POP REVIEW : PRETENDERS TO HAGGARD’S THRONE WILL HAVE TO WAIT

Before Merle Haggard took the stage at the Greek Theatre, his band played “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes,” a salute to country music vets like Haggard, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. It looks as if Randy Travis will be the one to fill Haggard’s shoes, but on Friday the genuine article showed that he might be around making valuable music a while longer.

Ambling out in a black sweat shirt and white cowboy hat, Haggard remained steadfastly laconic while tossing off about 20 songs from the last three decades. There’s so much heartache in Haggard’s lonely whine that any vocal gymnastics would be overkill, and he’s canny enough to lay back and let those vocal cords do the work. That means it wasn’t a terribly exciting show, though a few fireworks did come from Haggard’s longtime band, the Strangers.

The big crowd-pleaser was Haggard’s silly redneck anthem “Okie From Muskogee,” but his heart was clearly in the newer and better material. Especially encouraging was the fact that two new ballads were the evening’s most desolate songs and most moving vocal performances--encouraging, that is, unless you’re a country singer looking to fill those shoes soon.

Tammy Wynette started things off with a show as glitzy as Haggard’s was casual. Aligning herself squarely with the Barbara Mandrell school of glossy, middle-of-the-road country, she wore three costumes in an hour, rushed through her hit “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” as part of an indifferent medley, and sang material as cliched as “You Light Up My Life.”

Still, you have to give Wynette credit: After years of battling marital and other troubles, she now presents an image that’s glamorous, assertive and far more independent than you’d guess from her best-known song, “Stand by Your Man.” Too bad more of the music doesn’t reflect that toughness.