“At this point, Merle Haggard’s musical territory is staked out and grazed to the nubbin: slow, sauntering ballads, up-tempo country boogie, occasionally a little Western swing. No string sections, no synths, no exclamation marks. Staying clear of the clotted, market-tested production of the Nashville A-team studio players seems to keep him alive; still, his recent […]”
“After languishing on Curb Records during the '90s, releasing albums that no one paid attention to (including, it sometimes seemed, himself), Merle Haggard signed with the Epitaph subsidiary Anti-. This move afforded the prolific veteran an opportunity to do exactly what made him a legend in the first place: compose excellent, commercially-unconcerned country music. But there's a discernible differ”
