Hasil Adkins Albums (8)
'Drinkin My Life Away'
Release Date 9/26/1999
Tracks 13
Label Shake It Records
See Album Tracklist and Review
'What the Hell Was I Thinking?'
Release Date 2/24/1998
Tracks 10
Label Fat Possum
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What The Critics Say
Legend has it that, upon hearing Hank Williams for the first time (while still a child), Hasil Adkins thought the country legend was playing all the instruments himself. It's precisely this miscalculation that convinced Adkins to try such a thing on his own. Since his debut in the 1950s, he has performed mostly as a one-man band, but unfortunately (as this album attests) the sheer novelty of the approach cannot always support the music -- not for any great length of time anyway. What the Hell Was I Thinking? begins fine enough with the losers-always-win sentiments of "Your Memories," and a great first line: "Your memories, they come to see me/'cause they love me/your memories." Adkins' backing (guitar almost in tune, drummer nodding off) has more in common with the bare-bones indie-rock of Beat Happening or the loosest recordings of early Palace than the tradition that produced him. Strumming fractured guitar chords while keeping the beat with some extra appendage on a kick drum/tambourine combo, the singer delivers a series of decimated blues, country, and rockabilly tunes. In a rare moment of lucidity, he steps out of his own crazed juke-joint and into the night to sing the pining "Beautiful Hills." Surprisingly touching, Adkins sounds like another man entirely: the song has the haunting intimacy of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. More often however, you are begged to question Adkins' sincerity; so willfully wild is his delivery. His contemporaries (primal country and rockabilly singers like Jerry Lee Lewis and Charlie Feathers), while undeniably electrified and nearly unhinged, were ultimately balanced with an equal amount of restraint. The resulting tension is what drove their music and gave it power. With Adkins, you can hear a conscious attempt to avoid constraint. The result is music at the edge of sanity: potent, but only in very small doses. ~ Nathan Bush, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Hasil Adkins brings his one-man band approach out of the studio and onto the stage for Live in Chicago, a raucous concert performance from the Windy City. This is probably the closest the singer will ever come to a rapturous audience. Though, based on the chatter, a relatively small number were in attendance that night, they receive Adkins like a crazed hero, punctuating his songs with spirited shouts and hollers throughout. With the exception of their presence and the singer's between song banter however, little has changed. Songs still spring from Adkins' mouth as if they just popped into his head, then disintegrate as if he's forgotten the rest, failed to write a conclusion in the first place, or just remembered something he had to tell the audience. Most of the show is devoted to the unruly takes on rock, country, and rockabilly that are the Adkins' trademarks: each song sounding increasingly like the last. Thankfully he paces this material with a handful of appropriate covers (Chuck Berry's "Maybellene," Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry") and even a few tender ballads. The latter are always a surprise and are all the more affecting as reprieves from Adkins' wild man persona. Such moments, as always, are few and far between. Though none of Adkins' albums are going to be user-friendly, Live in Chicago catches the singer a little too close to the brink. ~ Nathan Bush, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After exposing the world to the special magic of Hasil Adkins with the epochal 1986 compilation Out to Hunch, which gathered the best of ten years of Cheeze-Whiz-encrusted home recordings on to one LP, the masterminds at Norton Records subjected Hasil to the rigors of modern recording equipment for the first time in 1986, during the sessions that spawned the album The Wild Man. Like on his previous recordings, The Wild Man featured Hasil singing, playing the guitar, and stomping out the beat on the drums all at once, though Miriam Linna from the A-Bones contributes some manic percussion on "Chicken Flop" and her bandmates join in on three other tracks. Thankfully, though, the presence of occasional musical assistance and an actual recording engineer did nothing to hold Adkins back, and if these cuts aren't quite as memorable as the stuff on Out to Hunch (there isn't a track here quite as amazing as the masterful "She Said"), Adkins had mellowed very, very little with the passage of time, and "Big Red Satellite," "Wild Wild Friday Night," "Punchy Wunchy Wickey Wackey Woo" and the title cut are as frantic as you could hope for. And if anything, the presence of a few slower, country-influenced numbers like "Still Missing You" and Merle Haggard's "Turning Off a Memory" only add to the depth of Hasil's deep-fried Southern eccentricity, suggesting there is a heart and soul behind this foothills fireball obsessed with meat, peanut butter and "the Hunch." Strange, mesmerizing, and utterly essential. Norton's 2005 CD reissue of The Wild Man tacks on five bonus tracks and a remarkable liner essay from Billy Miller, who discusses his adventures as Hasil's manager, tourmate and provider of lodging. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The West Virginia wildman shows the other side of his talent, tackling a batch of early country standards and quirky originals in his usual one-man-band style. As far removed from modern country as you can get, Adkins originals like "Gonna Have Me a Yard Sale," "Song of Death," "Of Course Not," "Leaves of Autumn," and "Tomorrow I'll Still Be Loving You" sit alongside Bill Monroe's "I Hear a Sweet Voice Calling," Hank Williams' "You Win Again," and Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone" for a roughcut set that's rife with high and lonesome charm. ~ Cub Koda, All Music Guide
'Look at That Caveman Go!!'
Release Date 1/1/1993
Tracks 17
Label Norton
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'Peanut Butter Rock and Roll'
Release Date 1/1/1990
Tracks 20
Label Norton
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Hasil Adkins albums fall into two distinct groups; since his rediscovery in the 1980s, he has recorded an avalanche of new material, some successful (The Wild Man), some not (the disastrous and chaotic Live in Chicago). By far the best are the ones that have been assembled from the homemade recordings Hasil cut in his West Virginia tar-paper shack home between 1956 to 1963, referred to as "Haze's Golden Decade" by true believers. This one falls into the latter category, plumbing more wild-man treasures from the plentiful Hasil Adkins private stash of well-worn tapes, acetates, and cardboard records. Starting off with a typically loose but driving version of "Blue Suede Shoes" that bears virtually no resemblance to the original version by Carl Perkins (or anybody else's for that matter), these 18 tracks are some of Hasil's rockin' best. Fans of the Haze's oddball versions of other folks' tunes will revel in the versions here of Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock" and Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song." Everything else is bona fide original Hasil, with the wild and woolly "The Slop," "Chicken Twist," the rare (for Adkins) instrumental title cut, the classic "Walk and Talk with Me" (featuring a "Witch Doctor"-style hook full of nonsense syllables that only enhances his lunatic image), and the demonic mantra of "Come on Along" -- featuring two of Hasil's girlfriends yelping the title out of tune as the song repeatedly changes key -- are the certified "these you have to hear" highlights. Of the numerous Hasil Adkins albums on the market, this is one of the best. ~ Cub Koda, All Music Guide
