Aged to Perfection : From Retrospective Box Set to ‘1996,’ Merle Haggard’s Well-Seasoned

Merle Haggard is one of the few American artists who legitimately can lay claim to the title “living legend.” A pilgrim and a giant in country music for more than 30 years, he has--through such songs as “Mama Tried,” “Workingman’s Blues,” “The Bottle Let Me Down,” “Swinging Doors,” “Today I Started Loving You Again” and “Okie From Muskogee”--exerted an influence on country and even rock ‘n’ roll that is still felt.

He is a singer-songwriter whose emotional honesty is chilling at times. His stance on social issues is unprecedented in his field. His lyrics are at once guileless and poetic in the best sense of the words, and his vocals are so artlessly gorgeous, yet so brimming with disconsolateness, that they redefine the blues.

Like all legends, Haggard--who sings Sunday at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station as part of the Taste of Orange County festival--isn’t content to rest on past accomplishments.

His latest album, “1996,” is one of the finest in a long and fruitful career, certainly his best in at least a decade. From the driving western swing of “Sin City Blues” to the instant blue-collar classic “Five Days a Week” to the barroom melodrama of “If Anyone Ought to Know,” Haggard is in peak form--his singing a straight line to his state of mind, his compositions simple but memorable, his lyrics painful and haunting.

“I worked on that album for four years,” he said during a recent phone conversation from his ranch in Northern California. “We even made some of those tunes back with [drummer] Larry Lundan before he passed away. It’s kind of like stringing fish, coming up with 10 songs that you feel are immaculate, and that’s what I was trying to do. It took a long time to get 10 recordings of that quality together.

“But I’ll tell you what--I’ve got some stuff I’m working on now that are even better than that. We’re not through yet.”

Some contended that Haggard, 59, was burnt toast not so long ago. His output in the ‘80s often was listless and uninspired. Battles with the bottle, drugs and the IRS left him sounding as if he didn’t care anymore. But don’t expect any pious, insincere apologies for past excesses from this notoriously outspoken man. Indeed, questions about that period in his life led to one of many shouted tirades:

“I partied by choice in the ‘80s because I was getting over a woman, then I sobered up by choice. I’m for choice, and I’m for freedom. There’s a few people who can’t handle their alcohol, and because of that, the nightclub business in this country has gone completely belly up. There’s no night life anymore just because a few people can’t handle their booze. So now we have an over-control of authority. They want everybody to drink two beers and be home by eight o’clock. This country is gonna rebel against that, and I’m gonna be one of the leaders.

“I’m tired of it! I think this is a bunch of horse*%$!. It’s all drummed up by the people who wear the pistols and wear the badges. What if a guy wants to smoke a few cigarettes a day? He’s gonna be ridiculed to the point where his grandchildren walk up and tell him, ‘You shouldn’t do that!’ It’s all overkill; I’m against it, and the damn politicians better start listening!”

Haggard never has been meek when it comes to expressing opinions, and his background, which reads like a cliched country song, might offer some clues to his temperament.

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The product of Okie Dust Bowl refugees, he was born in a converted boxcar in Bakersfield. His father died when young Merle was a child, and he began to run wild. At 20, he bungled an attempted burglary of a local tavern and was sentenced in 1957 to six to 15 years at San Quentin.

While doing his time, he attended one of Johnny Cash’s prison shows, which encouraged a growing interest in music. Haggard was paroled after three years, a changed man with a mission to make it in country music. Signed to Capitol Records in 1965, he was an immediate smash, and he hasn’t looked back since.

In the late ‘60s, he was adopted by many in the burgeoning hippie movement as a sort of latter-day Woody Guthrie, a real man brandishing his guitar as a weapon with true-to-life stories to tell. Uncomfortable in this unwanted role, in 1969 he released “Okie From Muskogee,” a leftist-bashing, redneck anthem that rejected the hippie values of the day.

He then was championed by a group of a different order: Richard Nixon sent him a congratulatory letter; Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, granted him a full pardon, and segregationist George Wallace sought Haggard’s endorsement for his presidential campaign.

Equally uncomfortable with being championed by the right, he refused for years to perform the song that had brought him his greatest notoriety--even as, ironically, such leftist artists as Phil Ochs and the Smothers Brothers began to cover the tune without a trace of irony. Haggard also pushed to have “Irma Jackson,” a sympathetic song dealing with an interracial love affair, released as a single after “Okie,” but Capitol refused. (“Irma Jackson” was included on a later Haggard album.)

The hits continued to roll in, right up through the late ‘80s, even as Haggard’s music lost its razor-sharp edge. But now that he is back in top form with “1996,” a whole new generation of fans should be tuning into the man’s special talents--if contemporary country radio gives the album a chance. The current state of country radio, with emphasis on faux hillbilly style over real substance, and a reprehensible policy of age discrimination, is another of Haggard’s many pet peeves.

Still, with or without radio support, there are millions of people on Haggard’s side, and he has received a number of honors in recent years, including induction to the Country Music Hall of Fame, the release of a four-disc retrospective box set and a Pioneer Award from the Country Music Assn. But don’t expect him to get excited by any of that. In fact, he was a no-show at the CMA Awards.

“I’ve got to be honest with you,” he said. “I don’t even listen to country music anymore. I listen to the modern-day rock ‘n’ roll stuff. Hell, I don’t even know who’s playing what, but I find myself a lot more entertained by rock ‘n’ roll these days than I do by country.”

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His tone softened a bit when he talked about “Down Every Road,” his retrospective box. “What it does, it makes me feel awful old, I’ll tell you that. I look at those pictures, and I was just a kid. I looked like James Dean. Now I look in the mirror, and, damn, I see this guy looking back at me who looks like George Burns.

“There are B-sides and rehearsals in there that weren’t meant to be heard by anybody, but I like to listen to stuff by Bob Wills that wasn’t meant for anybody to hear. It’s a box set that sells for about 85 bucks, and they tell me they can’t keep ‘em in stock. So, yeah, I guess that makes me feel very proud.”

* Merle Haggard sings Sunday on the Lawn Stage at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, 8 p.m. $3-$8. 714-808-8463, Ext. 9420.