As the grandson of country's founding father, Hank Williams III - currently billing himself as Hank 3 - is a direct heir to the music's roots. But rather than fall back on his lineage, Williams offers himself as a musical mongrel, continuing some traditions and establishing a few of his own.
The supreme statement of Williams' divergent desires arrived last fall, when at the end of an oft-acrimonious relationship with Nashville's Curb Records, he simultaneously self-released three albums: Gutter Town/Ghost to Ghost, a double-CD of high-octane country rock; Attention Deficit Domination, a collection of death-metal dirges; and Cattle Callin, credited to 3 Bar Ranch, which marries distorted guitar riffs to the warp-speed patter of cattle auctioneers.
