Merle Haggard

There just doesn't seem to be any winning with record companies sometimes. Merle Haggard no doubt had to fight tooth and nail to get his tributes to Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills recorded and released in an era when traditional country music was falling by the wayside. Then, a few years later, Capitol must have decided these records were good ideas after all and wanted a few more of them. Not content to actually let the artist create a new tribute, the label glued together their own two-sided concept album by selecting previously recorded covers of Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell songs that Haggard had done. These were then slapped on side A and B of this album, united under the theme of that's "The Way it Was in '51," an opening track that Haggard presumably composed and recorded in order to justify this album's reason for existence. What a great example of his vocal prowess, however, when Haggard enters with the song's very first line: "66 was just a narrow two lane highway...." The listener will feel like they have gone back in time a few decades and are tooling down just such a back road. Everything that is on this record was good material to begin with, and even though the concept is a bit bogus from the record buyer's standpoint, philosophically it joins a long list of similar projects as country artists always seem happy to pay tribute to each other. Haggard has a heck of a flair for Williams and Frizzell, draining every possible drop of drama and emotion out of the songs while letting his sidemen (credited? are you kidding?) pick away to their hearts' content. If the listener's country collection if small, this could definitely be an album to add. On the other hand, those who already own a few Haggard albums might want to be careful in case of duplicating too many tracks. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide