Bob Dylan and Jack White record lost Hank Williams songs

Bob Dylan and Jack White are among the notable names that have been tapped to take part in The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams, a collection of previously unrecorded songs by the country legend, set to be released October 4th on Dylan's Egyptian Records imprint. 

Designed originally by A&R exec Mary Martin as a Dylan-centric endeavor, the project eventually expanded to include the likes of White, Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams, Sheryl Crow,  and drummer for the Band/all-around American badass Levon Helm.

The songs selected for the album were discovered in notebooks found in a leather briefcase owned by Williams following the singer's death in 1953 at the age of twenty-nine. The notebooks detailed lyrics and song ideas that were picked up on and finished by the artists participating in the project. The full story of the "lost notebooks" will be told in the album's liner notes, which were written by Michael McCall of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. 

The story behind the album sounds strikingly similar to that of Mermaid Avenue, a great Wilco/Billy Bragg collaboration that featured the two artists performing lost Woody Guthrie songs — legend has it that Guthrie's estate originally wanted Bob Dylan for that album. Either way, it's gonna be great — hell, I listened to Bob Dylan sing Christmas songs, I'll definitely listen to him sing lost Hank Williams tracks. Now, where's my whiskey?