Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard

I say artist since Merle is indeed an icon not some single/45 maker typically known to this genre of music but a serious artist that is best served up on individual albums showing his development or with the great box set "Down Every Road" that beautifully sums it all up and belongs in any serious CD collection.
The song selection here on HAG is a great mix and flows seamlesly and is enough to turn any rock fan into a country fan.
The sound is extraordinary as is the running time and liner notes and overall a great CD that included his famous duets with the great Johnny Cash(from the CASH CD Solitary Man),and the classic Willie Nelson cut Pancho and Lefty as well as a newer track with Toby Keith spanning a trip down memory lane circa 1962- 2005..Interesting photos of Merle standing over a grave site within as a middle age man with additional shots of him younger and the elder statesmen which he now is, akin to 2006 when this great CD hit.

If you were going to buy a best of to introduce someone to Merle Haggard, this is a good one. Plenty of classics here, But I kind of wish they included more of his MCA and Epic era hits.

I really like old country music. It's much more sincere and real that the current garbage permeating the airwaves. Merle Haggard is a prime example of that old country music. He's one of the greatest songwriters to emerge from country music, and his songs are still valid today. Many people dismiss him as a right wing blowhard because of songs like Okie from Muskogee and The Right Side of Me. I actually like Okie, and its criticisms of hippie lifestyles is kind of funny and true, considering hippies were silly and naive. I used to dislike The Right Side of Me, but it's grown on me over the last year, and it's not as jingoistic as I thought. Even if you don't like these 2 songs because of their (possible) right wing bias, one shouldn't dismiss everything Merle has done over his career because of them. Merle is a true artist and a complicated man. The Grateful Dead have covered his songs (most notably Mama Tried, included here), so even the hippie Dead recognized that Merle is a...Read more