The Tracking Angle: Two Re-Issues from Merle Haggard

Merle Haggard:
Vintage Collections
Produced by Ken Nelson and Fuzzy Owen
Compilation produced by John Johnson
Re-Mastered by Glenn Meadows at Masterfonics
Capitol Nashville 7243-8-33838-2-5

Music: 10 Sound: 8

Merle Haggard:
A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (or, My Salute to Bob Wills)
Produced by Produced by Earl Ball
Engineered by Hugh Davies
Digital Transfer: Capitol Studios/Larry Walsh
Digital Remastering: Jeff Zaraya
KOCH 3-7900-2

Music: 10 Sound: 7

Merle Haggard isn't just one of the greatest country artists of all time; he's one of the greatest artists of all time, period. Sure, his music is as hard country as it gets: cheatin' songs, drinkin' songs, truckin' songs and prison songs, framed by the classic musical settings of steel guitar, honky-tonk piano, staccato Telecasters and lush vocal and instrumental accompaniments. Yet Haggard is one of those rare few in any genre who can take a handful of simple chords, an unforgettable melody, and lyrics that directly and profoundly express life's realities and forge them into transcendent musical masterpieces. No one can sing a song with more conviction. Haggard has seen prison walls, substance abuse, lost loves and squandered fortunes, through the windows of a tour bus that never stops traveling and the stages of every joint from Broadway to Bakersfield—and you can hear that lifetime of living in the hard lane resonate in every note.

Yeah hoss, I don't know about you, but when I want to hear some music, I'm not gonna listen to no jive-ass VH-1 trash; life's too short; I want to hear music when I want to listen, like Thelonious Monk, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Ray Charles, Hank Williams—and Merle Haggard. I can think of no better way to get acquainted or reacquainted with the man's music than these two recently re-issued CDs from Capitol Nashville and KOCH International.

The Merle Haggard: Vintage Collections CD isn't a "greatest hits" or "best of" collection. Haggard wrote magnificent songs for both Capitol and MCA, enough to make three or four greatest hits albums (and in fact, there are plenty; get 'em all!), and no one CD could contain even the cream of the crop. Rather, what compilation producer John Johnson has done here is compile an outstanding 20-song representative selection of Haggard's Sixties and early Seventies Capitol recordings, along with two unreleased selections, "Worried, Unhappy, Lonesome and Sorry" and "Streets Of Berlin."

You do get classic-among-classics such as the prison songs "Mama Tried" (a longtime staple of Grateful Dead concerts; its outlaw sentiment meshed with the Dead's perfectly) and "I Am A Lonesome Fugitive," the classic barroom boilers "Swinging Doors" and "The Bottle Let Me Down," and of course, who could forget "Okie From Muskogee?" (You shoulda heard all the X-Generation Noo Yawkers, all about as Okie as Ed Koch, gleefully singing along with him at a recent Big Apple performance.)

Also included are other standouts of Haggard's career such as "They're Tearing the Labor Camps Down" and "Sing Me Back Home," live versions of "White Line Fever," Family Bible," "The Fightin' Side Of Me" and the aforementioned "Okie," and other Serious Heavyweights, brilliantly rendered by Haggard and the Strangers, including such legendary sidemen as Telemasters Roy Nichols and James Burton and Norman Hamlet providing the very definition of country pedal steel guitar. Because this isn't a "greatest hits" collection, you don't get such Capitol-era essentials as "Silver Wings," "Workin' Man Blues," and "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers," still, this CD is a well-balanced overview of the pioneering years of a country music titan.

Just as today's generation of country music stars freely acknowledge their artistic, stylistic and inspirational debts to Merle Haggard—two tribute albums in one year!—so has Haggard always paid tribute to his musical heroes, such as Lefty Frizzell, Jimmie Rodgers, and Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys. Back in 1970, Haggard recorded his Bob Wills tribute album A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player In the World in homage to the man who created Western Swing in the 1930s, combining his Strangers with six original members of Wills' band. This band nailed the Wills sound and feel, even duplicating original instrumental solos and breakdowns. It's remarkable—the record sounds utterly authentic, not some exercise in period-piece faux-reproduction, and the musicians' feeling for the music makes every track bristle with enthusiasm and rhythmic drive.

Partners, jazz ain't the only thing that swings—this is some of the most irresistibly infectious, energetic body-movin' music ever created on God's green earth, much of it the bedrock of generations of country music to follow. (Yes, "San Antonio Rose" is here.) The driving four-to-the-bar rhythm guitar of Eldon Shamblin; three part fiddle harmony; lightning-fast twin-harmony electric guitar and electric mandolin lines by Roy Nichols and Tiny Grimes; banjo, trumpet, pedal steel, bass, drums, brilliantly arranged and intertwined—lord almighty! What a fabulous album.

Interestingly, these two CDs from two different labels, mastering engineers, and equipment chains sound remarkably similar. Both are clean and utterly grainless (am I saying this about digital? Indeed...), with smooth, relatively accurate tonal balance as compared to real life as well as various vinyl originals I had on hand for comparison. The Vintage Collections CD is a bit warmer in the lower midrange and punchier in the bass, with slightly more presence, while the Tribute CD is a bit more laid back, and a degree closer to the sound of the original vinyl than the Capitol set. Both have excellent instrumental definition, good transient response, solid image placement, and moderate, not great, dynamic range. The Capitol CD has more hard left-hard right panning to many of the instruments, while the Wills set has a better sense of instruments occupying their proper positions in a realistically-sized space. Both are highly listenable, and if you never heard the original vinyl, you'd think these recordings remarkably clean and realistic.

But. The sense of realism is a false one, provided, paradoxically, by the fact that both CDs reduce ultimate low-level resolution. Everything sounds clean and well defined and easy to isolate. But the effect is analogous to a bas-relief—the individual objects of the picture are exaggeratedly heightened in order to make them each stand out. When I first heard the CDs, I thought, wow, these recordings are remarkably pristine—listen to the "pop" of the Telecaster on the "Lonesome Fugitive" solo and the articulation of the solo fiddle on "Right Or Wrong" (from the Wills set). Then I listened to the vinyl. What a difference. On the LPs, everything is connected with air and ambience between the musical spaces, forming a coherent whole conveying the ambience of the recording space. An entire level of fine musical detail is present which has been skinned from both CDs—to say nothing of the fact that some of the more subtle instrumental sounds are completely missing from the CDs! Sounds like the prototypical LP versus CD comparison, I know—here it is once again. (MF hasn't brainwashed me to toe the party line on his pages—it's simply the truth.)

On the other hand, some of my Haggard vinyl lives up to its name, and it's great to be able to hear some of this material for the first time without the ticks and pops and raspy loud-passage distortion carved into the grooves by the previous owners' crummy record players. The Capitol CD also leaves in a few things edited out of some of the original vinyl releases, such as Haggard counting off the beginning of "I Am A Lonesome Fugitive"—really enhances the "you are there" sensation of eavesdropping on the original performance.

Whatever. These two CDs still win blue-ribbon recommendations, because the sound doesn't get in the way of the music, whether a high end system or a boom box-and the music of Merle Haggard is an essential accompaniment to the life on this rock we find ourselves placed upon. In fact, you should also seek out the gems among his post-Capitol MCA material. A good place to start would be Merle Haggard's Greatest Hits [MCA-5386 on vinyl or MCAD-5386 on CD], an essential recording in its own right.