Word: haggards
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Shouting crowds of fans turn out everywhere on Haggard's current nationwide tour. Giving his first concerts ever in New York City last month, he packed the 4,600-seat Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden twice in one night. Last week, as the Haggard caravan worked its way from Wichita, into Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the scene was a familiar one. The lean, darkly virile star came out in plain navy blue slacks and open shirt, leaned into the spotlight and sang in his sensuous, leathery baritone Things Aren't Funny Anymore, the current No. 1 country...
Like his songs, a Haggard concert is simple and direct. No fancy cowboy suits, rhinestone decorations or hand-tooled boots for him. He may introduce his wife Bonnie Owens, a well-known singer who divorced Country Star Buck Owens twelve years before she married Haggard in 1965. Or he will tease his fans by saying "Merle Haggard isn't here tonight. I'm filling in for him. Those of you who aren't country music fans, you're in the wrong damn place...
...Merle Haggard calls country lyrics "just journalism put to music." That definition suits some recent hits particularly well. There have been songs about ecology (One Hundred Children, Sonic Bummer, Don't Go Near the Water), welfare (Geronimo's Cadillac), amorphous doubts about politics and leadership (Vermont Suite: More Cows Than People) and alcoholism (Pay No Attention to Alice). Haggard's Irma Jackson is a touching look at interracial love ("There's no way the world will understand that love is colorblind/ That's why Irma Jackson can't be mine"). Tanya Tucker sings...
Backwoods Appeal. In the midst of country's booming supermarket of traditional goods and new brands, teaser displays and soaring profits, Merle Haggard stands virtually alone as a pure, proud and prominent link between country's past and present. He is not about to record with a couple of dozen violins to woo the easy-listening audience or hire a rock band to turn on the kids. Haggard has wide enough range and appeal already. Two of country's best-selling performers, Charley Pride and Charlie Rich, sing primarily heart songs. Tom T. Hall specializes in social...
...only other country singer with Haggard's kind of versatility is Johnny Cash, 42, who unfortunately weakened his once authentic backwoods appeal with a series of network TV commercials for industrial America. Cash may restore some of his lost luster with a new single called Ragged Old Flag, which plays on America's patriotic wish to believe in itself, Watergate or no. Against the background of snare drums, banjos and a reverential chorus, Cash tells how the flag was shot up and torn at the Alamo and Chancellorsville, and then intones...