For everything Grandpa Williams has done to win III favor in my books, Junior has done something to repulse me. Outlaw Schmoutlaw, either sing it or don't. Junior is such an arrogant mess I never gave III much truck
III came out of punk drumming and heavy weed intoxication to find himself in front of a judge who told him to get a real job so he can pay alimony and child support.
III signed to the scum of the earth over Curb Records who did their level best to fuck up III's career, begriming with an horrendous The Three Hanks cut and paste which managed to to do the undoable: embarrass a Williams.
Over a decade later, III has fulfilled his contract with Curb who have gone to the well of outtakes for an eigth time on a six album deal, and culled odds and sods from the outtakes off his first two albums.
And it kicks hard.
Three songs refer almost directly to Grandpa, a couple of country classics are given more than good work outs and, yes, III actually yodels. With his Rebel Outlaw, real country image and with his attempts to shake himself free of the tethers of his legacy, the man is a natural in ways his father isn't.III sounds like Grandpa with a cold, a touch too nasal to be major major yet, his feel for country is part of his DNA. The twang on "Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down" is so exactly right, you can ignore the generic backing band.
Actually, you need to ignore the backing on most of this. It is an everyman Karaoke sound. But it doesn't even matter… there is nothing to add or take away from his duet with songwriter Joey Allcorn. It looks backwards and forwards, "…and I ain't Hank Williams, no how". I don't know if it is the same band as the earlier band, but they sound much better here.
So if you include the title track, that makes three undeniable tracks before you've blinked your eye.
But there is more: not just "Cold Hearted Woman" but also "Wreck On The Old 97" and "The Wind Blew Cold" … perhaps the band was warming up, but whatever, for a rip off, I sure don't feel ripped off. And if his daddy wasn't such an ass maybe I would have noticed sooner.
Grade: B+