Capitol Records, US 1969 ST-384
Style: Country
For someone introduced to Merle Haggard through the live recorded album, Okie from Muskogee, there is somewhat of an incongruity in the first 30 seconds. It’s as Haggard is being introduced by the MC in the Civic Center of Muskogee, Oklahoma:
“From
Bakersfield, California, the one and only Merle Haggard and The Strangers.”
The titular song on the album is
about celebrating a proud, insular birth identity, which Merle didn’t actually
possess. Merle Haggard’s familial connection to the Oklahoman people was in
fact only through his Dad. The back cover of this record lovingly
describes the community celebrating him as “his father’s people”. It also
lovingly describes the scene one can’t fully comprehend on this masterfully
recorded live album.
“THE APPLAUSE WAS LIKE THUNDER, THE
CHEERS, WHISTLES AND STOMPS WERE TOO MUCH.”
That was one of the wonderful things about
the outlaw country attitude that Haggard helped pioneer, though. His songs and
song selections were so poignantly relatable, there was no way to not warmly
welcome an outsider like him. He literally has a section of his set dedicated
to classic country numbers pertaining to drunkards. He then asks who in the
audience would wear that title for themselves, and in response the
listener can hear the crowd roar.
Many of the songs
performed to the Muskogee community on this album are not Haggard’s originals,
but instead written decades earlier by his country hero, Jimmie Rodgers. The
climax of these covers comes at the beginning of side 2, “Hobo Bill’s Last
Ride”. Haggard gives a simple, yet heartfelt introduction to the piece. The
song’s concepts are not too difficult or challenging, and are only embellished
musically by simple riffs from his guitar. In these selections though, he truly
wins the audience over with his pitch perfect yodeling outros to the verses.
These are a staple in the Jimmie Rodgers catalogue. Each yodeling break by
Haggard is met by an enthusiastic applause break from the audience.
Haggard pulls off
these songs not only from the very solid performance given by him and The
Strangers, but because of the excitement the audience receives from knowing
that he lived these songs. His early life was steeped in actual prison time,
prison escapes, robbery, family abandonment, and hard drinking. He has the
power to make the audience espouse the typical country tales of melancholia
found in “Hobo Bill” or, my personal favorite, “Workin’ Man Blues”. Just like
for the inmates of Folsom Prison, hearing Johnny Cash deliver the now legendary
performance, Merle Haggard stands on stage as one of the many characters,
telling his stories.
The band waits
until the very end to let the audience hear what they’ve been waiting for:
“Okie from Muskogee”. The song serves as a bit of Southern satire on the
perceived pervasive trends of the rest of the country in 1969. Haggard proudly
states, “We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee, we don’t take no trips on LSD.”
Of course, anyone familiar with Haggard and the other originators of outlaw
country know that experimentation with drugs was very popular among them,
especially marijuana. They also were often political dissidents, contradictory
to what the song suggests. That’s not essential information for the citizens of
this small city, though. It gives them a down-home anthem; It reminds
them that they existed to the rest of the world. This is something that
everyone yearns for, and Haggard delivers. Merle Haggard and The Strangers were
not able to leave the Civic Center in Muskogee, Oklahoma before giving the
audience an encore of this piece.
In a charming show of appreciation to
Haggard, early in the album the listener hears the mild-mannered mayor of
Muskogee making him an honorary Okie, and Muskogee citizen. It was a symbolic
badge that he wore for the rest of his life, which ended earlier this year.
In the days of the dust bowl, an Okie
wasn’t a term of endearment, but a term of aggression. It was for Oklahomans
looking for acceptance and livelihood elsewhere, when their native land
couldn’t support them any longer. But this was 1969. It was time for Haggard to
look for acceptance among his father’s people, leaving California to do it. And
as the listener can hear on Okie from Muskogee, he surely found
it.
Written by D.W. Wallach
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