Post: #1

http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertai.../81272486/

Quote:Merle Haggard 1937-2016

Merle Haggard, the working man’s poet, an architect of the Bakersfield Sound, and an artist who influenced country music like few others, died Wednesday in California. He had just turned 79 years old, and had been in failing health for some time, leading to the cancellation of several concert dates, including two nights at the Ryman Auditorium that were originally scheduled for March.

Over the course of his half-century career, Mr. Haggard recorded 40 No. 1 country singles, and wrote some of the genre’s most revered classics, which have been recorded by Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, The Byrds, Vince Gill, The Grateful Dead, and countless others.

Mr. Haggard’s life, which took him from a San Quentin prison cell to the Country Music Hall of Fame, was a truly American success story. “In some ways, his life sounds like fiction, but if it were fiction, no one would believe it,” said Harris on the night of his Hall of Fame induction.

Born to Oklahoma migrants James and Flossie Haggard on Apr. 6, 1937 in Bakersfield, California, Merle Ronald Haggard was the youngest of three children. The Haggard family lived in a converted railroad car in Oildale, Cali., and while they were poor, they weren’t destitute like many of the Okies who went west.

After his father died of a stroke in 1946, Merle started getting into trouble. At the age of 10, he hopped his first train with a friend, and made it to Fresno before he got caught. The rebellious young man spent time in juvenile facilities and reform schools over the next several years, but he also fell in love with music, and began learning to play guitar. He was captivated by country artists like Lefty Frizzell, Western Swing pioneer Bob Wills, and “America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band”: The Maddox Brothers and Rose.

When Mr. Haggard was 21, he was sent to San Quentin State Prison following a burglary attempt. While imprisoned, he saw country star Johnny Cash perform for the inmates, played in the prison band, and worked in the San Quentin textile mill. Upon his 1960 release, Mr. Haggard—who was by then married to his first wife, Leona Hobbs, with whom he’d have four children—was determined to turn his life around.

Mr. Haggard’s days were filled with labor—ditch digging and electrical work—but his nights belonged to music. He got involved in the Bakersfield country music scene alongside up-and-coming artists like Buck Owens and Wynn Stewart. Two thousand miles away in Music City, the Nashville Sound was full of lush string arrangements, but the sounds coming out of Bakersfield were harder, twangier and absolutely irresistible. After a short stint playing bass for Owens, Mr. Haggard joined Stewart’s band.

In 1962, he released his debut single, “Skid Row.” His second single, “Sing Me a Sad Song,” was written by Stewart. It became Mr. Haggard’s first Top 20 hit for Tally Records, a small label co-founded by Fuzzy Owen, who’d spend several decades as Mr. Haggard’s manager.

While working the bar and club circuit, Mr. Haggard recorded “Just Between the Two of Us,” a duet with future wife Bonnie Owens, and “(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers,” which captured the attention of Capitol Records’ Ken Nelson, who signed him and Owens to the label.

When they met, Bonnie Owens was the bigger name, but Mr. Haggard’s fame soon eclipsed hers. They married in 1965 and she spent years helping to raise his children and singing backup for him as part of his band The Strangers. After they divorced, Owens continued to work with Mr. Haggard, and even served as a bridesmaid when he married Leona Williams in 1978.

From the mid-1960s through the ‘70s, Mr. Haggard released one top-notch song after another, a string of hits that are now an integral and beloved part of the country music canon. Many singles topped the charts, beginning in 1965 with his first No. 1 single, “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive.”

Other songs that weren’t released as singles, including “Today I Started Loving You Again” (perhaps the Haggard song most-covered by other artists) and “Irma Jackson,” about an interracial romance, display Mr. Haggard’s depth as an artist.

“I’m the first to admit the English language is not my specialty,” Mr. Haggard wrote in the preface to his 1999 autobiography “My House of Memories.” However, the plainspoken power of his lyrics touched countless listeners across generations.

In 1969, Mr. Haggard released a career-changing song, “Okie From Muskogee.” Co-written with Roy Edward Burns, it spent four weeks atop the country charts and crossed over to the pop charts as well. “Okie” was followed by another hard-nosed single, 1970’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me.”

1987’s “Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star” was Mr. Haggard’s last single to top the charts.

Throughout his career, Mr. Haggard wore his influences on his sleeve. He released tribute albums honoring two of his favorite artists, Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills, and his 1983 version of “That’s the Way Love Goes,” which was co-written by another artist he admired, Lefty Frizzell, spent 21 weeks on the charts and earned him a Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. Just as Mr. Haggard studied the works of his musical heroes, contemporary acts look to him: stars like George Strait and Miranda Lambert have cited him as influences, and Eric Church recorded a song called “Pledge Allegiance to the Hag.”

Mr. Haggard was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1994. During his induction speech, he unfurled a five-foot-long list of people he wanted to thank, beginning with, he deadpanned, his plumber. That year, Haggard’s single “In My Next Life,” peaked at No. 58 on the charts.

Though country radio didn’t seem to have much use for Mr. Haggard during the Hot New Country era of the 1990s, by the end of the decade, he was poised for a comeback. He began cranking out albums, including two for punk label Anti- in 2000 and 2001, a bluegrass record, “Kickin’ Out the Footlights…Again” with George Jones, and “Last of the Breed,” a double-disc album with Willie Nelson and Ray Price.

Mr. Haggard did experience a small setback in 2008 when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. After recovering from surgery in which a piece of his lung was removed, he resumed rambling, playing 100+ shows per year. Performing was where he felt most at home: In 1986, Mr. Haggard told Patrick Carr of “Country Music Magazine,” “Probably the happiest moments of my life have been on a stage…The stage is a refuge for me, and it always has been. Over the years, I’ve climbed inside my music when things went wrong. I still do that. My music is where I really live.”

In 2010, Mr. Haggard traveled to Washington, DC to receive the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors, which are given to those in the performing arts for their contributions to American culture.

His last solo album, “Working in Tennessee,” was released in 2011, and in 2015, he released two more collaborative albums: one with legendary country/bluegrass singer Mac Wiseman, and “Django and Jimmie,” with Willie Nelson. The latter featured the two legends meditating on their mortality with songs like “Live This Long” and “Missing Ol’ Johnny Cash,” but they still made room for humor with the record’s lead single, “It’s All Going to Pot.”

Mr. Haggard is survived by his wife, Theresa, whom he married in 1993, and his children: Dana, Marty, Kelli, Noel, Ben and Jenessa.

Funeral arrangements are not available at this time.

AWARDS AND HONORS

1970: Country Music Association names him Entertainer of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, “Okie From Muskogee” wins Single, Album of the Year honors

1977: inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame

1985: wins Best Country Vocal Performance, Male for “That’s The Way Love Goes”

1994: inducted into Country Music Hall of Fame

1999: “Mama Tried” enters Grammy Hall of Fame

2006: receives Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, named BMI Icon

2010: receives Kennedy Center Honors

Post: #2

That was Merle Haggard with "I just kissed my sweetie with my fist."

Post: #3

R.I.P. Merle was an American treasure, and in my opinion the greatest country music artist of all time. He also reminded me of my dad, who passed away last year. I knew this day was coming because he was struggling with pneumonia all year, but it's still a sad loss.

Post: #4

The guy was a baller. He had lung cancer at age 71, beat it, then went back out on the road playing 100+ dates/year. I hope I'm that active when I'm in my 70s. I've had in mind to live an active life well through my 60's and 70's, and be the "most interesting man in the world" type. Merle Haggard is a true inspiration. Even if I'm not famous, I want to follow that kind of example.

Post: #5

Even good ol' Johnny Cash had an influence on this legendary son of a bitch:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-histo...ate-prison

Quote:“Folsom Prison Blues” gave Johnny Cash his first top-10 country hit in 1956, and his live concert performance at Folsom—dramatized memorably in the film Walk The Line—gave his flagging career a critical jump-start in 1968. But the prison with which Johnny Cash was most closely associated wasn’t Folsom, it was San Quentin, a maximum-security penitentiary just outside of San Francisco. San Quentin is where Cash played his first-ever prison concert on January 1, 1958—a concert that helped set Merle Haggard, then a 20-year-old San Quentin inmate, on the path toward becoming a country music legend.

Post: #6

I had no idea we share the same birthday! Time throw on some Merle!

Post: #7

(04-06-2016 04:10 PM)kaotic Wrote:  Even good ol' Johnny Cash had an influence on this legendary son of a bitch:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-histo...ate-prison

Quote:“Folsom Prison Blues” gave Johnny Cash his first top-10 country hit in 1956, and his live concert performance at Folsom—dramatized memorably in the film Walk The Line—gave his flagging career a critical jump-start in 1968. But the prison with which Johnny Cash was most closely associated wasn’t Folsom, it was San Quentin, a maximum-security penitentiary just outside of San Francisco. San Quentin is where Cash played his first-ever prison concert on January 1, 1958—a concert that helped set Merle Haggard, then a 20-year-old San Quentin inmate, on the path toward becoming a country music legend.

Post: #8

Merle was neck-and-neck with Waylon in the "substances and women" race all through the late 60s, 70s, and early to mid 80s. While those are laudable traits in a forum of international players, Merle never wavered in his musical and lyrical representation of the White American working class (currently, the most maligned class in American society). Some of my more favorite Merle working class songs are as follows:









- I'm posting this last one because I'm from Bakersfield Okie stock and identify with the history of this song:




While his more widely known material is exemplary of "classic country," a lot of Merle's later stuff is relevant, maybe even prescient, to today's American society.

Here are some examples:

Post: #9

I was never a country fan, but even I can tell how much the music has evolved. Not sure it's for the better.

Post: #10

Good points jdreise, International Player Merle was "Honky Tonkin" with the best of em

RIP Merle, Bourbon will be drunk in his memory this weekend

Post: #11

(04-07-2016 12:18 AM)jdreise Wrote:  Merle was neck-and-neck with Waylon in the "substances and women" race all through the late 60s, 70s, and early to mid 80s. While those are laudable traits in a forum of international players, Merle never wavered in his musical and lyrical representation of the White American working class (currently, the most maligned class in American society). Some of my more favorite Merle working class songs are as follows:

While his more widely known material is exemplary of "classic country," a lot of Merle's later stuff is relevant, maybe even prescient, to today's American society.

One of my favorites of his is "Fightin Side Of Me", dealing with pussy liberals, draft dodgers and the proto-SJWs who enjoy our "milk and honey" in America while talking down to our soldiers and acting morally superior.





I hear people talkin' bad
About the way we have to live here in this country
Harpin' on the wars we fight
An' gripin' 'bout the way things oughta be

An' I don't mind 'em switchin' sides
An' standin' up for things they believe in
When you're runnin' down my country, man
You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me

Yeah, walkin' on the fightin' side of me
Runnin' down the way of life
Our fightin' men have fought and died to keep

If you don't love it, leave it
Let this song I'm singin' be a warnin'
You're runnin' down my country, man
You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me

I read about some squirrelly guy
Who claims, he just don't believe in fightin'
An' I wonder just how long
The rest of us can count on bein' free

They love our milk an' honey
But they preach about some other way of livin'
When you're runnin' down my country, hoss
You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me

Yeah, walkin' on the fightin' side of me
Runnin' down the way of life
Our fightin' men have fought and died to keep

If you don't love it, leave it
Let this song I'm singin' be a warnin'
But you're runnin' down my country, man
You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me

Yeah, walkin' on the fightin' side of me
Runnin' down the way of life
Our fightin' men have fought and died to keep

Yeah if you don't love it, leave it
Let this song I'm singin' be a warnin'
And you're runnin' down my country, man
You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me

Post: #12

Glad I went and saw him a couple years back. I remember his body language, standing at the mic with his guitar, was strong but laid back. It was like the stage was a sanctuary for him. His love for sharing music will be missed.

RIP Okie from Muskogee.

Post: #13

He was an incredible performer. They are all great, but that to me puts him a bar above the other outlaws. Along with his gift at writing songs. I've never seen a poor Merle Haggard performance. I own two of his ACL appearances on DVD, they are phenomenal.

Post: #14

Merle lived not far from my hometown.

Been listening to him since I was a kid. My mom always had Merle, Waylon, Willie, Coe, etc playing on the stereo when we had people over for BBQ's.

I hated it when I was younger, but when I turned about 16 I started to love the Texas/outlaw country genre. I can't stand crybaby pussified CMT country, or Trace Adkins throwing hip-hop crap into their country songs.

Real country is about booze, drugs, women, fightin and prison.

Post: #15

(04-07-2016 01:13 PM)RioNomad Wrote:  Merle lived not far from my hometown.

Been listening to him since I was a kid. My mom always had Merle, Waylon, Willie, Coe, etc playing on the stereo when we had people over for BBQ's.

I hated it when I was younger, but when I turned about 16 I started to love the Texas/outlaw country genre. I can't stand crybaby pussified CMT country, or Trace Adkins throwing hip-hop crap into their country songs.

Real country is about booze, drugs, women, fightin and prison.

And trains, pickup trucks and Mama.

Post: #16

This is sad news.

Post: #17

They just don't make them like this anymore:

Post: #18

Real tough to see this man go, Merle was in between Buck Owens and Waylon Jennings in the line of true hard country outlaws. He wrote songs with a passion and intensity of what real country music is all about: whiskey, women, drugs, poverty, prison, heartbreak, hope, and renewal. Farewell, working man rebel.

Post: #19

One of my favourite singers of all time. Swinging Doors and The Bottle Let Me Down is an amazing record.

R.I.P.

Post: #20

"My hat don't hang on the same nail too long
My ears can't stand to hear the same old song
An' I don't leave the highway long enough to bog down in the mud
'Cos I've got ramblin' fever in my blood

I caught this ramblin' fever long ago
When I first heard a lonesome whistle blow
If someone said I ever gave a damn, they damn sure told you wrong
I've had ramblin' fever all along

Ramblin' fever
The kind that can't be measured by degrees
Ramblin' fever
There ain't no kind of cure for my disease

There's times I'd like to bed down on a sofa
And let some pretty lady rub my back
And spend the early morning drinking coffee
And talkin' about when I'll be coming back

'Cos I don't let no no woman tie me down
And I'll never get too old to get around
I want to die along the highway and rot away like some old high-line pole
Rest this ramblin' fever in my soul

Ramblin' fever
The kind that can't be measured by degrees
Ramblin' fever
There ain't no kind of cure for my disease, yeah"

Post: #21

(04-27-2016 07:04 PM)jdreise Wrote:  There's times I'd like to bed down on a sofa
And let some pretty lady rub my back
And spend the early morning drinking coffee
And talkin' about when I'll be coming back

This is one of my favorite stanzas of a Merle Haggard song (but there are so many more). Haggard is the perfect example for what is missing in modern country music - to put it simply, good songwriting that tells a story.

Post: #22

One of my favorite Merle Haggard lyrics:

Somewhere between your heart and mine
There's a window that I can't see through
There's a wall so high it reaches the sky
Somewhere between me and you.

I love you so much I can't let you go
And sometimes I believe you love me
But somewhere between your heart and mine
There's a door without any key.

Somewhere between your heart and mine
There's a window that I can't see through
There's a wall so high it reaches the sky
Somewhere between me and you.

Somewhere between your heart and mine
There's a love I can't understand
It's there for a while then it fades like a smile
And I'm left in the middle again.

Somewhere between your heart and mine
There's a window that I can't see through
There's a wall so high it reaches the sky
Somewhere between me and you...