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Mean country, hard livin', and truth
Describing one of his many current passions, Haggard coughs a little after singing into the phone. His voice shifts, becoming more bare bones, more reflective. "I got a lot going on, and I enjoy it," he says. "I wake up every day with a full plate. The Lord's gifted me and I work hard and I'm thankful. You know, I could be underground. A lot of people don't live as long as I have." From the top of the heap to the ash pile and back, country music legend Merle Haggard has done more time, struggling, playing music, living and loving than your average man could endure in three lifetimes. The hit songwriter of "Lonesome Fugitive," "Okie From Muskogee," "Mama Tried" and "Big City" has been more influential on America's post-war country-western mind than all the baby-faced Nashville pin-up kids of the last two decades combined. With over 65 albums and a mountain of smash singles under his belt, Hag has earned the title of the common man's honky-tonk rebel hero-with a vengeance. But you won't catch the Bakersfield native kicking back licking chops on a reputation that continues to ferment in his 64 years. He's moving forward, laying it bare, and just the title of his upcoming November release, Roots, says it all. "In the old days," he explains, "the heroes were fewer and the television wasn't even born yet. It was just radio. When I grew up, it wasn't uncommon to walk into a drive-in where teenagers were hangin' out and see somebody drop 20 nickels in to hear Lefty Frizell sing the same song 20 times. So I'm trying to let people know exactly how it sounded, just in case they might like that again, 'cause I'm tellin' you, it was really good. It was clear and it was honest." Cut at Merle's California ranch with The Strangers, Roots pays tribute to his early influences with roadhouse chestnuts like country great Lefty Frizell's "I Want To Be With You Always" and Hank Williams' "Honky Tonkin'," dating back to Merle's rebellious boyhood, when he was getting chased by the law and learning to pick hillbilly standards with his 16-year-old, white trash fingers. For Merle, one of the most exciting features of the album and tour is working beside Frizell's former guitar player, 69 year-old Norm Stephens. "He plays a different way than most people these days," Merle laughs with pride. "It's got an inoffensive spiritual feeling to it. It's just sweet. Like sweet wine, and it's so neat to hear it. This old man is just incredible." Haggard's return to country simplicity isn't just another fuel-stop on the road, but a full-circle culmination of 48 years of hard-earned wisdom-a progressive style-as-statement movement towards that cleaner, truer sound of the old-timey live radio shows. It's a rawer-feeling music, and Merle's plenty happy to be one of the backlash pioneers. "It's cutting edge for me," he says of his latest vision. "I really think the music was captured more realistically then than it is now. There's a lot of manipulation that goes on with modern recordings. It's more necessary that things be more 'perfect' than it is to tell the truth." Currently signed with the independent punk label Anti, Haggard is tuning up for the most diverse audience in his career, much like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, George Jones, and other country icons now signing with offbeat record companies. Strangled out by slick, mainstream country-pop, with little airplay, vets like Haggard are slightly pissed off at the corporate industry and its money-grubbing execs who scrapped them and their music in the Nashville boneyard like junk Chevys, clearing room for the easy bucks of modern, machine-spun, prefab country wonders. "I went down and played my stuff for Willie the night before last," Merle says. "He loved it. And he played me his new stuff, and he's doing the same thing. He said, 'If you and I can't be heard-if the message of our words can't be heard-we're fucked.' And it's really true." Scrapes with Nashville are nothing new for Haggard. After a couple years of corporate abuse and cheating in the early '60s, he stepped outside the system, doing it his own way, in his own time. But today it's becoming an all-out mission for the older musicians to save country music wholesale, and with it America's collective common sense, which is quickly being traded off for glam-glutted fluff. From the fields to the beer joints, Haggard and his ilk are still the true voice of the working class. And they're doing it because they always gave a damn. "I think the entire consumer is fed up with it," Haggard sighs, ruminating over the lack of traditional country airplay. "We're being force-fed according to what some idiot that owns 800 radio stations believes is right. They don't have a clue as to where talent lies. If a Hank Williams or Elvis Presley came along today, well hell, they couldn't even get on the air." Tired of the watered down video swill, it's no surprise that the ever-rebellious Hag and cohorts are picking a six-string road leading back to the heart of country music's natural roots-the soil and subsistence farms, the coal mines and cotton patches, the dusty roads and peeling chrome, the callused struggle of America's back forty. "I still despise that mechanism that goes on down there," he says about the industry. "A lot of it is set up like old-time carnivals to relieve people of their money as they enter town. It's a raffle. There's people down there that's honest, but about 30 percent of it is just total bullshit." Baby-boomers are feeling more and more ignored, despising the corporate radio empire for streamlining the dial with commercial new country, catering to the 20-something crowd where image is valued above meaning. But Haggard is optimistic about the new XM satellite radio technology which could soon knock the industry windless. "The consumer is gonna be in charge of XM radio because it's subscription," he explains. "There's been an attitude adjustment in this country. The old folks have got more money and they've been left out. You're intimidated to go to the record store and look for a Johnny Cash record. The consumer is saying, 'Hey, we want to hear some of that old music! We like some of this new stuff, but we want to hear Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Red Foley and Bob Wills. Dammit, put it on the radio!' I really think we're down to that, and we've got the power to be heard now." Along with old-time Texas songwriter Bill Mack's upcoming XM global radio broadcasts, Merle's own Saturday radio show will be airing in 39 states starting in December, replacing his non-stop tour that began in 1964. He's talking of retiring the road next year, and he's looking forward to heading home for good while taking advantage of the embryonic XM movement. "It's gonna give me a new voice," says Merle. "I'm gonna keep making music and putting my energies into the radio show. At 65, anybody with any intelligence would try to do a lot of stuff close to home. What strength I got left is gonna be directed towards my family. People should value those road shows because they will be good, and there may not be a lot in the future." Between working on a new Christmas album, gearing up for the release of Roots, on top of his MexiCali western-swing sessions and managing Hag Records, Merle is spending his time teaching his young children common sense, "'cause they're gonna need all the smarts they can gather up to handle themselves in this world." And like the honest style that Haggard has polished and cultivated in his epic 43-year career, in his spare time he keeps busy tending his prize orchards of Merle Haggard brand California oranges. "They're real good," he says with a fitting laugh. "We grow 'em a special way-we don't sacrifice to the stock market. We pick 'em when they're supposed to be picked. And there's a lot of difference between that and the Sunkist."
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Have you ever heard that song 'South of the Border'?" Merle asks, "It goes, South of the border down Mexico way, ba de de de da da da de de do do do do. That's what I'm working on right now. We're gonna lend some swing music that developed in Fresno into the album. It's a MexiCaliTexaCali shoreline type of situation."
