Haggard

The Roots of My Raising is the 21st studio album by American country singer Merle Haggard and The Strangers, released in 1976. It was his third release in 1976 and his last on the Capitol label until his return in 2004. It reached number 8 on the Billboard country albums chart.

While Hag keeps the mood light with selections such as "Santa Claus and Popcorn" and more traditional fare, he also has some bite with the high and lonesome "Daddy Won't Be Home for Christmas." His matter-of-fact tale about layoffs at the factory, "If We Make It Through December," has become timeless in tough times.

Same Train, A Different Time (subtitled Merle Haggard Sings the Great Songs of Jimmie Rodgers) is the ninth studio album by American country music artist Merle Haggard backed by The Strangers, released in 1969, featuring covers of songs by legendary country music songwriter Jimmie Rodgers. Same Train, Different Time is Merle Haggard's affectionate tribute to Jimmie Rodgers. Haggard provides narration between the songs, offering tales of Rodgers' life and music. While the album is rooted in the past, the key to its success is how Haggard updates these traditional songs without losing sight of their roots. There are contemporary folk, country and blues influences scattered throughout the record, adding depth to the music and proving that Rodgers' music is indeed timeless.

Merle Haggard's October 1985 show had him picking a decent mix of signature hits with other equally well-crafted material. And while he's basically mute between songs, it's the music that Haggard shone on time after time. Throughout it all, Haggard seems to be right at home delivering what could be called a country kind of soul, particularly on the tender, heartbreaking and honest "What Am I Gonna Do (With the Rest of My Life)". Starting slow and then picking things up just a hair in terms of the tempo, Haggard's electric guitar polishes off some nice licks, not playing up a storm but saying a lot with a little.

There are perhaps as many as a hundred Merle Haggard compilations out there on labels obscure and well-known. Most of them are crap because they present too few of the great songwriter's works and/or do so in a dodgy manner. Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard, issued by Capitol, isn't one of them. In fact, it just may be the best single-disc representation of the man's music out there. It's true: Capitol released the vast majority of the songs that established Haggard as the true poet of the working man and for starters here, there are 26 cuts on this set. The majority of them come from Capitol of course, but they also chart Haggard's singles on labels like MCA and Epic, as well as his later independent material all the way down to his duet with Toby Keith on "She Ain't Hooked on Me No More" from 2005. The sound is phenomenal, and so is the package, with two sets of liner notes by the venerable Joel Selvin and Haggard's Capitol producer Ken Nelson. All the hits are here, and yeah, the two legendary redneck stompers, "Okie from Muskogee" and "Fightin' Side of Me" are here too because they had to be, but so is "Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde." This is sure to turn anyone who is curious into a Haggard fan. And for those who have everything, this is just a killer mix. Highly recommended.

H. Rider Haggard on the Imperial Frontier, the first book-length study of H.R.H.'s African fiction, revises the image of Rider Haggard (1856 1925) as a mere writer of adventure stories, a brassy propagandist for British imperialism. Professor Monsman places Haggard s imaginative works both in the context of colonial fiction writing and in the framework of subsequent postcolonial debates about history and its representation.