Although most widely known for “Okie From Muskogee,” a right-leaning interpretation of what Haggard felt the working class folks that he most identified with would feel in regards to the youth counterculture movement of the sixties, the far from conservative behavior he exhibited since boyhood landed him in jail many times as he grew older, culminating in a lengthy bit in San Quentin where he saw Johnny Cash perform no less than three times. Effectively inspired, Haggard got his act together and upon his release from prison began performing and recording in earnest.
Most of the individual tunes that eventually got Haggard the much deserved nod into the Country Music Hall of Fame are all here. You shall not want for “The Bottle Let Me Down,” “Mama Tried,” “Hungry Eyes,” “If We Make It Through December,” or “Today I Started Loving You Again.”
Can't handle the wheelbarrow load of sappy ballads? Shoot, maybe you're not much of a country fan to begin with. Regardless, “Honky Tonk Nighttime Man,” “Old Man From The Mountain” and “Living With The Shades Pulled Down” with thumping bass rhythms, Haggard's distinctive electric guitar plucking, whooping and hollering will get your motor going.
Maybe it never topped the charts (unlike almost every other tune on this compilation), but hearing Merle and Cash collaborate on Cash's own “I'm Leaving Now,” is a true blessing to the ears. Despite the overproduced sound (heavily emphasized keyboards and backing vocals) the same can be said of Haggard's excellent work with Willie Nelson on “Pancho and Lefty.”
With forty number one hits in a career spanning over four decades, the twenty-six cuts included on this album give a good sampling of what Hag, the legend, has done. In short, the man that popularized a more hard-driving electric sound into country music while peppering it with his own take on the common country themes of drinking, jail time, poverty, faith and loss proudly sits atop the heap of today's ten gallon imitators, mocking their modern pop friendly attempts with his own immortal catalog of golden song. |