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Home , Billy Joe Shaver, Dave Alvin, Dwight Yoakam, Hungry Eyes, Iris DeMent, Lefty Frizzell

Winter ’94

4 o. , N Vol. 2 SS UU NN DD “I started out even, you know. Now I’m five million in the hole . . . fo rty-one number one records and five million dollars down. How does that compute? If I thought we could get wealthy enough that you could beat cancer and AIDS and all the other things that are after our asses, then I’d be worried about finances real seriously. I don’t really care if I’m broke or not because I can walk down the street and get me a goddamn hamburger with a song .” — , Journal of

“I’m very country influenced, from quite young . . . Merle Haggard .” —Mick Jagger , Guitar Player

HREE YEARS AGO I SANG writing, performing, and singing up to snuff— his footing, like Archie Moore in his two Twith at the Ritz in New still creative—but radio ignores you. The busi - hundredth fight. The yuppies and drunk York when he opened for Merle ness folks in Nashville act like they’d be happy lawyers began shouting requests half way Haggard. Merle performed for over two to embalm and box-up Merle and through the second song. Haggard looked hours; a flawless waltz through his catalog. and Cash, and put them away on a shelf in the baffled and twenty years older than at the No bullshit. No set list. He picked out a Hall of Fame. Ritz show. Another night, another bad gig. song, counted it off, sang soulfully and I talked to Haggard for a minute before the I thought of playing out his pointed out all of the solos. I’d grown up show. He looked past me with that hundred final years, drunk, on Army bases in Green - listening to Merle on the West Coast in the yard stare. The death row smile. He warmed land and Guam. The Tramps gig was like 60s. I was struck again by the quality of up when he found out I was from California. seeing Mozart playing piano in a border the material and the depth of that singing He started in on some stories about whorehouse . . . something like that. Pick voice. The audience, mostly under thirty, and the Collins Kids. He was just your own metaphor. Haggard is the one be - seemed to be discovering Haggard for the getting into it when the road manager pulled lievable heir to and Lefty first time. They’d discovered Johnny Cash a him away. They handed him his telecaster and Frizzell; so here’s Haggard at Tramps and few years before. pointed to the stage. is playing stadiums. I’m not Merle did an encore and Two years later he returned out to demean hard working artists, but packed up. The audience INSIDE to NewYork. I took a girlfriend Brooks, in the interviews I’ve read, seems wouldn’t leave. They kept to see him at Tramps. She was more concerned with the quality of the t- stomping. The roadies had to PASS THE a big Lefty Frizzell fan; I knew shirts he sells than actually crafting lasting set up the drums again and PICANTE: DUG she’d love Merle. Tramps is a country songs. (Haggard: “I don’t really bring Merle off the bus for HEADS SOUTH TO loud, obnoxious New York understand the Garth thing . . . he’s a nice another encore. He seemed “roots” bar with inflated drink kid, but he’s not turning my crank.” Amen.) genuinely moved and amazed OLD EL PASO prices, wired waitresses, and a A few weeks later, I talked to Dave Alvin that anyone in New York really page 5 fifty thousand dollar sound about co-producing a Haggard tribute gave a shit. Here was a man CHRISTMAS CASH: system that feeds back all record. A group of roots writers singing caught up in that legendary night. It was a step down for Merle songs. It would have to be a good rut Johnny Cash had experi - ONE MORE ROUND Haggard. Merle stumbled on one, with believable artists. The tribute enced: what does a legend do Page 12 stage, wavered, slid into “Mis - record concept has been done to death and in the later years? You’re still ery and Gin,” and tried to find You don’t have very far to go to page 4 HAG GARD ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION continued from cover most of those records are inconsistent. Dave . . . there is probably enough great Haggard she named Haggard’s “Big City” as her favorite liked the Haggard idea, and he recorded for an songs to fill ten tribute records. We agreed to go song. I called and left her a message, and she appropriate roots label, Hightone Records. ahead. cut the track with Jim Rooney in Nashville. It The owners of Hightone, Larry Sloven and We wanted Merle on the record, but it was was coming together. Near the end, Dave Alvin Bruce Bromberg, were major Haggard fans. difficult to penetrate his fortress on Mt. Shasta; They supported the project from the start. the headquarters of “Hag, Inc.” He had his A few months later I got a call that there hands full. He was five million dollars in debt On modern country: “Some of this stuff was news about the project in Billboard. A pro - and hadn’t been played on country radio in five I hear sounds like strained years—yet folks were doing tribute and I movies on him, and the CMA was inducting through milquetoast. Everything f I don’t get the respect and that him into the Hall of Fame. In addition to all that, sounds like the same line-dance tempo. I think we deserve with this he had to stay on the bus and make a living. I don’t give a damn about line dancing. We began recording in L.A. with tracks by (1994) , I’m going to make one more. I’m There’s no soul, there’s no feel, there’s no , Rosie Flores, , Dave going to call it On The Edge of Extinction. Alvin, and myself. David Lindley, Butch Han - story. I’m just a little blacker than that. It’s going to be an environmentally cock, and were supposed to be on In fact, I’m thinking of doing some tours oriented album. And then I’m going to do the record, but it never worked out. Others through the South for black people.” something else with my life.” recorded on their own and sent the tracks. from X cut a track in California and —Merle Haggard , New York Times —Merle Haggard , New York Times Robert Earl Keen was working on the play “Chippy” in Philly and got the band (Lloyd Maines and crew) to back him on “Daddy ran into in a clothing store in ject on Arista. Wrong project. We found out Frank.” finished his track at his ranch in L.A. Dave told him about the record and there was another Haggard tribute record hap - Austin. recorded his track solo in Dwight was into it. He cut his track in Venice, pening in Nashville. I got a hold of the pro - Nashville: the heart breaking, bluesy, “Shop - California, at Mad Dog. Just Dwight and his ducer, Bruce Bouton, who used to play steel ping For Dresses.” guitar. with . Bruce said he was recording likes to work against the “the stars doing Merle’s hits,” but our album T final deadline. Her track was complete the day and theirs would be compatible. He was right here’s the guy I’d love to be and the before the mastering. The cover art was put together by the same artist who worked on guy I am, and I’m somewhere Dave Alvin’s King of California . Photos were in between. In deep water, you know. culled from the Bakersfield archives, and Bruce Bromberg found a pair of Haggard tickets from Swimming to the other shore.” the 60s that appear on the sleeve. There’s also a shot of the old Blackboard Lounge where —Merle Haggard , Journal of Country Music Merle and and Tommy Collins jammed on Saturday afternoons in Bakers - field. Dave and I kept working on persuading Lu - Besides the artists and great songs, there’s a IT’S cinda Williams to cut a song. She’d moved to lot of legendary guitar players on the record: EA- Nashville and got a deal with American Eddy Shaver (plays with “Shaver” and has CALENDAR S AIN! Records. We had to have Lucinda on this toured with Yoakam), Amos Garrett, David SON AG record. I was also thinking of Billy Joe Shaver, Grissom (Joe Ely and Mellencamp), Andrew and kept trying to contact him. No luck. I went Hardin (who’s played with me for a decade or out to work a rodeo in Innistall, Alberta, so), Gurf Morlix (LucindaWilliams), rounded a corner of the arena, and ran into (Matthew Sweet, k.d. lang), Rosie Flores, Barry Billy Joe and his band. He said he’d love to be on Tashian (Barry and the Remains, Gram Par - the album. Watching Shaver that night was sons), Lloyd Maines, and Dave Alvin. akin to seeing Hank Williams backed by the We opened the trap door of Haggard’s Stones. Raw and direct. We cut his track, “Ram - catalog and rediscovered a hundred great blin’ Fever,” in Nashville. songs, and each artist on the record sang as if Marshall Crenshaw cut his track in Wood - they’d written the song they covered. I’m stock, playing all the instruments himself. confident this record goes beyond the bound - Dave Alvin had the idea of Barrence Whitfield aries that cripple most tribute records.You can performing “Irma Jackson,” reversing the color listen to this album more than once, and it scheme in this song about a mixed-race rela - might prompt you to search out those old tionship. (Merle wrote the song in the early 60s Haggard LPs and remember the days when and didn’t record it for a few years, feeling it “country” wasn’t an embarrassing word. was “controversial.”) Haggard and Billy Joe Shaver are the last of a At this time, I was on the road in Canada rare breed of country . Let us now Expires one month from publication date. and read an interview with Iris Dement where praise famous men.

 SOUND The soldiers are all joking, smoking in the dark MORE ON MERLE Detractors often dredge up “Okie From ’em to music. (See ‘Schoolhouse Rock’). Muskogee” or “The Fightin’ Side of Me” as 7. Complete thought is not a prerequisite: evidence of exaggerated patriotism, but Lyrics can be nonsense. There's an entire pop - Post Script they’ve missed the point. Haggard’s songs are ulation out there that thinks the music takes the work of an uncompromising, honest precedence! So you (as the one group member Editor’s Note: Two Merle Haggard tribute writer. He may be the last of a breed of great who can spell “precedence”) feel free to jump recordings have, conincidentally, been released country songwriters that began with Jimmie from one lane of thought to another without within weeks of each other: one, a “Nashville” Rodgers and continued through Hank bowling shoes and leave chunks of unrelated pop country styled hits package, Mama’s Hun - Williams and Lefty Frizzell. images lying around like day-old trout in the gry Eyes, and the other a singer- in - This project wasn’t “the stars doing Merle’s cereal aisle ’cause this is poetry and listeners terpretation disc, Tulare Dust . On Crook and hits,” just a group of acclaimed roots perform - should fill in gaps the guitarist doesn't cover. Chase’s “Nashville Tonight,” the former was the ers singing their favorite Merle song. We men - For instance, one of my favorite Evan main topic, with the latter only getting a brief tioned the name “Haggard” and these writers Dando lines: “Mortar, bricks and alumnium, mention. However, Merle chose to perform said they’d love to be involved. As we listened step one figure two / I know it's probably not “Tearin’ The Labor Camps Down,” the song back to the performances, we were moved by my place, watch the water drain a different recorded on Tulare Dust. Then, each singer’s ability to get “inside” the Hag - way.” Powerful, brief, obvious—and no one has during a recent press conference, Merle was gard song and make it their own. to delve any deeper than Hurricane toiletbowl asked, in reference to the Nashville disc, which Merle Haggard’s recorded work and song imagery. But peek under the floorboards of was his favorite track. In a brilliant faux pas, catalog insure his position as the most impor - those words and you might re-imagine your he chose Iris Dement’s rendition of “Big City” tant country singer-songwriter of the last thirty entire perception of reality, go stag to the from the singer-songwriter collection. years. Go out and find the records. Listen to prom, carve Devil’s Towers in mashed pota - Merle was inducted into the Country the songs. His kind ain’t comin’ ’round again. toes and never, ever shake the Ben & Jerry’s Music Hall of Fame in October, so we decided —Tom Russell and Dave Alvin mailing list. (See ‘USA Up All Night’). to give him his due. When we approached Tom 8a. Tell ’em what you're gonna tell ’em, Tell to write our cover story, he asked if we could ’em, Tell ’em what you told ’em : Concentrate STAFF NOTES continued from page 2 reprint the original Tulare Dust liner notes he on that tambourine solo ’til your writings had written with Dave Alvin, which had been formidable seductress because it: reach speed, but find at least one killer phrase edited on the disc booklet because of space 1. Ensures you'll never have to keep track and work it, work it, work it! (See ‘Joe Cocker,’ limitations. Anyone who knows me could of one of those peculair little HMO I.D. cards. ‘KC and the Sunshine Band,’ ‘Kiss,’ ‘the Police,’ guess how appalled I was at the idea of editing (See ‘Victoria Williams’). ‘’, that German band, ‘Trio’ (“Da any artists’ written word, so I immediately 2. Is way up on the list of wild things you Da Da ...”), etc., etc. agreed. Here they are: gotta do at least once: i.e., Modeling center 8b. Stop, Drop & Roll: One song per killer Merle Haggard was born April 6, 193 7, in a runway at the fall Harley Wear showing in Stur - phrase, please. (See ‘Sting’). converted boxcar on the outskirts of Bakers - gis, South Dakota; wrestling six-year olds to the field, California. His family had migrated a few pavement for John Goodman dablooms in the Stephen King, Amy Tan, and Dave Barry years earlier from Checotah, Oklahoma, during middle of Canal Steet; biting into a Quick Trip have already formed a rock band to promote the Great Dust Bowl period chronicled in Stein - blueberry muffin. literacy, but rumor has it they’ve been stiffed at ’s The Grapes of Wrath and in the songs of 3. Dress code is optimal : You can dismiss every gig. So there’s little need for panic. Be - Woody Guthrie. After his father’s death in 1946, any major embarrasments as gimmick, atti - sides, if a mass publishing exodus has oc - Merle spent his childhood hopping freights up tude or bad management—goes without say - curred, there are still enough old comic-books and down the San Joaquin Valley, pursuing a ing to the hair thing (see ‘Flock of Seagulls’). to keep Hollywood afloat until John Gresham reckless track through reform schools and labor 4. Speech impediments welcome: A buddy and Bob Vila finish their greatest duets album. camps, dead-ending in a fifteen-year sentence of mine was convinced Trip Shakespeare was I just pray that if Jay Farrar of UncleTupelo for burglary in San Quentin in 1957. singing “Vasserettes!” (a low-end line of loun - stabs at noveldom before making it big with After parole in 1960, Haggard turned to gerie) for sometime before she read the Lulu his new band, he remembers the importance music. He played with California country leg - tape cover. And it always confused me why of scrawling “Final Casting Approval! ” all over ends Tommy Collins and before Johnny Fever couldn’t say “booger” on the air the contract when the book sells to script. (See landing his first record deal with Tally in 1962. but DJ's everywhere blared “So come on get ‘Anne Rice,’ see ‘Tom Cruise.’) In 1965 he moved to Capitol Records and nude, little girl!” by .38 Special. —Terie Clement racked up twenty-five number one hits. In 6. “As they shouted out with glee, Rudolph, 1976 he changed to MCA Records and charted you'll go down in history.” Whereas, I do have seventeen top twenty hits before moving on acquantances capable of quoting sweeping to Epic and eventually Curb. Most of the hits passages from Hemingway, John Cheever and were Haggard originals. Along the way, he The Outsiders on command, my power of recall DISCS & TAPES recorded two outstanding tribute albums to is limited. (But I guess that Ralph Machio was —— ——— —— Jimmie Rodgers and , teaching him - about thirty-two when they made the last se - new used self fiddle for the Wills project. quel to Karate Kid and posed the question: “did DOLLARS OFF WITH THIS AD Haggard’s classic songs have encompassed they really call her ‘Cherry’ because she had red New Tape or CD $1 off all styles and topics, from early California dust hair?”) The preamble to the Constitution, how - bowl stories (“Tulare Dust,” “Hungry Eyes”), ever, is always fresh in my mind (though I’ll Used Tape or CD $2 off prison songs (“,” “Branded have to hum it), and I am very secure in the Sale items excluded Man”), drinking songs (“Swingin’ Doors,” “The whereabouts of Lolly Lolly Lolly’s adverbs. I SANTA FE Olathe Bottle Let Me Down”), road songs (“White Line think the majority of us out here are Potsies ૽ N E L Fever,” “Ramblin’ Fever”), work songs, blues (Happy Days as opposed to garden variety.) If - 113 S. Mur-Len R and swing tunes, and at least a hundred great you want your ideas to outlast cola freshness- U M 829-8333 love songs. dating, don't assign them in English Lit 3, set

I’ll have another cigarette and curse Sir Walter Raleigh, he was such a stupid get SOUND 