After quite enjoying this collaboration between Hank Williams lyrics never put to music and found in a notebook and some of the top songwriters around, putting the words to music and singing them, it has worn off me fast.
I realized almost immediately that the lyrics were in need of polish, that they wouldn't have made it to the recording studio in this state. Look at it this way: the best of them isn't as sharp as the worst of his recorded stuff. "The last time I saw you your hair was red, but the last time I saw you black was on your head", Jack White sings. This line is so clumsy it would never ever have made the cut.
Also? While I do appreciate White's success at writing both similar to and unlike Williams, still the guitar break was a terrible idea, pushing the song near the 4 minute mark. Williams didn't perform four minute songs.
Dylan does well on probably the best song on the album "Love has Faded" maybe because he fucks with the meter and turns it into a waltz. Same can't be said about Dylan's son or Williams daughter.
None of them are just unbearable but none of them are so great. "The Sermon On The Mount", a spiritual so prosaic you can't hear it at all, Sheryl is a drag, So is Norah and Lucinda. Actually, the women don't do well at all. And whoever thought of speaking some of "I Hope You Shed A Million Tears" (yet another "I'm So Lonesome" rip) shouldn't. Plus a couplet like "I gave my very soul to you and you threw it in my face" would have never made the final cut.
Again, it isn't terrible. It just doesn't quite work.
Grade: B