Having one of the most recognizable voices in country music can take a man a long way.

Want to do a blues album? Willie did.

Or how about covering Will Oldham?

Look no further than the wide shadow of Johnny Cash for that business.

But Merle Haggard has always been one to stick to his impulses, and this time, following up his comeback with something for grandpa, is Roots Volume 1. (More songs from the session will be released, Haggard told me so this week.)

Merle is a Lefty Frizzell freak. So it was good news to him when he discovered Norman Stephens, Frizzell's guitarist who Haggard at least a bit parroted when learning his own picking, lived down the road, so to speak, in northern California. Stephens had placed an ad in a local paper and Haggard, as you can hear on this album, took full advantage of the opportunity.

There are a lot of musical cues right off that this was going to be a great album. That warbled sound of the slide guitar, the simplicity of the arrangements, the material, of course, and Haggard's obvious love of the material. He's aping his childhood heroes, now a man much older than they were when they recorded songs like Always Late (With Your Kisses), Honky Tonkin' and The Wild Side of Life. All of them are found here, recorded well with a certain resonance in Haggard's living room.

Merle's own songs blend seamlessly with these classics, a very clever trick, and the album's a perfect play on a Saturday afternoon.

Makes you wonder if the dust bowl's rolling back in soon.

Gulp. (More on: Merle Haggard).

Saturday, October 13, 2001

Haggard shines