Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard

Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard

by Merle Haggard
Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard

Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard

by Merle Haggard

CD(Remastered)

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Overview

There are perhaps as many as a hundred Merle Haggard compilations out there on labels obscure and well-known. Most of them are crap because they present too few of the great songwriter's works and/or do so in a dodgy manner. Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard, issued by Capitol, isn't one of them. In fact, it just may be the best single-disc representation of the man's music out there. It's true: Capitol released the vast majority of the songs that established Haggard as the true poet of the working man and for starters here, there are 26 cuts on this set. The majority of them come from Capitol of course, but they also chart Haggard's singles on labels like MCA and Epic, as well as his later independent material all the way down to his duet with Toby Keith on "She Ain't Hooked on Me No More" from 2005. The sound is phenomenal, and so is the package, with two sets of liner notes by the venerable Joel Selvin and Haggard's Capitol producer Ken Nelson. There's also a blurb form the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir that murdered a few Haggard tunes back in the day, but don't hold that against him. All the hits are here, from "The Bottle Let Me Down" in 1966 to the killer "Workin' Man Blues" in 1969, to 1973's poignant ballad "If We Make It Through December"; from the Jimmy Bowen-produced "I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink" in 1980 to his Columbia period, which nailed down the hits "Big City" in 1982 with Lewis Talley and the classic duets with Willie Nelson ("Pancho and Lefty") and Johnny Cash ("I'm Leavin' Now"), to his own "Runaway Mama" and "That's the News," from 2001 and 2003 respectively. Combine that with the Keith duet and you have literally 40 years of music form the man on a single CD. And yeah, the two legendary redneck stompers, "Okie from Muskogee" and "Fightin' Side of Me" are here too because they had to be, but so is "Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde." This is sure to turn anyone who is curious into a Haggard fan. And for those who have everything, this is just a killer mix. Highly recommended. ~ Thom Jurek

Product Details

Release Date: 09/12/2006
Label: Capitol
UPC: 0094636270425
Rank: 54497

Tracks

  1. The Bottle Let Me Down
  2. Branded Man
  3. Sing Me Back Home
  4. The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde
  5. Today I Started Loving You Again
  6. Mama Tried
  7. I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am
  8. I'm Bringing Home Good News
  9. Hungry Eyes
  10. Workin' Man Blues
  11. Silver Wings
  12. Okie from Muskogee
  13. The Fightin' Side of Me
  14. Someday We'll Look Back
  15. If We Make It Through December
  16. Things Aren't Funny Anymore
  17. Honky Tonk Night Time Man
  18. Old Man from the Mountain
  19. Living with the Shades Pulled Down
  20. I Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink
  21. Big City
  22. Pancho and Lefty
  23. I'm Leaving Now
  24. Runaway Mama
  25. That's the News
  26. She Ain't Hooked on Me No More

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Merle Haggard   Primary Artist
Johnny Cash   Primary Artist
Toby Keith   Primary Artist
Merle Haggard & the Strangers   Primary Artist
Willie Nelson   Primary Artist

Technical Credits

Lewis Talley   Producer
Dean Holloway   Composer
Scotty Emerick   Composer
Julian King   Producer
Jimmy Bowen   Producer
Rick Rubin   Producer
Merle Haggard   Composer,Producer
Mark Chalecki   Mastering
Toby Keith   Composer,Producer
Willie Nelson   Producer
Tom Recchion   Art Direction
Townes Van Zandt   Composer
Chips Moman   Producer
Lou Bradley   Producer
Joel Selvin   Liner Notes
Johnny Cash   Producer
Roy Edward Burris   Composer
Herb Agner   Compilation Producer
Michael Ruthig   Compilation Producer
Charles Owen   Producer
Norman Seeff   Photography
Paul Moore   Design
James Stroud   Producer
Rob Christie   Compilation Producer
Bonnie Owens   Composer
Piper Ferguson   Photography
Ken Nelson   Producer,Liner Notes
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