No one has ever done a Merle Haggard S&D? WTF (R.I.P. 2016)

when i was big one of my favorite songs was "silver wings"

(and i didn't hear it from either my great parents or my great radio. i heard the knitters doing it.0

from Richard Bishop's FB page:

My mother was Merle's English teacher in High School in Bakersfield. I'd like to think that she had some influence on his writing, or at least on his arrest record. RIP Merle (more in comments)

That NYer piece is incredible

1994 and 1996 are both good, solid albums with quite the possibly the worst artwork in the history of major popular music. i'm not even sure it qualifies as artwork actually. it's more like his label couldn't even be bothered to come up with titles or art for his work anymore. one of the many, many things i loved about him is how he kept pushing forward with his art long after other people stopped caring.

Man I love Merle Haggard. His best songs are as good as anybody's.

2016 is already one of the worst years for music deaths ever, and it's still early April.

xxxpost My dad had an 8-Track player in our motor home, but only maybe six 8-Track tapes and Songs I'll Always Sing was one of them. We'd take a three week meandering-around-the-country trip every summer and I heard that Merle comp hundreds of times.

Songs I'll Always Sing

that was the second country album i ever owned, after 24 of hank williams' greatest hits, and one of the most important albums in my life.

I don't know a lot about Merle Haggard, but there's one song I revere: "Sing Me Back Home." Especially the way it's used in Don Shebib's Goin' Down the Road. Wish I could link to it (can't even find a still): a couple of old winos are trying to scrounge up a drink in Toronto's Regent Park area, and after they drop and break the wine bottle they're working on, a street busker plays the Haggard song. Incredible scene.

Man, I evolved--with no idea that the Lord had all this in mind for me.

sounds like he's describing intelligent design :)

i own about 30 merle haggard albums and wouldn't get rid of a single one; he wrote more good songs than bob dylan IMO

Footlights is all time song for me

Tribute tonight at 8 on WFMU from Mrs. Fine Wine

1996 has the killer Iris Dement cover.

not much to say except goddamn and he will be missed, RIP

xpost, Hag's cover of No Time to Cry is so good. Iris Dement returned the favor with a killer cover of Big City.

digging through my merle records

holy fuck did he write a lot of songs

a ton of great ones, too

it's almost superhuman

did not know he was a Giants fan. this warms my heart much more than I thought it would.

Kaleb Horton killing it with this piece

http://www.mtv.com/news/2863329/merle-haggard-son-of-bakersfield/

This one also top notch

http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1089-why-merle-haggard-was-a-country-game-changer/

Paul Schrader w/ a good Merle story on FB:

In 1977, post Taxi-Driver, I'd researched and written a script for Warner Bros on "Eight Scenes from the Life of Hank Williams." I wanted to interest Merle in playing the lead so I got Warners to arrange a meeting. I drove up to Bakersfield and after waiting was ushered into a spartan office ("spartan" in terms of the Hollywood offices I had come to expect). Apart from Haggard gold records there were two inexpensive framed photos on the wall. Another wait, then Merle arrived. Didn't sit, didn't say a word. After a beat, he pointed to the photos, "Do you know who this is?" I looked, replied: "That's Jimmy Rodgers and the other, I believe, is a very early photo of Bob Wills." Haggard nodded, sat down, waited another beat, then said, "What's on your mind?" I'd passed the Hollywood screenwriter admittance quiz. We talked Hank for a bit and I left him with the script. Later he contacted me, saying if it were Rodgers or Wills he'd be tempted, but "Hank just doesn't feel right for me." In the end the script was never made because Wesley Rose (brother of Fred), holder of the song rights, felt the script was too "dark."

huh! did anything ever come of that schrader script?
anyway, RIP! an amazing songwriter, obviously. kind of blows me away how much is packed into the three minutes of "sing me back home" without it seeming the least bit labored or self conscious. just perfect.

felt the script was too "dark."

"so i just changed a few names and it became the screenplay to patty hearst."

I'm finding the various reactions to his death oddly reassuring in their quiet reverence. No histrionics, no hyperbole, just deep, honest respect for a very rich body of work.

My neighbor just told me he went to the funeral.

met David Cantwell on Thursday. Sweet guy.

Oh yeah, you guys are all at EMP, iirc.

He, like you, recommended listening to "No Time To Cry."

https://radiopublic.com/reekola-midnite-G2M44p/ep/s1!419be?fbclid=IwAR03xtphXyJ1hibegTBCe3b0d4_W-wccwQEoXBu3T_cnTRGG0_9ryngtkCM

I haven't listened to this (yet), here's three hours of Merle talking to Art Fucking Bell from 1997.

holy shit

If I need Merle Haggard covers, here's where I'll go.

I just learned how to play Footlights on piano. What a great song. Never heard Miranda’s version!

uh sorry -- "Misery and Gin." I'd been listening to Serving 190 Proof this afternoon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5s8oPID1gA

ha you led me down a path of footlights covers, none of which were good. well hank jr's wasn't awful but pretty uninspired

Yet another thread I didn't get the memo about---even more dismayed to find no memo to self about most of the albums from his last decade or so, when he was still pretty prolific. I do recall hearing several take some unexpected turns. Here's a few comments---starting with my Nash Scene ballot re 2011 releases, with paste from Rolling Country:
Working In Tennessee is a lot of fun, mostly barroom/boxcar/daydream sing-alongs, with a natcherly blooming windowbox of the fatalist, affirmative and absurd, especially on "Laugh It Off." Flexes some mellow heart muscle too (some, not a ton, which wouldn't suit him, nor me).
To this, xhuxx a.d. responded:
Favorite song is the homelessness one about Saginaw that shares its name with a much worse Red Hot Chili Peppers hit; "Laugh It Off" second place probably. Solid record, but there's a lot I could quibble about, if I had time to quibble these days.
And I then 'llowed:
Xxhux's aforementioned quibbles with Working In Tennessee might well incl use of sureshot themes, re aforementioned barroom/boxcar/daydream sing-alongs, but his whiff-of-bs-bearing paper airplanes are bullseye or close enough, often enough for lazier me to be impressed--he really is Working it, somewhut. Top Ten? We'll see. Nope---seemed a bit too distanced---ended up as Hon. Mention---although I said on the ballot that "It would have made my Top Twelve, if there was one." (Should have done it anyway; no Hon. Mention on there either, but it's one of those categories I always stick in.)
But no hesitation for this 2015 Top Ten pick:
Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, Django and Jimmie: opening title song's no big deal, except for the way it turns out to be an example of the variety of the influences and results, rounded up from here and there, in Willie and Merle's own histories, still in the making, or at least here again for the taking. Here, ladies and gents, we are afforded a range and perspective, with the necessary degree of distance, for (for instance), a moonlight cruise by "Where Dreams Come To Die," and calmly outrageous tour bus tales of "Missing Ol' Johnny Cash," with deadpan contributions by guest minimalist Bobby Bare. There's also the covert regret and overt brush-off (urge behind both still felt) in "Don't Think Twice (It's Alright)." Philosophical sharing for sure, but not too long-winded or sweet: "The Only Man Wilder Than Me" is saluted for having "a mind indifferent and free," among other blunt & blunted, no-bogart attributes suitable for pictures of dawgs playin' poker.

Then a 2016 release:

Merle Haggard's Live In San Francisco 1965 opens with a series of endings, which work pretty well: the last 48 seconds of "Devil Woman" is about all I can take, especially since he clones the hair-oil sanctimony of Marty Robbins' original delivery---then make way for the exciting climaxes of "Movin' On", "Orange Blossom Special", and "Love Is Gonna Live Here Again"! First full-length (2:58) is a very fine "Blue Yodel", with Johnny Gimble's blue fiddle swinging out and back into a tensile combo of early Strangers (later, Bonnie Owens is the effective singing actress on "Lead me On", and caps the uptempo "Cowboy's Sweetheart" with her own, Swiss-tending yodels, while the rhythm guitarist enjoys working at "Harold's Super Service", except for the big guy who always wants like the sign says for a little bitty amount of gas, even at the Pearly Gates). Mostly we get Reader's Digest editions of mostly original early highlights, some already classic, all quite fresh, as is the Hag's voice, yodeling and all---the more striking after last year's collab with Willie, Django and Jimmie, where his always right, but economizing, sometimes ragged delivery made it not terribly surprising that he checked out with respiratory problems. (Still nasty news, of course). Yet the deft terseness of his final round is accentuated here too, making the candid pictures, cards from life's "other" side. cut just right: ain't that it, often as not. "Okie From Musgokee" and "Fightin' Side of Me" have yet to show up, but/and "A Soldier's Letter" certainly works as a sign-off. 16 tracks, 30 minutes.

Iris DeMent does an amazing cover of Big City.