Essential Honky Tonk

By the 1920s honky tonks were almost exclusively associated with the shadier bars of the Deep South of the USA, and the music to be found inside was now 'country and western'. Sometimes these bars were little more than a clapboard shack with a jug of moonshine whiskey and a fiddle player but inevitably, the biggest stars in country music all got their start in places like there: Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline even the great Hank Williams. This 2-CD-set draws inspiration from those bars, with their air of booze, regret and general heartache (and occasionally, euphoria in the arms of someone new). It's also an excellent collection of stellar material from some of country and western's greatest stars.