Haggard’s Good-Time Set Is Not Standard-Issue

Merle Haggard usually personifies the no-nonsense entertainer. He walks on stage with minimal fanfare and simply starts singing some of the greatest country songs ever written.

So it was tempting to scour his familiar craggy face for any hints that a stunt double was taking his place Wednesday at the Crazy Horse Steak House. Maybe it was because this 63-year-old country legend is about to become a dad for the seventh time, but the positively giddy guy who showed up at the famous club’s bigger, glitzier new home in the Irvine Spectrum didn’t act much like the Hag of old.

Whatever the cause, the good mood that caught Haggard poking into rarely tapped corners of his extensive songbook also found him unusually chatty between songs, as well as game to reel off snippets of numbers so new he still hasn’t memorized them.

In fact, Haggard apparently has been writing up a storm. While he bypassed the beautifully stripped-down gospel material of his new “Cabin in the Hills” album, which has four new Haggard tunes and several traditional songs, he worked in other new numbers alongside such signature hits as “Mama Tried” and “Okie From Muskogee.”

One new song he made it all the way through was the spunky “Motorcycle Cowboy,” a Jimmie Rodgers-derived fusion of old-timey country, blues and jazz. A sterling vocal on “Farmer’s Daughter,” his 1991 ballad about a father watching his child head out for a life of her own, also showcased his gift for writing songs that peer directly into the heart’s most tender regions.

His band, the Strangers, continues to be a thing of wonder, especially guitarist Redd Volkaert, who juiced things up with inventive solos spanning stone country to jazz to rip-roaring blues.