By BETH PEERLESS
Herald Correspondent
Article Launched: 02/07/2008 02:12:38 AM PST
The 70-year-old Merle Haggard has been working on a new album at his home in Redding.
Country music living legend Merle Haggard's story resembles a long and winding road filled with glorious ruts and bumps at numerous turns.
Each turn seems to contradict the last. He appears to have weathered the ups and downs in good enough spirits, his muse still intact and delivering new songs at a comfortable clip.
"I haven't changed much. I write. I have good periods, dry periods," Haggard said in his warm, inviting voice on the phone from his home outside of Redding in Northern California. "There really hasn't been anything happening up here the last month or two. I've been working on an album for about a year. I've got 11 songs that I'm calling in on it. I've got some good songs on it. Part of it may be used in a soundtrack in the movie they're doing based on my life."
The 70-year-old and his band, The Strangers, come to Monterey Tuesday evening for a show at the Golden State Theatre.
Although he's lived his life and conducted his career outside the mainstream Nashville country establishment, his 2006 recording "The Bluegrass Sessions," utilizes some of Nashville's finest to create luscious renderings of four new songs and seven Haggard classics.
"So you have Merle Haggard music that maybe you've heard in the traditional manner that's rearranged for that package," he said. "The four new ones on there are doing real good. There's one on there called 'What Happened?' It's about what's gone on in the last eight years in America. It's pretty
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factual and actual actually."
Inducted into the Country Hall of Fame in 1994, Haggard is one of the rare country artists who can't be pigeonholed into either camp of traditional country or country maverick.
Along with Buck Owens, he pioneered the Bakersfield sound, but he has always kept close ties to his love of country swing, a jazzier style identified with Bob Wills, and the honky-tonk style of Lefty Frizzell, two of his idols.
His long friendship with Willie Nelson (at the State two days prior to Haggard, and the two will appear together Feb. 9 in Reno) aligns him to the rebel outlaw gang. Plenty of music fans are left a little confused.
"Oh, there's a million stories," he replied to my interest in what goes on when he's hanging with the boys. "I don't know if I could tap into the right one for you. I've known Willie since 1964. We've made records together, we've worked together, and we've toured together. Last year we did a couple of tours called 'Last of the Breed,' where he and I and Ray Price toured together."
The breed he speaks of refers to artists from the old tradition. There he goes again, confounding what one might expect from him.
His history points to rebel, his music often points to old school, but one thing for sure, he does not buy into the Nashville star-making machinery of today.
"I don't like to talk bad about anybody. And Nashville's been awful good to me. But, like you call it squeaky clean," he said in response to my stab at describing what Nashville's putting out, "that brand of music they're making right now is really not up my alley."
Haggard was born in Bakersfield in 1937 to parents who were part of the Oklahoma exodus during the Dust Bowl years.
They lived in a converted boxcar, and his father worked as a railroad carpenter. His father died when he was 9, and his mother went to work as a bookkeeper.
Haggard began to run wild, riding the rails, roaming the Southwest doing petty crimes and finding himself locked into juvenile hall environments more than he liked.
He broke out and ran away numerous times, eventually blundering into time at San Quentin with a bungled burglary attempt while drunk.
He spent nearly three years in prison, and while there he experienced Johnny Cash in one of his prison appearances.
"Well, he certainly put a high mark on the wall," Haggard said about how he was inspired by that experience. "And he was something to admire . . .I thought, 'He knows more things than I know.' So I studied him and over the years, in 1963, I worked a show with him and met him. We became, as probably as close a friends you can become, and work in different directions. We didn't get to see a lot of each other a lot over the years."
Haggard, who plays both the guitar and violin, counts 41 No. 1 hits in his career, more than 70 albums to his name, and likely more than 150 recordings with his presence.
He is one of country music's most prolific songwriters, with classics like "Mama Tried," "Today I Started Loving You Again," "I Think I'll Just Sit Here and Drink," and the chestnut everyone has heard, "Okie From Muskogee."
For much of his life he's lived on his own terms, drinking and partying and paying the price.
Today, in his fifth marriage, he is living quieter and enjoying a healthy resurgence in his career that will bring him down another long and winding road to perform for us here in Monterey.
Beth Peerless can be reached at peerless@mbay.net. GO!
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