Merle Haggard Albums (74)
'The Bluegrass Sessions'
Release Date 10/2/2007
Tracks 12
Label McCoury
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What The Critics Say
Despite signing a new deal with Capitol Records in 2004, since he parted ways with Epic Records at the end of the '80s Merle Haggard seems to have been happiest when he's as far as possible from the mainstream of contemporary country music, which would make him an ideal candidate to cut a solid bluegrass album. Abandoning any pretense of tailoring his music for radio or CMT, Haggard's best albums of the new century have been his most casual, and The Bluegrass Sessions stands alongside 2001's Roots, Vol. 1 in capturing Hag in laid-back but emphatic form. The Bluegrass Sessions was recorded with a superb acoustic ensemble and some help from guest stars Alison Krauss and Marty Stuart; the bulk of the album was cut in a single day, with Haggard singing live along with the band. While Haggard never appears to be pushing himself, he sings with the quiet commitment of a man who can't help but tell the truth as he sees it, and the low-key clarity of his vocals meshes beautifully with the subtle push and pull of the arrangements. Haggard brought a few new tunes with him for this session, and "Learning to Live with Myself" and "Wouldn't That Be Something" are worthy additions to his songbook, while "Pray" is a simple but fiercely powerful statement of faith and "What Happened?" once again demonstrates how Hag can effortlessly sound right wing and left wing all at once (he hasn't gotten over 9-11 but he hates Wal-Mart, though perhaps not as much as karaoke). Haggard and company also revisit a few songs from his back catalog, and while the new versions of "Mama's Hungry Eyes," "Big City," and "Holding Things Together" can't match the originals, there's enough force in Hag's performances to prove he still knows they're great songs and can vividly communicate their virtues. While on the surface The Bluegrass Sessions sounds as casual as a warm Sunday in August, Merle Haggard's performances say more with less than nearly anyone in Nashville, and his quiet authority is a joy to hear. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
CEMA Special Markets' A Country Christmas with Merle Haggard collects ten Christmas carols, holiday tunes, and "If We Make It Through December," all recorded during his glory years at Capitol. It's not an official Christmas album -- Merle didn't head into the studio with the intent of cutting this specific record -- but since all the music was recorded within a few years, it holds together very well. It may be a budget-priced compilation, but it's one of the better country Christmas albums you'll hear. A Country Christmas with Merle Haggard was reissued in 2007 as Hag's Christmas with the same track listing but a different cover. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
"Memories and drinks don't mix too well/Jukebox records don't play those wedding bells." So begins "Misery and Gin," the opening track on Merle Haggard's strongest -- and second from last -- outing for MCA. While this album is deservedly known for its four classic drinking songs -- the aforementioned cut, "Back to the Barrooms," "I Don't Want to Sober up Tonight," and "I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink" -- what Back to the Barrooms is really about is the wreckage caused by broken amorous relationships and boozy escape as the only way to cope. Produced by Jimmy Bowen with his progressive country style, he understood Haggard's wish to utilize horns and strings in ways not necessarily in concert with traditional country music -- à la Bob Wills -- yet to write and perform in grand honky tonk fashion. Other than Haggard's relationship with Lewis Talley at Columbia, the Bowen-Hag collaboration was his most successful of the 1970s. Haggard wrote or co-wrote the majority of the album, and, whether intentionally or not, it coincides with the beginnings of his troubles with his then-wife, songwriter Leona Williams (whose co-write with Haggard, "Can't Break the Habit," appears here) as chronicled in his autobiography, Sing Me Back Home. The swinging barroom stomp of "Make-up and Faded Blue Jeans" reveals the kind of trouble a man can get into when he loses his focus and his inherent distrust in relationships based on "100 reasons for lookin' away one more time." The contradictions in love are revealed in how we love those who can hurt us the most in Curly Putman's "Ever Changing Woman," with its gorgeous low-end piano lines and Travis-style fingerpicked guitars. Like his best theme records, Haggard reveals all sides of the conflict and its paradoxical nature, showing that nobody ever wins when love ends. The drinking songs here also document Haggard's beginning of a long descent into chronic substance abuse, something he didn't pull out of until the 1990s. Even "Leonard," the seeming oddball track on the record, deals with the meteoric rise to country music fame and fortune to ruin and redemption of a close friend (Tommy Overstreet); it is fraught with the loss of relationships and resultant substance abuse as if it were an equation. This is underlined on the album's closer, "Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink," which both Wills would have and Ernest Tubb did love. Hardcore honky tonk and swinging Western jazz meet head-on in a tale of romantic loss and alcoholic oblivion: "I could be holdin' you tonight/I could quit doin' wrong and start doin' right/But you don't care about what I think/I think I'll just stay here and drink." This album features Haggard's most consistent, inspiring performance since he left Capitol, and was the beginning of a creative renaissance, though the personal toll it took on him would prove considerable. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'Live from Austin TX: 1985'
Release Date 2/21/2006
Tracks 15
Label New West
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What The Critics Say
This 1985 performance of Merle Haggard and his swinging Strangers -- with a two-piece horn section that sounds like five -- were in fine form at Austin City Limits. There are 15 tunes on Live from Austin, TX many of them barn burners. It opens with "The Okie from Muskogee's Comin' Home," a fine choice since it's not a novelty song. Haggard sticks to his own material most of the time, and he rambles over it, pulling from classics like "Mama Tried" and "Silver Wings," to newer material from the MCA and Epic periods -- which were creatively fertile times for him. An example is in the lovely "What Am I Gonna Do (With the Rest of My Life)," the fourth tune in the set. But there are more, too, in "Place to Fall Apart" and "I Wish Things Were Simple Again." There are two Tommy Duncan tunes here, where Haggard pays homage to his first real influence, Bob Wills -- "Misery," "Take Me Back to Tulsa," and one by Wills, as well as "Ida Red." Thankfully, a great version of Johnny Durrill's "Misery and Gin" is here from Back to the Barrooms, as is the wonderful closer, Haggard's own "I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink," to take the thing out on the right note. It's true most could have lived without his pseudo-orchestral paean to xenophobic political values, "Amber Waves of Grain," but it wouldn't be a complete show without an accurate portrayal of the songwriter and the man. Haggard fans will dig this one just fine. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
It's no secret that Merle Haggard's been on a roll in the 21st century. His independently released albums on Epitaph and Compendium were all acclaimed, and with good reason: Haggard has been the most consistent songwriter and performer country music has ever produced. Check his track record. Chicago Wind marks Hag's return to the majors, for the label he left decades ago, Capitol. Produced by Jimmy Bowen and Mike Post, it features 11 new songs, all but four written by Merle. While he's not using his touring band on this one, the musicians that surround him are Nash Vegas vets, from guitarists Reggie Young and Billy Joe Walker, Jr. to Herb Pedersen and legendary bassist Leland Sklar, just to name a few. Sure, it's slicker, the budget was bigger, and its edges have been rounded, but no more than they were on his Epic records. There's soul in bushels here. And most of it's slow, deliberate and tender. There's a softness in Haggard's gruff delivery that offers the same sensitive poet who recorded songs like "Shopping for Dresses" and "Going Where The Lonely Go." There are two "political" anthems here. "Where's All the Freedom" looks to the past as a way of evaluating the future. While those on the left side of the line of democracy may not agree with all that Haggard puts across in "Where's All the Freedom" and "America First," his questions are poignant, personal and insightful. As a man he has thought deep and hard about the issues he writes about, and as a poet, he states his case without bitterness. The rancor baiting title track is a road song that offers all the sheer loneliness and depth of vision that's made Haggard a songwriter for the people. He communicates simply, succinctly and directly. "What I've Been Meaning to Say" is one of his great love songs that are full of regret, humility, longing and the willingness to admit to being wrong. His cover of Roger Miller's "Leavin's Not the Only Way to Go" is bittersweet, tender and roughly romantic. His read of Willie Nelson's "It Will Always Be" is one of the most haunting songs he's ever recorded. "Some of Us Fly," with Toby Keith, closes the record, and it's a trademark reflection of the journey of all humans through life. Scott Joss' fiddle winds through the melody, anchoring the guitar players inside the heart of the tune, and Hag spins philosophical about the eventual road we all take. Chicago Wind is not the rough and rowdy honky tonk album some fans have been hankering for, but it is a poetic, thoughtful and empathic one that once more displays why Merle Haggard is the living king of country music. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'I Wish I Was Santa Claus'
Release Date 10/26/2004
Tracks 12
Label Smith Music Group
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'Live at Billy Bob's Texas: Ol' Country Singer'
Release Date 8/17/2004
Tracks 15
Label Smith Music Group
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What The Critics Say
The true reigning king of country singers and songwriters is Merle Haggard. That's right, not George Jones, but Merle Haggard. Hag takes lots of chances not only in his songs and arrangements but with his voice. He throws it around, reaching both high and low, slurring and whining and moaning to get his -- and others' -- tunes across in as heartfelt and authentic a manner as is possible on a given night. That is evidenced by his second live offering from Billy Bob's Texas, Ol' Country Singer. Haggard and the Strangers roar through a set that is full of surprises as well as nuggets. Kicking off with a medley of "Runnin' Kind" and "Lonesome Fugitive," he and the band jump right into Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues," followed by "Texas Women" with a full-on jazzed-up Western swing arrangement. As is his trademark, Haggard surrounds himself with bandmembers who are superchoppers -- not in the Nash Vegas sense where any arrangement is played with requisite perfection, but instead with a band that can change modes, styles, and moods quickly and seamlessly in order to find the balance Merle seeks to get over to the crowd. Norm Hamlet is here, as are Don Markham and Scott Joss. Guitarist Norm Stephens has replaced Redd Volkaert masterfully. Criminally forgotten country great Janie Fricke guests on the devastatingly beautiful "A Place to Fall Apart" and the moving country-soul of "Natural High." Hag pulls out the patriotic odes as well in "Rainbow Stew" and "Fightin' Side of Me," and the conviction in his voice is not conservative or liberal but that of an American poet speaking his mind. Hag duets with rhythm guitarist Freddy Powers on the title track -- there is a studio version tagged on to the end of the album as well. Near the end Hag pulls out two surprises: one is a moving version of "Kern River" and the other, "Footlights," is one of his most poignant tomes, here rendered with reverie and the awareness of age and mortality's creep. The loneliness of Haggard's life is balanced with the blessings. This is easily the most intimate moment here. For the hardcore to be sure, but Ol' Country Singer is a welcome and worthy addition to the Merle shelf. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Much was made of Merle Haggard's "That's the News," a scathing indictment of media culture and the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq. A simple country song, it's the kind of thing Haggard had been writing throughout his entire career in his celebration of core American values. And because he's critical of the American government, listeners should not make the mistake that Haggard suddenly became a pacifist or sympathetic to the American left. "Are the Good Times Really Over for Good" trod some similar ground and argued against--what he perceived to be--a welfare state and has made repated public statements about closing our borders. Also, given the rest of the album, another brick in the foundation of Haggard's artistic and popular renaissance, it should not overshadow the rest of these songs. They are all solid, even brilliant efforts by Haggard and are rooted deeply in Bakersfield honky tonk ("Haggard (Like I've Never Been Before)", Western swing ("Garbage Man" and "Lonesome Day"), the bluesy roots of "Reno Blues," a duet with Willie Nelson, the innovative, jazzy balladry of "Because of Your Eyes" (with gorgeous guitar playing from Hag), and "I Hate to See It Go." This is mostly a laid-back affair for Haggard, but it is meticulously crafted and arranged, full of beautiful charts and striking vocal and instrumental performances. The album's final track, "Return to San Francisco," is a country song meeting the jazzier side of Bob Wills' ghost with a mariachi horn section in the bridge for good measure. Haggard hears many different kinds of music in his head; thankfully, for everyone else, he effortlessly gets it down on tape time and time again. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'Rainbow Stew: Live at Anaheim Stadium'
Release Date 3/25/2003
Tracks 10
Label Universal Special Products
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What The Critics Say
Rainbow Stew: Live at Anaheim boasts an augmented Strangers, with former Texas Playboys Eldon Shamblin, Tiny Moore, and Gordon Terry and a horn section filling out the band's sound. The result is a wonderful, swinging album that brings a new spin not only to classics like "I'm a Lonesome Fugitive" and "Sing Me Back Home" but also to Hag's newer songs "Misery and Gin," "I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink," and the title track. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
