walking upstream…
Merle Haggard
photo: country music association · public domain ↗Merle Haggard
sourcesWikipedia · PBS Ken Burns Country Music
Born in a converted boxcar in Oildale, California in 1937 to parents who had fled the Dust Bowl, Merle Haggard served time at San Quentin as a young man before turning his rough biography into the backbone of the Bakersfield sound, a twangier, harder-edged alternative to Nashville's string-laden productions. With his band the Strangers, he racked up 38 number-one country singles across the late 1960s and 1970s, singing unsentimentally about prison, poverty, and working-class pride on songs like 'Mama Tried' and 'Workin' Man Blues.' Haggard remained a towering reference point for outlaw and neo-traditionalist country long after his 2016 death, cited by generations of Red Dirt and Americana songwriters as a model of plainspoken authenticity.
the sound in question
1968
Mama TriedMerle Haggard
walk the tributaries ↓
Lefty Frizzell1950s · Honky-tonk / Country
Haggard called Lefty Frizzell his single biggest influence and spent years as a young singer trying to mimic Frizzell's loose, behind-the-beat vocal phrasing, eventually making that stretched, conversational delivery a signature of his own singing.
listen: upstream & heresource: Variety ↗
1950
If You've Got the Money I've Got the TimeLefty Frizzell
1968
Today I Started Loving You AgainMerle Haggard
listen forPlay Frizzell's 'If You've Got the Money I've Got the Time,' listening for how he stretches and slurs syllables across the beat, then Haggard's 'Today I Started Loving You Again' — the same behind-the-beat, almost-spoken phrasing carried into Haggard's own aching delivery.
Bob Wills1930s-40s · Western swing / Country
Haggard grew up on Bob Wills's western swing records and later called Wills a major influence and one of the best performers he ever saw, going on to record a full tribute album, A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World, in Wills's honor.
listen: upstream & here
1940
New San Antonio RoseBob Wills
1969
Workin' Man BluesMerle Haggard
listen forPlay Wills's fiddle-led 'New San Antonio Rose,' then Haggard's shuffling 'Workin' Man Blues' — both ride the same loose, swinging dance-hall rhythm underneath very different lyrical subject matter.
Jimmie Rodgers1920s · Country / Old-time
Haggard named Jimmie Rodgers, country music's 'Singing Brakeman,' among his deepest influences and recorded a full album of Rodgers covers, Same Train, a Different Time, carrying forward Rodgers's mythology of the rambling, train-riding working man.
listen: upstream & here
1927
Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas)Jimmie Rodgers
1969
White Line FeverMerle Haggard
listen forListen to Rodgers's rambling 'Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas),' then Haggard's own restless trucker's lament 'White Line Fever' — both build a song around the pull of the road and a working man who can't stay put.