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BarkellWH -> Merle Haggard RIP (Apr. 7 2016 1:26:36)
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Forgive me, Simon. I know this is really off-topic, but I cannot let Merle Haggard's death go unacknowledged. Merle Haggard, along with Johnny Cash, Marty Robbins, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings were the giants of post-Hank Williams Country and Western music. Sadly, Merle Haggard died today at the age of 79. People talk about the "outlaws" of country music--drinking, womanizing, living fast and hard, and doing hard-time in prison, but most who sing about it have never really experienced it.
Merle Haggard was the exception, the real deal. He did hard-time in San Quentin for armed robbery, got out, and turned himself around. Who can forget "Pancho and Lefty" with Willie Nelson, "Okie from Muskogie," "Sing me Back Home," "Today I Started Loving You Again," and a dozen others. In my opinion, the pablum that passes for country and western music today doesn't hold a candle to the music those guys, represented by Merle Haggard, produced before today's fuzzy-cheeked, anodyne "crossovers" took over.
Bill
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