#284 Merle Haggard, 'Down Every Road 1962-1994' (1996)
Previously #477
Wow, I feel like I’ve just come out of a long, deep sleep. That was a marathon of a listen. 100 songs, 4 hours and 46 minutes of straight up Country Music. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, box sets have no place on an albums list. The art of an album is refining the tracklisting to make a cohesive collection of songs. A career-spanning boxset is not that. Not to say I don’t like box sets, the opposite, I love a good deep dive into an artist’s career, but when you’re munching through 500 albums, to get stuck on one for a whole day (yes, a day because doesn’t matter if it’s Country, Metal, Rock, Hip Hop etc. it’s a bit exhausting to listen to the same thing for 5 hours and give it your full attention). Now that that’s out of the way, ‘Down Every Road’ spans the majority of Merle Haggard’s successful career. Merle Haggard was the real deal. He was the outlaw that Johnny Cash fantasised about being. Due to a troubled childhood (his father suddenly passed away when he was 9-years-old. Haggard taught himself to play guitar when he was 12, but he found it more appealing to go out and cause trouble when he mother was at work. His teen years were fraught with stints in and out of juvey for shoplifting, robbery, petty larceny, truancy etc. He decided on a career in music after one of his stints in juvey. He got married when he was 19 years old and due to financial issues, he tried to rob a Bakersfield Roadhouse. He was caught and sent to Bakersfield Jail. After an escape attempt he was sent to San Quentin Prison. While there, he discovered that his wife was pregnant with another man’s child. He planned an escape with a friend but pulled out at the last minute. His mate escaped, shot a policeman and was executed. He was convinced by another inmate to turn his life around but it was an event on January 1st 1959 that really inspired him to turn his life around and pursue his dream of being a musician; Johnny Cash performed live at San Quentin Prison (and famously released an album of the recording). He was released on parole the following year and successfully chased down his dream.
Quite a life! This boxset is separated into 4 discs; 1962 – 1967, 1968 – 1970, 1970 – 1976 & 1977 – 1994. To be honest, I thought most of the songs were great. As his career progressed, so did his sound. Country was always there, but there were elements of Southern Rock and Rockabilly too in some songs. Most with a storyline, some funny, some sad, some even autobiographical (‘Mama Tried’ about his own mother, ‘Grandma Harp’ about his Grandmother). The best song, or at least the only one I knew and enjoyed most was ‘Okie From Muskogee.’ The song condemns drug use and protests of the Vietnam War. Haggard said that he knew what it was like to lose one’s freedom and the soldiers had lost their to make sure that the protestors could keep their freedom. The song has been covered by artists like Melvins, The Beach Boys, Grateful Dead and The Flaming Lips. This review has turned out to be exactly as long as it took me to listen to the boxset. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.
#rs500albums