Recommendations of the Editorial team
Hag, you’re the guy people think they see in me,” Johnny Cash once said to his unconventional country colleague. Merle Haggard lived a life that was actually surprisingly congruent with his songs. He reached number one on the US country charts a total of 38 times. And delivered classics like “Okie From Muskogee”, “Mama Tried” and “Sing Me”. Back Home”, which combined autobiographical elements with the honkytonk of Lefty Frizzell or Hank Williams.
“Sometimes the songs came so quickly that I couldn’t keep up with writing,” he told American Songwriter magazine in 2010. “And sometimes they still do that today.” The workaholic Haggard, who once released eight albums in three years, served the ultra-conservative redneck clientele with his hippie scolding “Okie From Muscogee”. But at the same time he also influenced rock milestones like “Workingman’s Dead” by the Grateful Dead or “Beggars Banquet” by the Rolling Stones.
Merle Haggard & Willie Nelson: “Okie from Muskogee”:
ROLLING STONE author Frank Castenholz on Haggard:
He saw himself as a rock’n’roller. “I do country because that’s the environment I grew up in,” he told Rolling Stone. “But actually I’m more like that Chuck Berry-Type. I love Fats Domino as much as I love Hank Williams or Lefty Frizzell.”
Now it’s up to Willie Nelson to carry the torch
Although Haggard supported Nixon and Reagan, he was also reluctant to be integrated politically. With the song “Irma Jackson” about the unfulfilled love of a white man for a black woman, he disturbed many an ultra-conservative fan. And one of his contradictory exegesis of the redneck anthem “Okie from Muskogee” was: “Son, the only place I don’t smoke is Muskogee.” So Hag was the only real crook among all the bearded hippie rebels who defied the Nashville mainstream in the ’70s.
Even today, in clubs from Texas to hip Brooklyn, wherever traditional country sounds on stage or from the jukebox, you can still feel how immeasurable his influence is on what counts as Americana in the broadest sense. Until the end, Haggard stood on stage with his (fifth) wife, two of his sons and his Strangers: a little unsteady on his feet and short of breath, but concentrated and still blessed with that uniquely rough, honey-mild voice. Further tour dates for the summer had already been announced. But his lungs stopped breathing on the day of his 79th birthday.
Now it’s up to Willie Nelson, Hag’s unlikely brother and long-time friend, to carry the torch of the “Last of the Breed” for a long time to come.