“You don’t think about the check that you might get, you don’t think about the popularity that might be coming or you might not think about the criticism,” Haggard said in 2015. “When you’re writing a song, you just try to stay on the subject and get through with it, and p...
From the opening notes of her first album, 1992’s Infamous Angel, when she proclaimed that she believed in love and lived her life accordingly, to her 1994 cover of Merle Haggard’s “Big City” (“entirely too much work and never enough play”) to 1996’s “Wasteland of the Free,....
Something I haven’t mentioned and it may be possible you are not aware of: Merle Haggard is an ex-convict. He served time in prison. In prison, you take your friend’s side in an argument while you’re in public and wait until you get somewhere private to say, “You know you were...
In 1981, Haggard shifted labels again to Epic Records. He enjoyed several No. 1 hits in his own right there, including “Going Where the Lonely Go,”“You Take Me For Granted,”“That’s the Way Love Goes,”“Someday When Things Are Good,” and “Let’s Chase Each Other Around the...
The series introduced his musical talents to America when it premiered in the September 1972, and even offered him chances to perform with some of the top stars in the country format during the show’s run, such as Merle Haggard. In October 1976, the Country Music Hall of Fame member gue...