{"id":12422,"date":"2016-04-06T14:40:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T21:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=12422"},"modified":"2016-04-06T14:44:44","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T21:44:44","slug":"merle-haggard-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2016\/04\/merle-haggard-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Merle Haggard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12423\" src=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/M-34-ENCORE.jpg\" alt=\"M-34-ENCORE\" width=\"660\" height=\"440\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/M-34-ENCORE.jpg 660w, https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/M-34-ENCORE-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>PHOTOGRAPHER NORMAN SEEFF CHOSE \u201cA FUNKY little hotel\u201d in downtown L.A. to shoot this session for Merle Haggard\u2019s 1981 album <i>Big City<\/i>. \u201cWith wry humor, Merle said, \u2018This is what you learn in jail\u2019 as he peeled the apple in one cut,\u201d recalls Seeff. \u201cHe didn\u2019t try to hide his past.\u201d As the session progressed, a different facet of the country legend emerged. \u201cHe had a kind of duality,\u201d explains Seeff. \u201cOne part was rough and tumble, a no-nonsense kind of guy. The other side was a sensitive and vulnerable artist.\u201d Seeff and Haggard continued to work together, and one especially memorable session occurred the day before the Iraq War in 2003. \u201cHe was completely freaked out\u2014really upset,\u201d Seeff remembers. \u201cHe actually sang me an antiwar song. Merle was his own man, and certainly not one-dimensional. He always insisted all he wanted to do was write songs and be a great guitar player. He had no interest in being a star.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PHOTOGRAPHER NORMAN SEEFF CHOSE \u201cA FUNKY little hotel\u201d in downtown L.A. to shoot this session for Merle Haggard\u2019s 1981 album Big City. \u201cWith wry humor, Merle said, \u2018This is what you learn in jail\u2019 as he peeled the apple in one cut,\u201d recalls Seeff. \u201cHe didn\u2019t try to hide his past.\u201d As the session progressed, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1629,6],"tags":[7429,2266],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15255,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12422\/revisions\/15255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}