Still holding his mud: A day in the life of ‘struggling’ guitarist Merle Haggard
“Are we still holding our mud?” After admitting to Merle Haggard that I had witnessed him on Valentine’s Day 2013 delivering a sold-out, intentionally off-the-cuff concert in Athens, Georgia, that was the first self-effacing remark of many out of the prolific songwriter’s mellifluous mouth.
Over the course of an exclusive phone interview, the music icon waxed nostalgic about learning to play both the fiddle and guitar as a poor but blessed nine-year-old Bakersfield kid in the aftermath of World War II, raising a Fender Telecaster maestro at the dawn of the 21st century, actually receiving inspiration for a song while sauntering towards a London concert stage, his patented songwriting formula, losing anonymity, and whether stage fright can be conquered.
An American treasure and arguably the most influential country songwriter of the past 50-odd years, Haggard exhibited little signs of slowing down, recording new material — not necessarily releasing it in the case of A Tribute to the Troubadour — and playing rowdy honky tonks as far as the eye could see. Eight months after our second and final largely unpublished conversation, Haggard unexpectedly died on April 6, 2016, succumbing to double pneumonia on his 79th birthday.
