Merle Haggard is known as "the poet of the common man." His songs are some of the most important and influential in the history of country music, on par with the likes of those by Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams. Through a life as tumultuous as his music, scarred by struggles with inner demons, incarceration and addiction - all of which he has brutally and directly confronted through his lyrics - Haggard has emerged with an American songbook that captures the rough side of life with an unblinking eye gazing on the workings of the human heart. This collection comes on the heels of his acclaimed album If I Could Only Fly, his first new studio album in four years, which finds the former wildman coping with aging, taking on familial responsibilities, and learning to appreciate the wonders of home life versus the pitfalls of the highway. Haggard's lyrics demonstrate why this acclaimed member of the Country Music Hall of Fame is a legend who will live forever.

Merle Haggard has enjoyed artistic and professional triumphs few can match. He’s charted more than a hundred country hits, including thirty-eight number ones. He’s released dozens of studio albums and another half dozen or more live ones, performed upwards of ten thousand concerts, been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and seen his songs performed by artists as diverse as Lynryd Skynyrd, Elvis Costello, Tammy Wynette, Willie Nelson, the Grateful Dead, and Bob Dylan. In 2011 he was feted as a Kennedy Center Honoree. But until now, no one has taken an in-depth look at his career and body of work. In Merle Haggard: The Running Kind, David Cantwell takes us on a revelatory journey through Haggard’s music and the life and times out of which it came. Covering the entire breadth of his career, Cantwell focuses especially on the 1960s and 1970s, when Haggard created some of his best-known and most influential music, which helped invent the America we live in today. Listening closely to a masterpiece-crowded catalogue (including songs such as “Okie from Muskogee,” “Sing Me Back Home,” “Mama Tried,” “Working Man Blues,” “Kern River,” “White Line Fever,” “Today I Started Loving You Again,” and “If We Make It through December,” among many more), Cantwell explores the fascinating contradictions—most of all, the desire for freedom in the face of limits set by the world or self-imposed—that define not only Haggard’s music and public persona but the very heart of American culture.

Every now and then, a song inspires a cultural conversation that ends up looking like a brawl. Merle Haggard's Okie from Muskogee, released in 1969, is a prime example of that important role of popular music. Okie immediately helped to frame an ongoing discussion about region and class, pride and politics, culture and counterculture. But the conversation around the song, useful as it was, drowned out the song itself, not to mention the other songs on the live album-named for Okie and performed in Muskogee-that Haggard has carefully chosen to frame what has turned out to be his most famous song. What are the internal clues for gleaning the intended meaning of Okie? What is the pay-off of the anti-fandom that Okie sparked (and continues to spark) in some quarters? How has the song come to be a shorthand for expressing all manner of anti-working class attitudes? What was Haggard's artistic path to that stage in Oklahoma, and how did he come to shape the industry so profoundly at the moment when urban country singers were playing a major role on the American social and political landscape?

(Book). In this comprehensive artist-by-artist listing, you'll find the more than 2,300 artists and 17,800 songs that debuted on Billboard's country singles charts from 1944-2005. Not only does it cover the complete chart careers of legendary country greats such as Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard, Alan Jackson, and Reba McEntire, it also introduces fresh country voices like Gretchen Wilson, Bobby Pinson, Keith Anderson and others. This unique country compilation is a priceless gold mine of stats and facts, all presented in a handy, easy-to-use format!

Your students and users will find biographical information on approximately 300 modern writers in this volume of Contemporary Authors(R).

Title on spine: Billboard hot country albums.

In this comprehensive artist-by-artist listing, you'll find the more than 2,200 artists and 17,800 songs that debuted on Billboard's country singles charts from 1944-2001. Not only does it cover the complete chart careers of legendary country greats such as Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Alan Jackson, Garth Brooks and Reba McEntire, it also introduces fresh country voices like Brad Paisley, Rascal Flatts, Cyndi Thomson, Tammy Cochran, Chris Cagle, Phil Vassar and Trick Pony. This unique country compilation is a priceless gold mine of stats and facts, all presented in a handy, easy-to-use format!