Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Men With Broken Hearts

Zoomer Roberts: recitation
Buddy Winston: guitar

I wanted to include a "Luke the Drifter" recitation in the 2003 Hank Williams tribute show. There are more than a dozen such items to choose from, and I was pretty sure that none of the other participants in the program would be doing one. Recitations are easy to do badly, and difficult to do well enough to not elicit derisive jeers. They tend to be preachy -- and depressing -- but I love them. "Men With Broken Hearts" is a masterpiece of the genre, and its message is as relevant now as it was when Hank recorded it in 1950.