Rare Hank Williams 45 singles: out-of-print demos released on MGM in the 1950s

$

35

HANK WILLIAMS DEMOS

seven MGM 45 singles

released in the mid-1950s

1. Please Don't Let Me Love You (Jones)

2. Faded Love And Winter Roses  (Rose)

MGM 11928

3. A Teardrop On A Rose  (Williams)

4. Alone And Forsaken  (Williams)

MGM 12029

5. Someday You'll Call My Name

(Jean Branch-Eddie Hill)

6. The First Fall Of Snow  (Lorene Rose)

MGM 12077

7. I Wish I Had A Nickel (Sutton-Barnhart)

8. There's No Room In My Heart

For The Blues  (Rose-Turner)  

MGM 12244

9. Blue Love (In My Heart)  (Floyd Jenkins)

10. Singing Waterfall  (Williams)

MGM 12332

11. Leave Me Alone With The Blues (Pope)

12. With Tears In My Eyes  (Paul Howard)

MGM 12484

13. No One Will Ever Know  (Rose-Foree)

14. The Waltz Of The Wind  (Rose)

MGM 12535

Hank Williams died in early 1953, and bits and pieces of his work kept coming out for years. These demos were made for his 

publisher, Acuff-Rose; only three of the songs are Hank's, and all these tracks are accompanied just by his guitar, except for no. 3, 

which sounds like the oldest cut of all, overdubbed later with a backing group. 

      Billboard's country charts began in 1944, called 'Folk' or 'Hillbilly' until 1949. Wesley Tuttle had a hit with no. 12 in 1945, 

Roy Acuff with no. 14 in 1948, George Morgan with no. 1 in '49, and Jimmy Wakely with no. 5 and no. 7 the same year, a two-sided hit.

      We have no recording dates for any of these. The composer credits come mostly from the labels on the 45s. Rose was Fred Rose, 

Hank's producer and publisher, but was sometimes Loreen, Fred's wife, also a songwriter. Floyd Jenkins was one of Fred's pseudonyms. 

      24 of Hank's demos were issued by the Country Music Foundation in 1990, but included only one of these. 'The Orginal Singles 

Collection…Plus' compiled 84 tracks on Polygram, also in 1990, including most of Hank's hits, but only five of these. 

      'Please Don't Let Me Love You' was a top ten hit for Hank's ghost in 1955, and the Polygram set didn't include it. Go figure. 

But imagine a top ten Billboard hit today by just one guy with an acoustic guitar! The records are as good as new -- 

that is, as good as the pressings were over 60 years ago.