953 Merle Haggard - Down Every Road (1996)

Compilation Album - Country

About the Act:

In 1959, Johnny Cash played a concert at San Quentin Jail. One of the inmates, in for an attempted robbery, was inspired to join a Country band in the prison. After he was paroled, he managed to leave behind his troubled past and start to make a career in music. That inmate was Merle Haggard. It took him a while to get going, but in 1965 he released his first studio album. In 2016 he died, having released 64 studio albums in total.  You may have heard of him, he was one of the key figures in Country from the 60s onward.

He has had some controversy surrounding a few of his songs. In the 60s he released "Okie From Muskogee" and "The Fighting Side of Me", both of which were counter-counter-cultural, in other words in opposition to the Hippie movement. He captured the mood of much of middle America at the time, espousing conservative values, with sympathy for Vietnam vets. On the other hand, he has also released songs about inter-racial relationships which have upset the same conservatives. His attitudes over the years could be said to be complicated, for example he defended the Dixie Chicks when the criticised war in Iraq.

About the Album:

This is a 4CD retrospective collection of Merle Haggard songs covering his whole career up until this point. With a total of 100 songs it clocks in at just short of 5 hours of music.

My History with this Album:

This is the first time I have listened to this album. It has taken me 2 days to get through it.

Review:

As I'm writing this, I am on the last couple of songs in the album. I hope you appreciate the dedication I have shown to this process of reviewing. Nearly 5 hours of Country. I've had to do it in bursts. I did about the first 2.5 hours in one stint. My head is full of country music chord progressions.

Musically, it is Country. You could pick any one of these 100 songs, and learn the chord sequence in about 1 minute. Most of the songs clock in under 3 minutes, so you would think you would have variety. Sorry, Country of this kind is kind of predictable. Maybe you like it. The better tracks have something interesting. For example, in the middle there are quite a few tracks with Merle's habitual backing band The Strangers, who have a violin, so things sound a bit more bluegrass.

Lyrically, well there are a few interesting tracks, the ones about Hippies, the ones about inter-racial relationships. That accounts for about 4 of the tracks. The rest are... typical Country. Occasionally there is a bit of wit, sometimes there are songs about being a rambling man, and there are a lot of songs about the hard life of a poor man in middle America, working the land, cheating women, gambling, heartbreak, even jail. Oh, yes, there's a moving song about a death row inmate walking to his execution, based on real-life experiences of Merle's. Some of this has genuine content about his troubled past. The rest is just so much schmaltz. 

It's better than Steve Earl, there is occasional substance, you can hear the words, and you can kind of get your yee-haw on if you are so inclined.  I strongly recommend never trying to listen to this in one sitting, it's more of a collection to dip into every now and then, or even better, to leave on the shelf and don't buy. 

4/10

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/40Wi0Ej08sw9B4URIOabOI

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mB8j0CZeeCIaxSr9cpLpx4FGpn_zSPGC0

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_Every_Road_1962%E2%80%931994