Merle Haggard embodies the spirit and soul of country music. His songs echo in the hearts and minds of displaced factory workers, boozed out honky-tonkers, beaten-down prisoners and broken-hearted lovers.
Haggard writes and sings the kind of music that makes robins weep and grown men long for a past that never existed. Like Hank Williams, George Jones and Johnny Cash, Haggard’s music has a sharp edge that cuts deep.
Now 77, Haggard is a survivor and on stage Wednesday night at a packed Savannah Center, you could almost see how hard living and hard drinking put those craggy lines on his face and darkness in his eyes.
He was almost hidden by a black hat, jacket, and dark sunglasses. But Haggard’s music leaves nowhere to hide. It reflects the core values of traditional country music revealing the gut-level emotions of everyday people.
Maybe that’s why Haggard is called the poet of the common man and received a Kennedy Center Honor for his contribution to the arts in America. Midway through his nearly 75-minute performance Wednesday, Haggard sang one of those songs that just hits home in a heartfelt way.
The number is called, “If We Make Through December,” and tells the story of a guy who loses his job at the factory before the holiday season.
One stanza goes: “Now I don’t mean to hate December/
It’s meant to be the happy time of year/And why my little girl don’t understand/Why daddy can’t afford no Christmas here”
That may be far from poetry but it touches everyone who has ever lost a job or struggled for a buck.
Haggard opened the show with, “Big City,” a clarion call to arms for those suffering through an urban mental meltdown. “Keep your retirement and your so-called social security,” Haggard sang in in a rusty-throated cantankerous vocal. “I’m tired of walking these dirty old sidewalks….Big city, turn me loose and set me free.”
Haggard doesn’t shy away from his past, which included a long stint in prison and battle with the bottle. “I’ve been doing this a lot of years, it’s different when you’re sober,” he said on stage with a laugh.
One song touched on his mother’s everlasting faith in him. “Mama Tried,” tells the tale of a guy who “turned 21 in prison doing life without parole/No one could steer me right but Mama tried.”
There is redemption in Haggard’s musical universe but it comes hard. He captured the audience with the mournful, “The Bottle Let Me Down,” a song about trying to drink away lost love. Listening and watching him sing, you could almost picture Haggard sitting at the end of a bar, looking down into a shot glass and wondering how to put his heart back together.
Watch video of Haggard performing here:
“That’s what country music is all about,” said Ron Taylor, a longtime Haggard fan who lives in The Village of Polo Ridge and attended the show with Anita Snyder. “Country music is about going to jail, drinking too much, breaking up with your lover and wondering why the world is falling apart. That’s what great country artists sing and write about and Merle Haggard is one of the greatest,” Taylor said.
Haggard displayed a kind of melancholy nostalgia in some songs. He admits the years have caught up to him.
“This band and I have been together since 1965,” Haggard said. “We’re the only group on the road with a bus that carries nurses instead of groupies.” Then Haggard added, with a twinkle in his eye, “I used to like older women.”
“This is a song I used to sing with George Jones,” Haggard said. “It’s called ‘Footlights.” Then he sang about hitting the road and playing for decades, and trying to, “hide my age and make the stage/and…kick the footlights out again.”
He spoke up for the men and women in the armed forces, “who are out there defending our freedom so we can be here tonight,” Haggard said in the introduction to “Fightin’ Side of Me.”
The all-time Haggard classic, “Okie From Muskogee,” closed the show. It turned into a joyous sing-a-long with the crowd. Old Merle had some fun with the lyrics. “We don’t do that deadly marijuana,” he sang while shaking his hips and adding: “we get drunk like God wants us to do.”
Among those in his eight-piece band included his son, Ben, who played lead-guitar. Theresa, Merle’s wife, was also on stage as a back-up singer. Another son, Noel, helped open the show singing a couple of songs.
A surprise opening act was Rhonda Vincent, the “Queen of Bluegrass,” who showed up with her band in The Villages Wednesday. “I was playing down in Florida, and I heard Merle Haggard was playing here and I had to be here,” said Vincent, who was recently nominated for a Grammy Award for her album, “Only Me.”
“I was at the Grammy party in Nashville and had my picture taken with Taylor Swift,” Vincent said. “Now I want my picture taken with Merle Haggard.”
Vincent said she called Haggard’s representatives at 1 a.m. on Wednesday and was told she could open the show. “I’ll do anything to play a show with Merle,” she said, looking a little weary but sounding great on stage.
Another unexpected arrival was David Durham, 46, of Lexington, Kentucky, who was visiting his aunt and uncle, Tim and Sandy Edwards, in The Villages.
“I didn’t have a ticket for the show,” Durham said. “I just hoped I could get one to see Merle. He’s my favorite country singer of all-time. When he sings, you feel it.”
As luck would have it, Muriel Broderick, who lives in Sabal Chase, had an extra ticket as a birthday present. She learned that Durham has spent the past year taking care of his sick brother, who recently passed away.
“What a wonderful young man David is,” Broderick said. “He asked me for a ticket and I just smiled and gave it to him.”
Such is the way of the common people. The kind of people Merle Haggard writes and sings about.