Jett Williams, on Hank Williams’s lost recordings

In 1951, at the pinnacle of his career, legendary country singer Hank Williams recorded several hours of music with the Mother’s Best Flour Show at radio station WSM, housed in the Grand Ole Opry.

Thinking the shows would only reach a small, mostly rural audience, Hank was unguarded in both his conversation and choice of songs ? which included some that he’d never performed elsewhere.

One might presume that the recordings would have been painstakingly archived and preserved. But when WSM cleaned house in the late 1970s, the Hank Williams Mother’s Best recordings were actually put out with the trash. Fortunately, they were rescued by the Opry’s photographer and handed over to Hank’s daughter, Jett Williams.

Jett Williams talks with us about her father’s collection of lost Mother’s Best recordings, which are now available in a 16-Disc Collectors Box Set.