The ‘Hillbilly Shakespeare’ Gets His Due : ‘Hank Williams--The Original Singles Collection Plus’ is an essential musical portrait of one of giants of American pop music.

If 1990 was the year of rediscovery in rock of Robert Johnson, this might be the year of reintroduction to Hank Williams.

A Columbia album featuring the complete recordings of Johnson--the Mississippi blues man who died in 1938 at the age of 26--became an unexpected bestseller last year and caused such a stir among pop critics that Johnson ended up being the cover story in this month’s Musician magazine.

The Musician cover proclaims Johnson the father of rock ‘n’ roll and features a drawing of the legendary singer and guitarist surrounded by such admirers as Eric Clapton, Vernon Reid and Keith Richards.

Now, PolyGram has released a retrospective of Hank Williams that is worthy of equal attention.

The album, titled “The Original Singles Collection Plus,” features 84 recordings, including both sides of every single that Williams released for MGM Records plus some earlier singles on Sterling Records and some previously unreleased material

It’s an essential musical portrait of one of giants of American pop music. Where Johnson dealt in the blues, Williams--though influenced by gospel music and the blues--operated in the commercial world of honky-tonk styled country music.

But both artists have been saluted by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as “forefathers”--along with such other pre-rock influences as Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and T-Bone Walker.

Ironically, Williams is probably better known to today’s contemporary pop audience than Johnson because of Williams’ role as the most important figure in post-World War II country music--though his role in the development of rock may be less understood.

Here’s one of the easiest ways to picture Williams’ influence: If Musician magazine put a drawing of him on the cover, it would be entirely reasonable to surround him with such rock artists as Bob Dylan, John Fogerty, Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Lee Lewis, Don Henley, John Cougar Mellencamp, Van Morrison and Elvis Costello.

There was a simplicity and an unfiltered passion in his best songs--and, sometimes overlooked, his vocals--that reflected life’s deepest fears and desires with as soulful purity that has rarely been matched.

“Cold, Cold Heart,” one of several Williams songs--including “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “Half as Much”-- that was a huge pop hit in the early ‘50s after being re-recorded by pop artists, is typical of the intensity of feeling in Williams’ material. Sample lines from the song that was a hit for Tony Bennett:

I tried so hard my dear to show

That you’re my every dream

Yet you’re afraid each thing I do

Is just some evil scheme

A memory from your lonesome past

Keeps us so far apart

Why can’t I free your doubtful mind

And melt your cold cold heart.

But “I’m So Lonesome I Can Cry” perhaps best explains why Williams was dubbed the “hillbilly Shakespeare.” Sample lines:

Ever see a robin weep

When leaves begin to die?

That means he’s lost the will to live

I’m so lonesome I could cry.

A tragic figure who died of a heart attack at age 29 in the back seat of a limousine en route to a New Year’s Day concert in Canton, Ohio, Williams was born in 1923 on a tenant farm in Mt. Olive, Ala.

His father “drifted away from home” and Hank was raised by his mother in nearby Montgomery, according to the liner notes in the illustrated booklet that is included in the three-CD PolyGram box set (also on cassette). He shined shoes and sold peanuts as a youngster to help support his mother and sister, it has been reported elsewhere.

Williams--father of country star Hank Williams Jr.--sang in the church choir and fell in love with music. He was featured on radio broadcasts by the time he was 13 and often picked up some change by passing the hat after entertaining at honky tonks, schoolhouses and medicine shows.

One of the treats of the PolyGram set is a demo recording Williams made in 1942 of a song called “I’m Not Coming Home Anymore.”

Though he wouldn’t have a country hit until he signed with MGM Records and released “Move It on Over” five years later, the demo shows--as Colin Escott observes in his liner notes--that the main characteristics of the “Williams sound” were in place by the time of that record. Williams was just 19.

Despite the success of “Move It on Over,” Williams--whose life was complicated by a stormy marriage and alcoholism--didn’t really begin electrifying country audiences until he recorded “Lovesick Blues,” which, strangely, was a 1922 show tune.

But the record--highlighted by a masterfully affecting, yodel-accented vocal--spent a staggering 16 weeks at No. 1 on the country charts. He followed it with almost three dozen more Top 10 country hits, mostly his own songs.

Though the skinny singer was adored by audiences, the personal problems--including a chronic back problem that resulted in a dependence on painkillers--caused him to frequently miss shows.

Four months before his death, Williams was apparently so undependable that he was fired by the Grand Ole Opry, country music’s most celebrated forum at the time. Escott writes that Williams’ life was almost a “blur.”

In yet another irony, the title of the last single released by MGM during Williams’ life was “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.” It, too, went to No. 1.

POP DATE BOOK

Sting has scheduled five shows at the Wiltern Theatre, Feb. 4 through 8. Tickets go on sale Monday. . . . On sale Sunday are four Jane’s Addiction shows at the Universal Amphitheatre, Jan. 31 through Feb. 4. . . . Bad Religion will be at the Hollywood Palladium on Feb. 1. Tickets for the band’s canceled North Hollywood Theatre and Whisky shows last weekend will be honored. . . . Chris Isaak will be at the Strand on Jan. 12. . . . Exene Cervenka will be at Club Lingerie on Jan. 19.