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

Any advice on where else to go in the eighties? Amazon has a cheap two-fer of Kern River and Chill Factor. Is it worth buying?

I could be wrong, but I'd say hold out for $1 copies of those. I like Kern River's title track (still have the 45), but don't remember the album being much great shakes. It's been a while, though.

my dad was a huge Merle Haggard fan when i was a little kid, so i know his catalogue up until i guess the early 70s pretty well (plus a decade or so ago i dropped cash on his "down every road" box-set). it's the stuff from the 80s onwards that i know little-to-nothing about (again, except what's on that box set). i really dunno what it is about this guy that makes me like his music so much (especially since i usually have no time for country music) other than childhood memories, other than just his general lyrical outlook and musical sophistication (i used to refer to him as a countrified Frank Zappa, if that makes any real sense).

back to the barrooms from... 1980 (?) rules. to answer question above. merle's late-80s stuff is suspicious though.

Wound up with my father in law's old vinyl copy of The Way I Am, from 1980, and while it definitely has some moderately jazzish playing here and there (presumably from the Strangers, though they don't seem to be credited on the cover), it's just too maudlin and ballad-heavy, and too devoid of memorable songs (not a single great one, as far as I can tell) to recommend it. Most memorable song is actually also the most ridiculous, namely "Sky-Bo," about "a new kind of hobo for planes," though as far as I can tell Merle never really explains how exactly they stow aboard. (Guy gets a job flying rich folks around in Phoenix, basically, and gets addicted to the air, but decides doing it for work isn't good enough.) My wife, who loves Merle too, came into the room and said "this is the stupidest song ever," which is more or less what I was already thinking. She also said she associates "Wake Up," first song on Side Two, with a friend's mom who died while getting anesthesia during an operation when she was growing up; apparently, my wife's Mom played it that day, in rememberance of the woman. So obviously these songs can touch people; they just don't touch me.

And yeah, I have indeed heard real good things about his other 1980 LP, Back To The Barrooms -- Also 1979's Serving 190 Proof, which Tom Smucker voted for in his Pazz & Jop Top 10 that year. (He had also voted for A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today in 1977, I just noticed.) Don't think I've ever heard those; probably I should someday. But I've always had a place for 1983's 10-song Merle Haggard's Greatest Hits, which takes songs from a few late '70s and early '80s MCA LPs, including "Misery And Gin" and "I Think I'll Just Stay Here And Drink" from Barrooms -- though "Red Bandana" and "My Old Kind Of Hat," both from 190 Proof, have always been my favorite tracks. Also remembered that I also like Pancho & Lefty, his 8-weeks-at-#1-Country, vaguely Western-thematic Willie Nelson collab from 1983, mainly for the title track and for "Reasons To Quit."

Also maybe worth mentioning about The Way I Am is that it ends with two Ernest Tubb covers then a Floyd Tillman cover, so big fans of those guys may well like it more than I do. Think the track I like best is actually the opener, the title track, written by Sonny Throckmorton.

I love "Wake Up" though, even with the saxophone straight out of "Cheers" or some early seventies sitcom.

"Reasons to Quit" is fantastic. Thought Willie wrote that one but it was Merle.

Don't forget about "Footlights" off Serving 190 Proof! That's my jam. But yeah, "The Way I Am" is top five Merle for me.

Really??? I don't get that at all. (See above.) What do you like about it, Moreno? To me it just seems kind of hacked out, and doesn't get what I like about Merle's personality down, not even once. (I'm assuming you mean the album, not the song, is top 5 for you.)

No, I was referring to the song "The Way I Am" which I love. I agree that the album's nothing special, more sad-sack Merle than usual. But yeah, you need to hear Serving 190 Proof if you haven't. Probably my favorite from that period, though Big City and Back to the Barrooms are both great. Man, that was a nice little run for him from '79 to '81. Anyone heard the Big City follow-up Going Where the Lonely Go? AMG rates it pretty high...

The title track is nicely arranged -- Merle Sings Nelson Riddle or something -- but it's maudlin.

Serving 190 Proof is indeed terrific: more casual than its successors. Back to the Barrooms now sounds like a halfhearted sequel.

This thread is not big enough. Best Christmas-ish country song ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGDo1Jybs_I

80s Merle is my SHIT right now. Kern River and A Friend In California sounding so good lately. Love the jazzy arrangements. Great playing. Great songs.

Chilll Factor – worth purchasing?

Quite partial to "Warm Red Wine"

Anyone heard the new album?

saw him play with Kris Kristofferson on Saturday (Merle's voice is MUCH better preserved, I'll say that) - they did a couple new songs that were not out of place in the otherwise greatest hits set (I lol'd when everybody cheered for Okee From Muskogee)

Makes sense -- Kristofferson is a boring singer anyway.

No.

Yes. Awesome songwriter, average at best singer.

rip

Indeed, sadly.

http://www.bakersfield.com/News/2016/04/06/Haggard-famed-songwriter-and-proud-Okie-from-Bakersfield-dies-at-78.html

just heard 'okie from muskogee' in a Peckinpah film last night, remembered the guy was still here

this year is brutal

RIP such a great songwriter and singer

RIP, what a year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4V3S7kGNjY

oh i love that video thank you for reminding me

RIP

I think I'll just stay here and drink

Rest In Power, Merle.

ughhhhhhhh

UGH

RIP. Has Bob Dylan weighed in yet?

please stop adding RIP to the titles of longtime threads, for Chrissakes.

especially quixotic and morbsian thing to get worked up about.

:(

Was our best living songwriter; I even dug his 2011 album.

I should've kept up with him; last one I heard was If Only I Could Fly, which I loved.

Django and Jimmie is supposed to be a good one, yeah?

From Bob Mehr (author of the recent Replacements bio) on FB:

I saw Merle Haggard many times over the years. The first was during my senior year of high school, I was still probably 16 or maybe just turned 17. He was playing an arena in Tucson, opening for Wynonna Judd, who'd gone solo and was the biggest thing happening then. Being young and hotheaded, I took the fact that she was headlining over Merle as a disrespect to the Great Man, and I left in protest after his set, dragging my first girlfriend (who wanted to stay and watch Wynonna) with me. As we were exiting, I saw Merle standing by the bus down in a docking bay. I rushed to my car to get a pen and something for him to sign, but the only thing I had was a math textbook (from a class I was desperately trying not to fail so I could graduate).

I walked over and called to him. He nodded, summoned us down and couldn't have been nicer, entertaining all my queries for 15 minutes (I was a strange kid, absolutely, religiously fanatical about classic country music). I told him I was a Californian, too -- or at least an immigrant to the state, though my family had come from the Middle East, not Oklahoma like his. I'll never forget the sweet little smile he gave me when realized how his music had touched some foreign born kid, how far his songs had reached. Before parting, he took my textbook, signed it and chuckled: "I never did get much use out them things myself."

Upshot of the story is the girl broke up with me the very next week, breaking my heart, but giving me an even deeper appreciation for Merle's music.

Years later, in 2001, I interviewed Haggard for the New Times, and he was just as charming and wonderful. I looked up the piece not long ago, and thought his final answer was pretty great, and worth sharing:

New Times: It must have been impossible to imagine at the time, that all those things--your father's death, jail, everything--would shape your life the way it has.

Haggard: There's a scripture that says, "A good man's steps are ordered by the Lord." I believe in predestination. Looking back on it now, my life's been laid out like it was meant to be exactly the way it is. Those things happened so that I would have the experience and knowledge to see firsthand the things that I ended up writing about and maybe bring to the public a sort of news. In some ways, I'm a news broadcaster, a newsman. There's things going on in this world that they're not gonna tell you on CNN. They're not going to say anything that's gonna offend one of the sponsors. So there's talk radio at night, and maybe a few old poets that get played on obscure radio stations--those are the only ways that you might hear what's really occurring in the world.

I grew up in this business not having any foresight. I'm just a guy who went into a little bar and got a job playing guitar--I wasn't even hired as a singer--in order to make a few extra bucks a week. I had no earthly idea that the thing would evolve into what it has. I always liked the word "evolve." Man, I evolved--with no idea that the Lord had all this in mind for me.

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/12932906_10154064680199919_7053511455515708395_n.jpg?oh=b037d943f03cc378fd991e7b1706cc7e&oe=577DC9BB

There a long piece in the New Yorker from the 80's about him that's very worth reading

Here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1990/02/12/ornery

I read David Cantwell's bio over the December holiday break and was so charmed.

when I was little my favorite song was "Silver Wings"

you must have had great parents and/or great radio

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