking, gambling, and all manner of ramblin' round. This 1959 album presents Thompson at his bluesiest--riveting yet still playful. With his affable, precisely tuned baritone, he lends "Drunkard's Blues" (a reworking of "St. James Infirmary") a dry gallows humor and turns traditionals like "Rovin' Gambler" and "Deep Elm" into wry jaunts. Both albums are welcome and essential--they rarely repeat material from available compilations--and together they neatly capture Thompson's dual personality: the spirited Western swinger and the masterful honky-tonk showman. --Roy Kasten