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.