In Memoriam: Merle Haggard, 1937–2016 | Hacker News Reader

In Memoriam: Merle Haggard, 1937–2016

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72 pointstintinnabula25 comments

Most anecdotes about pop culture are bullshit. But the one about the implosion of country & western music is very real.

The number of country acts that actually still create music different from pop/rock is so staggeringly small it breaks my heart.

The vast majority are a caricature that play pop with a twang.

That reality makes the loss of folks like Merle Haggard much more pointed. There hasn't been an effective passing of the torch.

It's akin to the loss of the last generation of traditional folk artists in the late 50s.

Justin Townes Earle, Sturgill Simpson (see below), are real good and to a certain extent, many of the "folk-ish" rock bands (Old 97s and the like) carry the torch somewhat. Country instruments have moved quite a bit into indy music in the last ten-fifteen years as well.

The worst about pop-country music IMO now, is that popular country used to have absolutely great singing voices, sing cleanly with a sort of neutral phrasing quite different from the emotional grunting of rock&roll singers. Merle Haggard being a great example. Now, men sound like a parody. Not only do they sing like crap, the lyrics are absolute shit. It's pretty much all "it's friday, time to call in sick, take a long weekend to go fishin'". Urgh.

What? My life exclusively consists of getting off work on Friday night to drink beer at some tailgate / bonfire out at the county line and finding some girl in Levis and a ballcap to jump in my truck and taaake it slooow on some back road... something something fill your cup with ice-cold beer, look into her baby blue eyes, etc.

Country is at a nadir right now, and I'm seeing a lot of parallels to mid-2000s rap. I hope that it experiences a similar revival, because I really do like a lot of older country music. These days, I've been listening a lot more to folk music to get the thoughtful lyrics, and it's sad that it's going further and further underground.

I think it's an entirely new genre these days. Try to pick out all of the styles, including rap, this song touches on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve8sNTqrzCw

You might give a listen to Jason Isbell. I'm no country aficionado--closest I'll go is Jenny Lewis or Neko Case, usually--but Isbell seems to get back to the thoughtful lyrics and good execution that used to make stars.

Adding to the list, mostly Texas artists but Guy Clark (leaving us soon), Robert Earl Keen, Slaid Cleaves, James McMurtry, Hayes Carll. These are true storytellers in the vein of Merle and worth looking into.

Indeed. The Texas music scene is alive and well. I would classify most of the guys in the parent comment as folk or folk-rock but there are plenty of real-deal country-western singer-songwriters in this genre. Max Stalling [1] is one of the finest country songwriters I've ever heard and it's a shame that he's never gotten the recognition he deserves. Bruce Robison is another that comes to mind, though mainstream country listeners will recognize many of his songs that have been covered by the hat act types.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYtiE3cAEC0

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBcM96iopPo

Edit: How could I forget Jamey Johnson? Here's one of him alongside Robert Earl Keen and Raul Malo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dajb94tV-eM

And female artists in a similar vein: Lucinda Williams, Brandi Carlile and Gillian Welch immediately come to mind.

A great site (IMHO) for keeping up with musicians in the style of these guys is Jessie Scott's musicfog.com. Jessie Scott was the program director for X Country on XM, before it was replaced with whatever Sirius runs there now and it was her programming that really expanded my music base (I would likely have never heard of any of these artists if not for X Country).

+1 for X Country and Outlaw Country on Sirius. Also, take any artist from the lists above, start a station on Pandora and you will get a wonderful lesson into today's musical storytellers.

Kathleen Edwards is another female voice for the list.

+1 for John Prine

My first reaction is to agree, and wonder whether we're homogenizing our music culture the same way we're homogenizing our food culture.

That said, I think all hope is not lost. I took guitar lessons from a local bluegrass musician, and, through him, have learned of a lot of little local jam sessions (I live in Raleigh, NC and bluegrass is one of the local music styles around here.) Through dropping in on these jams, I've heard a lot of great music, both passed down and original, that I'd never hear on the radio. Ask around, there might be something local/live/non-radio where you are.

A former coworker is down in Cary and plays banjo. I had no idea it was as difficult as it seems to be. I think WKNC has some bluegrass on their schedule on Saturday mornings.

The mainstream is always a process of homogenization, but there's always an underground from which the mainstream picks and chooses its future.

In the 1960s you had Countrypolitan. It's not like something similar hasn't happened before.

It always comes back. Besides, WSM stands for "We Shield Millions", the motto of the New York based insurance company that started all that.

Not only has it happened before, it's continuously happening all the time in an infinity of directions. Pop culture is "you're soaking in it."

Yes absolutely, sir.

I will continue to blame MADD, although other distractions probably account for a loss of interest in live music.

We've always homogenized music culture.

You might like my friends' band The Civil Warblers: https://civilwarblers.bandcamp.com/

They're not a band any more since the singer passed last August but they had some great honkytonkesque country songs.

It didn't seem to be mentioned in the article, but Merle Haggard was there when Johnny Cash played ""Folsom Prison Blues" at San Quentin. That's what inspired him to be a singer:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/inmate-merle-hagg...

Haggard: "Funny you mention that, Johnny."

Cash: "What?"

Haggard: "San Quentin."

Cash: "Why's that?"

Haggard: "The first time I ever saw you perform, it was at San Quentin."

Cash: "I don't remember you being in that show, Merle."

Haggard: "I was in the audience, Johnny."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-merle-h...

Thanks for that. It made me think of a comment Cash makes on another live recording, about singing "a song written by someone right here at Folsom". Unfortunately, that wasn't Haggard, it was another inmate, and it appears he didn't fare as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Sherley

"Glen Milborn Sherley (March 9, 1936 − May 11, 1978) was an American criminal who became a country singer-songwriter after his song "Greystone Chapel" was made famous by Johnny Cash in 1968. Sherley wrote the song while in prison and it was performed by Cash at his Folsom Prison performance, later released as the album At Folsom Prison. Sherley was on the front row, unaware that his song was to be played.

Sherley subsequently wrote and performed a number of other songs. However, despite help from Cash, he was unable to adjust to life outside of prison, eventually committing suicide at the age of 42."

The interview he gave along with Sturgill Simpson might have been his last.

http://gardenandgun.com/article/legend-and-renegade

NPR's Fresh Air re-ran host Terry Gross's 1995 interview with Haggard last week. Available via podcast or I think this direct link to their embedded player will work: http://www.npr.org/player/embed/473559002/473559008

The Americana acts are keeping a pseudo honky-tonk tradition alive, somewhat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6LsnxaAcgE

"The society that supported it died out."

I'm slowly trying to get some Ernest Tubb and Ray Price on the setlist of the band I'm in but it's a hard sell. These are guys in their forties.

Edit: schpellings

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