Bob Dylan has set his favourite musicians loose on a pile of Hank Williams's lost lyrics
Sean Michaels
Tuesday February 26, 2008
guardian.co.uk
Bob Dylan is spearheading a project to record a series of incomplete songs by the late, great Hank Williams. "He came upon, somehow, 20-25 unfinished songs by Hank Williams: just the lyrics, no music," the White Stripes' Jack White told MTV News. Dylan has enlisted the help of various contemporary roots musicians, including White, to write and perform music - taking these lost songs and making them found.
"I think it might come out this year," White said. "It's a cool record."
Jack White recorded a song called You Know That I Know at the Blackbird Studios in Nashville. Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams and Alan Jackson have also been invited by Dylan.
It's an initiative that recalls the Mermaid Avenue albums by Billy Bragg and Wilco. On those records, Bragg and Wilco "finished" songs that had been left uncompleted by Woody Guthrie.
According to some reports, these Woody Guthrie lyric sheets were originally going to be given to Bob Dylan. Woody's daughter, Nora, changed her mind after hearing that Dylan had appeared at a concert for the Pope - an act she deemed contrary to her father's politics. Bragg was approached instead.
The Pope is clearly not a pressing concern for the Hank Williams estate.
http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/sto...ticle_continue 
but I can never decide if it's the height of 
to try doing a 'bring it to completion" thing with the unfinished works of other departed artists -- or whether it's actually just the height of fucking presumption.
Linear Mode
