Rating:
Genre: Country
Release Date: 11/06/2007

A number of Merle Haggard box sets preceded this one to fruition, among them 1996's four-disc,100-track Down Every Road, as comprehensive and essential a collection of country music as you're ever likely to hear. At three discs and 60 tracks, Time Life's Legends of American Music: The Original Outlaw admittedly doesn't offer as much Hag, but in its own way it's just as valuable as the earlier release, and might be preferable for those who don't want their Hag spread quite so thin but who would still like a bit more than the 40 tracks offered by Razor & Tie's 1995, 40-track The Lonesome Fugitive: The Merle Haggard Anthology (1963-1977). Like Down Every Road, The Original Outlaw takes a look not only at the biggest hits of Haggard's career, although those are all of course accounted for. It launches with two pre-fame singles Haggard cut for the small Tally label in 1964-1965, before signing to Capitol, "Sing a Sad Song" and "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers." From there it devotes roughly half of its contents to those Capitol sides before moving on to Haggard's MCA output of the late '70s and his recordings for Epic, Anti and his own Hag Records in the subsequent decades. All that's absent -- and no one will really miss it -- is some representation of Haggard's early-'90s stint with Curb, a period that produced no memorable hits whose omission would cause a red flag to be raised only by completists. Haggard's post-Capitol recordings would, for any other artist, still amount to a body of work to be praised and envied: MCA and Epic singles such as "Big City," "Pancho and Lefty" (with Willie Nelson) and "Yesterday's Wine" (with George Jones) are formidable, and the samplings of his rootsy 21st century releases should send those unfamiliar with them scurrying to catch up with what Haggard's been up to, as they've all been excellent additions to his canon. In the end, though, it'll still be those Capitol recordings that will define Merle Haggard and, to some extent, the direction in which country music turned once he arrived -- even the most die-hard fan will never tire of hearing that string of more than 20 number one hits Haggard gave the label. All of them are here -- the landmarks like "Okie from Muskogee," "Working Man's Blues," "The Fightin' Side of Me," "Mama Tried," "Daddy Frank," "If We Make It Through December" -- as well as a couple that "only" scraped into the Top Five: "I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am" and "Someday We'll Look Back." Arranged in rough, but not strict, chronological order, the set amply demonstrates Hag's evolution as both songwriter and interpreter of those songs, and restates the case for him as one of country music's greatest contributions to the American musical lexicon -- not that that wasn't obvious already.

~Jeff Tamarkin, All Music Guide

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Merle Haggard - Producer
Merle Haggard - Performer
Willie Nelson - Producer
Mike Post - Producer
Ray Baker - Producer
Jimmy Bowen - Producer
Lou Bradley - Producer
Hank Cochran - Producer
Colin Escott - Liner Notes
Colin Escott - Photography
Colin Escott - Compilation Producer
Colin Escott - A&R
Chips Moman - Producer
Bob Montgomery - Producer
Ken Nelson - Producer
Charles Owen - Producer
Joseph M. Palmaccio - Mastering
Billy Sherrill - Producer
Ken Suesov - Producer
Lewis Talley - Producer
Robert Price - Liner Notes
Snuff Garrett - Producer
Phyllis Owen - Photography
Mike Jason - Liner Notes
Mike Jason - Executive Producer
Olivia Kim - Editorial Research

Tammy's Greatest Hits
    Tammy Wynette / CD / 1969
King of the Honky-Tonk: From the Original Master Tapes
    Webb Pierce / CD / 1994
Vintage
    Hank Thompson / CD / 1996
Loretta Lynn & Patsy Cline on Tour, Vol. 2
    Loretta Lynn & Patsy Cline / CD / 1996
50 Years of Hits
    George Jones / CD / 2004
Let's Live a Little [Compilation]
    Carl Smith / CD / 2005
Country Hit Parade: Redneck Country
    Various Artists / CD / 2007
Definitive Collection
    Merle Haggard / CD / 2007

Release Date: 11/06/2007
Genre: ctry