No Farewell for a Workingman

A night of country music could hardly have been packed with more poignancy. Merle Haggard, the workingman’s poet, was opening a three-night stand at the Crazy Horse Steak House on Monday on what has been widely promoted as his “Farewell Tour.”

The perfect summation of an evening that opened with “Workin’ Man Blues,” and of close to a half-century of singing in honky-tonks, nightclubs, county fairs and sports arenas, seemed to come near the show’s end when he gave in to fans’ shouted requests and sang his 1982 hit, “Big City”:

Been working every day since I was 20

Haven’t got a thing to show

For anything I’ve done

He closed with “Ramblin’ Fever,” an ode to an ever-restless spirit that suggested he was ready to move on from a life largely spent moving on. Then he said good night.

Like Mark Twain a century before him, Haggard has earned a place of honor in American popular culture with an extraordinary body of work that has examined the human condition with empathy, insight and humor.

After Monday’s early show, he added one more thing to the list of things he has in common with Twain: The report of his retirement was an exaggeration.

Sitting in a band bus parked outside, the 60-year-old singer and songwriter leaned forward in his bench seat, stared ahead without blinking and said: “When a guy gets to the point in his career when he’s got no other tricks left, he’ll figure it’s time to do the farewell tour. . . .

“No, I’ve got too many taxes to pay,” he said with a smile. “I’ll never get away from doing this. So you can squash that story.”

He traced reports that he would give up touring after this year to two events: heart surgery he underwent in July and a flippant remark to a fan club official about hanging up his tour bus.

He acknowledged that some venues he’s playing this year, including the Crazy Horse, were told by booking agents that his shows were part of a farewell tour.

“It’s not their mistake,” he said. “The blame probably falls in my lap.”

While recovering from heart surgery, and before knowing whether he would return to a full concert schedule, he said he was shown a potential tour itinerary of some 130 dates for 1998 and quipped, “If that’s how hard you’re going to work me, you’d better double the price and call it my farewell tour.”

The remark found its way onto the Internet, where, he said, it has continued to circulate. “There are about 27 pages of [B.S.] about me on the Internet,” he said. “But if the Lord doesn’t want us off the market, we’re going to stay out there.”

Vernette Pemberton of Hacienda Heights came to Monday’s show, as many did, at least in part on the assumption that it probably was her last opportunity to see him in concert. “He’s had some health problems--he has a bad ticker now,” she said before the show.

Haggard, however, said the need for implantation of a stent--a small catheter--into a coronary artery stemmed from poor eating habits, specifically “too much bacon.” He said he has fully recovered through better nutrition and the use of natural remedies such as grape-seed extract.

As a result, he said, he’s back to a full concert schedule and plans to start recording a new album when he gets a break between tour legs.

Promotional confusion notwithstanding, Haggard and his seven-member Strangers band delivered a typically varied, beautifully crafted performance.

His 90-minute set coursed generously through his own extensive catalog, reaching back to his 1966 hit “Swinging Doors” through his last No. 1 hit, 1987’s “Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star,” and included songs by two of his own idols, Jimmie Rodgers and Al Jolson.

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With considerable help from the Strangers, he made the musical connection between Rodgers and Bob Wills with a canny arrangement that began by echoing Rodgers’ own country-jazz experimentations, then slid ever so gently into a silky Western swing pulse.

He aired his sentimental side by singing Jolson’s 1928 hit “Sonny Boy,” investing each potentially treacly line with understated sincerity.

Had the show actually been part of a farewell tour, its epiphanic moments would have been no different--those songs that acknowledge the passage of time and that honor the wisdom that comes only with a lifetime of experience:

I wish I could be 30 again

I wish that time didn’t wrinkle my skin

They say life starts at 50

We’ve been lied to, my friend

I wish I could be 30 again.

Some fans may feel misled about the “Farewell Tour” billing, but when the songs and the performances reach as deep as these, Haggard’s change of heart--or story--can only be treated as great news.

* Merle Haggard & the Strangers play Thursday at the Crazy Horse Steak House, 1580 Brookhollow, Santa Ana. 7:30 and 10:15 p.m. $49.50-$57.50. (714) 549-1512. “Workin’ Man--A Tribute to Merle Haggard” will be repeated April 6 at 6 and 10 p.m. on the Nashville Network.