Hank Williams III

They say the best and worst attributes skip a generation. In the case of Hank Williams III, he
inherited all the bad stuff - the dog-eared defeatedness, scrappy-sad looks and anti-social
attitude - that made his grandfather so damn good. The twenty-six-year-old's debut album is
a collection of tough honky-tonk numbers with vintage nuthin'-to-lose themes - cocaine,
guns, murder, "datin' the devil's daughter" and fine motels "with TVs and radios" -... More >

Unlike so many musical scions, he's got the equipment--songs he wrote, songs he didn't write, lonesome whine, pissed-off groove, rebel drawl, rebel attitude. But except when it comes to devil's daughters, he lacks the power to convince anyone that he's reinventing rather than reclaiming--that this is expression as well as art. "I plan on livin' long," he boasts, and that's something to brag about. But sometimes there's a cost. (Grade: B+)