Personnel includes: Hank Williams III (vocals, acoustic guitar); Johnny Highland, Billy F. Gibbons (electric guitar); Kayton Roberts (steel guitar); Chris Scruggs (baritone guitar, mandolin); Randy Kohrs (dobro, background vocals); Michael McCanless, Chris Carmichael (fiddle); Patrick Weickenand (harmonica); Jason Brown (bass); Shawn McWilliams (drums).

Producers: Hank Williams III, Joe Funderburk.

Engineers: Joe Funderburk, Thx Tony, Jim Lightman.

Personnel: Billy Gibbons (electric guitar); Kayton Roberts (steel guitar); Randy Kohrs (dobro); Michael McCanless, Chris Carmichael (fiddle); Shaun McWilliams (drums).

Recording information: New Reflections.

Unknown Contributor Role: D.D.

Hank Williams III has repeatedly made it clear that he was unsatisfied with his debut album, 1999's Risin Outlaw. So this time around he took matters into his own hands, producing Lovesick, Broke & Driftin' himself and recording and mixing the release in a truncated span of two weeks. This appears to have been a good decision for the DNA marvel known as Hank Williams III, for the album is a much less-forced, more organic effort than his debut. This time around he relies primarily on his own songwriting chops -- with the exception of a questionable version of Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City," which trades the stark power of the original for bouncy honky tonk -- and not on contributions from folks such as Wayne Hancock. The effort revels in the paradox of being a Hank Williams; "Calling Your Name" finds him reaching out to the Lord, while "Mississippi Mud" and "Nighttime Ramblin' Man" are fiercely unrepentant, glorying in the allure of long drinking bouts and pot smoking. (The latter being Hank Williams III's updated spin on the Williams mythology of debauchery.) The title track is the kind of downtrodden, whiskey-soaked number for which his grandpa was known, while "Lovin' and Huggin'" is more in line with the good-time party anthems his dad has ridden to success. The biggest surprise here, however, is going to be the emotional range of the album; Lovesick, Broke & Driftin' makes it clear that Hank Williams III is not content to sit back and trade on legacy. He has emerged as a songwriter to be taken dead seriously. ~ Erik Hage

Rather than hide from his musical legacy, the grandson of Hank Williams spends most of his second album wholeheartedly embracing grandpa's formidable work. While all the songs on LOVESICK, BROKE & DRIFTIN' are self-penned, Hank III and producer Joe Funderburk go out of their way to painstakingly emulate the sound of vintage Hank Williams recordings; instrumentation, arrangements, recording equipment, the whole nine yards. Naturally, there's no way the young Hank can approach his grandfather's songwriting mastery (neither can anyone else, and he'd be a fool to try), but the voice is eerily similar to that of the country icon, and Hank III knows just how to employ it for maximum chill factor. Here and there, Williams's rock & roll roots peek out just a bit, but for the most part, this is a sincere musical love letter to the original honky-tonk style and it's foremost practitioner.

Rolling Stone (2/14/02, p.65) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Finds the youngest Hank moving even further into Grandpa's shadows, with a raw, acoustic sound..."

Entertainment Weekly (2/01/02, p.106) - "Screw-ups and down-and-outers guzzle their poisons and bemoan their prisons all over [this CD]...Hank III's authentic all right; his hard living shows in his hangover twang and his band of whiskey-twisted traditionalists..." - Rating: B

Q (1/02, p.108) - 3 out of 5 stars - "...yodel[s] and howl[s] at the moon without a trace of irony....slapped bass and yearning steel guitar..."