Mr. Merle Haggard

[Tone2TheBone]

One of my uncles called me this afternoon and asked if my wife and I would join him at our casino this evening for the Merle Haggard concert. I graciously accepted the free invite (my uncle is the president of our tribe's council so they all get free tickets to shows that come - and I wish they would get Derek Trucks here dangit!) Anywho the show was fantastic! Merle is A LEGEND and he can still KICK IT and KICK YOURS. I loved this show! We used to play many of his songs in bars and dance halls when I played live in my younger days and I sat there front row stomping my legs and singing along to all of his hits while carefully trying to capture the band's image on my cell phone camera (as did half of the audience in attendance). It was way fun. :)

[SuperSwede]

Hey thats awesome!

I love Merle Haggard! Did he play "the girl turned ripe" ?

[Algonquin]

Glad to here you had a good time. Sounded like a geat night out!.

:beer:

[Katastrophe]

Gotta love Haggard. That show sounds like a great time! I saw Merle open up (yep...OPEN) for the Oak Ridge Boys at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo many years ago at the Astrodome. Merle just kicked serious booty that night. To give you a time frame reference, The Oak Ridge Boys' "Elvira" was the popular country tune of the day.

Youtube it and laugh, fellow fretters!

[oldguy]

That sounds like a great time, Rob. Merle's one of the best country guys out there, IMO.

[t_ross33]

:bravo:

I saw Merle a couple of years ago. He still cranks 'em out! His band was one of the tightest I've seen in a long time - pretty good for a bunch of old dudes :D:master: One of his guitar players must have been close to 80! He was Lefty Frizzell's guitar player back in the day!

Roy Nichols (Merle's guitar player), along with Don Rich (Buck Owens' guitar player) are two of the reasons I play today. My Dad had Merle, Cash, Buck, Waylon and Willie in heavy rotation at home and I became addicted to that Tele Twang Thang :dude:

[bigoldron]

I saw Merle a couple of years ago also and YES he still can kick it! Another "old fart" who can still put on a heck of show is Charlie Daniels. I saw him a couple of months after the Haggard show and he blew us all away.

[wingsdad]

I saw Merle a couple of years ago. He still cranks 'em out! His band was one of the tightest I've seen in a long time - pretty good for a bunch of old dudes ...

Ditto. I took these shots of Merle & that band when he was the headliner at the 2005 Huck Finn's Country & Bluegrass Jubillee, an event held here for the last 25+ years on Father'sDay weekend. (Last year's headliner: Roy Clark).
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/wingsdad/Merle%20Huck%20Finn%2005/0711c.jpg
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/wingsdad/Merle%20Huck%20Finn%2005/0713c.jpg

I got this close to the stage cuz I was GASsing over Merle's Tele...:drool:

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b81/wingsdad/Merle%20Huck%20Finn%2005/0709c.jpg

This year, I'll be out there with my family to catch Dan Tyminski Saturday night, and on sunday for the headliners, John McEwen and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band:
Huck Finn Jubillee (http://www.huckfinn.com/)

[t_ross33]

This year, I'll be out there with my family to catch Dan Tyminski Saturday night, and on sunday for the headliners, John McEwen and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band:
Huck Finn Jubillee (http://www.huckfinn.com/)

Hey that's cool (lovin the Teles too :D). Dan Tyminski is awesome. I won front row tix from a local radio station to see Vince Gill a couple of years ago and Dan was touring as part of the band. They did a rockin' version of "Man of Constant Sorrow" that was lots of fun. Amazing flat-top picker, and Vince is a very underrated Tele wrangler IMHO. Great show (especially from the front row!)

NGDB is a long-time favorite. We cover a number of their songs and they always go over well.

[merlin]

Merle is one of the best of all time if not the best.

I saw him a couple years ago at the Ryman. His voice sounded great!

The tickets were a valentines day gift from the girl I was seeing at the time. (best valentines day gift ever)
I will never forget her reaction when the band came out. She looked at the old guys in the band and she looked at me and said "is that the band?"
It was funny.

Merle Haggard = poet of the working man