Merle Haggard
Motorcycle Cowboy Live At Billy Bob's Texas

THE REVIEW

It cannot be said that Merle Haggard's life started under the best auspices.

The son of a very poor couple who moved to California to escape the misery and dust storms of Oklahoma, Merle Haggard was born in 1937 in a converted railroad boxcar. Due to the premature death of his father when little Merle was only 9, he had a very troubled adolescence, ended up in reform school several times, and at the age of 20 was sentenced to serve a long term for attempted robbery at San Quentin Prison.

His love for music, however, fueled since childhood by the songs of Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, and Bob Wills, and later also by a Johnny Cash concert that the young boy attended during one of his numerous forced stays in prison, ultimately made him one of the most important American songwriters, whose songs were loved and recorded by numerous artists, even those far removed from the world of country music. (Regarding the Johnny Cash concert, legend has it that when Merle was already very famous, he met Cash and said to him, "I attended your concert at San Quentin in '59." And Cash replied, "I really don't remember you." And Merle said, "I wasn't in the band, I was in the audience!")

From 1965 and for over twenty years, Merle produced a very long series of hits, continuing to record, with less commercial success, also throughout the '90s and into the new millennium.

The concert in question, recorded in 1997 inside the world's largest honky-tonk, Billy Bob's Texas (venue of another phenomenal performance of his in 2004), is a genuine gem hidden within his vast discography (to date, there are over 80 official albums, excluding compilations and counting only studio recordings).

Many of the songs here, fairly faithful in arrangements to the original versions, retrace crucial steps in the singer's life and almost represent a sort of musical autobiography of his difficult childhood and adolescence, starting with the poignant masterpiece "Mama's Hungry Eyes", one of his most beloved songs, in which the singer-songwriter nostalgically recalls his father's toil in the fields, the poverty but also the dignity that shone in his mother's eyes: "I still recall my mama's hungry eyes". It's hard to hold back a few tears.

Also present are other timeless masterpieces: "Misery and Gin", written for the soundtrack of Clint Eastwood's film Bronco Billy; "Mama Tried", with its load of remorse for spending his twenty-first birthday in prison, despite his mother's efforts to raise him honestly; the satirical "Okie from Muskogee", which picturesque pokes fun at the mindset of rural America; the amusing "Motorcycle Cowboy", in the vein of Jimmie Rodgers' songs; and then "The Bottle Let Me Down", "The Emptiest Arms In The World","Today I Started" "Loving You Again" and many more.

The rhythm consequently proceeds, sometimes poignant, sometimes gritty, sometimes amusing, sometimes boozy, sometimes romantic, very often nostalgic.

In short, a beautiful journey, sometimes melancholic, other times very lively, through the most authentic country music, the one with a true soul, the one represented by artists whose star shone brightly long before the unfortunate fusion with pop sold out its personality and soul in the name of business and the illogical logics of the market.