![\"Merle](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Merle-Haggard.jpg\")
MERLE HAGGARD<\/b><\/h1>\nMERLE HAGGARD<\/b><\/h1>\nAnniversaries.<\/p>\n
The 20th anniversary of the notorious Nancy Kerrigan\/Tonya Harding relationship, as celebrated by two specials coinciding with last month\u2019s Winter Olympics, caught me by surprise. So I had my own celebration by reposting Loudon Wainwright III\u2019s transcendent tribute to the bygone days of women\u2019s figure skating and sportsmanship, \u201cTonya\u2019s Twirls,\u201d which eventually surfaced on his 1999 album\u00a0Social Studies<\/i>\u00a0(a live version was included in his 2003 album\u00a0So Damn Happy<\/i>).<\/p>\n
The Beatles\u2019 50th, of course, came as no surprise\u2014nor should it have. But when I got the press release that it\u2019s the 45th anniversary of \u201cOkie From Muskogee,\u201d well, I was truly taken aback.<\/p>\n
I mean, really? \u201cOkie From Muskogee\u201d? The 45th? Who knew?<\/span><\/p>\n But it\u2019s a big enough deal, apparently, to warrant the two-disc Okie From Muskogee Anniversary Edition<\/i>, to be released March 25 and include not only the live Okie From Muskogee<\/i> album (released in December, 1969, notes the release, shortly after the titletrack reached No. 1 on the country chart) but the \u201clong out-of-print\u201d 1970 live album The Fightin\u2019 Side of Me<\/i>, which was likewise named for a Haggard patriotic hit.<\/p>\n But back to Okie.<\/p>\n Maybe not in \u201969, but when he came down from his tour bus in the parking lot of the Dane County Coliseum in Madison, Wis., 10 years later, he was just finishing up a joint. And while the album went on to win the 1969 Academy of Country Music award for Album of the Year\u2014with Haggard picking up Top Male Vocalist and Single of the Year for \u201cOkie from Muskogee\u201d\u2014now, 45 years later, it seems like an unfunny joke, as it actually was when he originally recorded it.<\/p>\n But what about the notorious Chinga Chavin parody \u201cAsshole from El Paso\u201d (\u201cI\u2019m proud to be an asshole from El Paso\u201d which first appeared on his 1976 album <\/span>Country Porn<\/i>, but has been way more famously covered by his pal Kinky Friedman. Then again, a 38th anniversary is certainly less commemorable than a 45th.<\/span><\/p>\n But the only real reason to celebrate \u201cOkie From Muskogee,\u201d a song that otherwise pales next to Haggard classics on the reissued album including \u201cMama Tried,\u201d \u201cSilver Wings,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m A Lonesome Fugitive,\u201d \u201cSing Me Back Home\u201d and \u201cWhite Line Fever,\u201d is that the proclamation of the song\u2019s first line is now so hopelessly out of date.<\/span><\/p>\n Indeed, Friedman, after a few failed campaigns for political office in Texas, has just forced a runoff election in his current run for state agricultural commissioner. His chief issue? Legalization of marijuana!<\/span><\/p>\n Jim Bessman<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Merle](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Merle-Haggard-Okie-From-Muskogee.jpg\")
The titletrack hit \u201cserved to refute the counter-culture of the late 1960s while extolling the virtues of a small-town, conservative lifestyle, and immediately became a signature tune for Haggard,\u201d says the release. You know, \u201cWe don\u2019t smoke marijuana in Muskogee\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\nRead more about\u00a0MERLE HAGGARD<\/strong><\/h3>\n
After beating lung cancer, \u201cThe Hag\u201d still is who he is >><\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n