For the Record 43 Legendary Hits by Merle Haggard

For the Record 43 Legendary Hits

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For the Record 43 Legendary Hits

Features

Audio CD (August 24, 1999)

Original Release Date: August 24, 1999

Number of Discs: 2

Label: Bna Entertainment

Catalog Number: 67844

Amazon.com
History occurs twice, first as tragedy, later as farce--or so the adage goes. With these new versions of old classics, Merle Haggard is somewhere between defying and fulfilling that fate. Some cuts are like faded carbon copies; others, given Hag's stately quaver, have a mellow poignancy; a few, like the duets with Jewel, Brooks & Dunn, and Alabama, are simply irrelevant. But just when you're ready to dismiss such misguided revisionism, there's a refreshed, superlative version of "Pancho and Lefty" and the perfected heartbreak of "Going Where the Lonely Go." To his credit, Haggard sticks with his long-running road band, and it's hard to imagine anyone else delivering these songs with more authority, more emotional insight. Anyone, that is, save their original interpreters: Merle Haggard and the Strangers of the '60s and '70s, whose definitive work can still be heard on collections like the four-CD Down Every Road and double-disc Lonesome Fugitive. Haggard may never make records that great again, but perhaps he'll find a new, and not redundant, way to harness his timeless gifts. --Roy Kasten

Reader Reviews
this one has them all!mama tried opens it up.its all about rebelling.sing a sad song is well,very sad as many of his songs.no one does a sad song quite like merle.branded man is all about not being able to live down the past.sing me back home is a tale of a prisoner who wants sung to at his execution.okie from muskogee is all about how nice things are where hes from and how every place should be that way.fightin side of me is all about hippies and how he dislikes their non-violent policy.everybodys had the blues is like a i understand you kind of song for the depressed and dispirited.im always on a mountain when i fall is,once again,less than jolly.my favorite merle song is misery and gin about a guy trying to drink a chick off his mind unsucessfully.i think ill just stay here and drink is great for drinking to.then theres a classic called are the good times really over about how everything good about this country is going straight to hell.theres a funny line in it ,"back before microwave ovens when a girl could still cook and chop wood".i love that line.aplace to fall apart is another sad one.this guy is the best country singer out there.ive talked about 12 great songs here.there are 23 more good ones on the album!

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