A much-treasured, career-spanning, ten-disc Mercury box set released a decade ago was called The Complete Hank Williams, but it was no secret to anyone familiar with Hank’s biography that “Nearly Complete” would have been a more accurate, if less compelling, title. Recordings from the Mother’s Best Flour Show, an important, unique set of radio shows featuring Hank and his band, were missing from the set – and not because there were no listenable transcriptions. There were bootlegged copies of some of the shows circulating for years, captivating those who had heard them. The fragile multi-episode acetates that had survived and later were backed up on tape had been in legal limbo as to ownership.

That’s been settled (the show recordings are the property of the Williams family), and we now have this new, remarkable three-disc set, culled from Mother’s Best shows that were produced in bunches and broadcast from Nashville on WSM, the powerhouse Opry station, mornings in late 1950 and early ‘51. There is no question that these recordings will enlarge your perception and appreciation of Hank Williams’ capabilities and range, no matter how much of his music you’ve heard, or how you’ve understood who he was.

There is a startling immediacy to these performances – and to Hank’s own vocals in particular – unlike any of the known “live” recordings (The Health & Happiness Shows disc, for example). You hear him introduce his new and then-unheard “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still In Love With You”, and it has all of the electricity of words and emotions that have just occurred to the singer. Colin Escott, author of the most detailed and revealing Hank biography and the producer of this set and the Complete box, too, contends that the sound quality on most of the 54 cuts here is better than on any of Williams’ studio records – and it’s certainly true that you hear the vibrato on the bottom end of his voice as never before. They also show Hank taking his time, hanging on the notes that matter most vocally, pushing the emotional stakes up a notch, and leaving more room for his Drifting Cowboys, with Don Helms on his celebrated steel, than elsewhere.

We don’t learn much new about Williams as a songwriter here. Other than occasional performances of recently written originals, the shows largely consisted of covers Hank wanted to sing; classic choices you’ll find here include “Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain”, “Cherokee Boogie” and “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You”. The show also included instrumentals and some guest vocals, though neither of those are included on this set.

The Mother’s Best shows also featured a surprising variety of hymns, since there was at least one in every early-morning broadcast. A lesser-known Hank-penned uptempo jubilee number, “I’m Gonna Sing”, is a highlight – but so is his surprising three-part harmony singing with Drifting Cowboys Jerry Rivers and Cedric Rainwater on the likes of “I Hear My Savior Calling Me”. Those expecting all lonesome barroom ballads and joking marital complaints should know that there’s a lot of the gospel side of Hank on these discs. He shows a particular appreciation for songs by his Louisiana Hayride and Opry buddies the Bailes Brothers – “Dust On The Bible” and “I’ve Got My One-Way Ticket To The Sky”, for instance. The Bailes’ influence on Hank may have been as potent as that of Roy Acuff and Ernest Tubb.

For all of the solemn spirituality, there’s plenty of joking, in any case. The producers have made what I take to be a wise decision in the name of accessibility in cutting right to the songs sung by Hank, for the most part – but we still hear Williams inform his female audience, “Hey good lookin’, if you’ve got anything cookin’, just make sure you’re cookin’ it with Mother’s Best Flour.” This is a Hank very much in the world of his moment; he mentions the current pop hit version of “On Top Of Old Smoky” (it was by the Weavers) before launching into a great hard country version himself as an answer.

Completists may complain that the chosen format for this set wasn’t entire show after entire show, though the intros and such would have gotten repetitious and lessened the likelihood of repeated listening to these great cuts. (A special edition sold by Reader’s Digest adds a fourth disc with several complete broadcasts.) Those who insist on seeing Hank Williams solely as the “dark” suffering Saint Sebastian of honky-tonk and some sort of victim of the music business are not going to find very much of that romanticized guy in The Unreleased Recordings. But everyone who hears this long-awaited set will find an artist with great emotional and sonic variety, and with even more stunning and nuanced performing skills than we already knew he had.