The fifteen best Merle Haggard covers

I’m not the best person to write about Merle Haggard, not when David Cantwell, for example, exists. “. Possessing an excellent rhythmic sense, blessed with a voice that could turn wrinkles into trenches and the instinct to alternate between talk-singing and crooning — often in the same verse — and a songwriter of masterful economy, Haggard was country’s most towering figure after the death of George Jones,” I wrote in my 2016 obit, and guess what — he’s had no heirs. Rick Rubin corralled no contemporary artists into covering Haggard. Insofar as he could proffer a mythos, it proved resistant to the times: who wants to cover “Okie from Muskogee” when Toby Keith circa 2002 and Nashville’s disinterest in female artists reaffirm the glummest stereotypes about the genre? Never mind that I Am What I Am and Working in Tennessee are as stark and startling as a scarecrow on which crows roost — the equals of Johnny Cash’s final albums, which depended on mythos to substitute for waning abilities.

Anyway, these sixteen greats approach Haggard’s legacy the way I hear it: a wiry approach committed to a emotionalism that rides roughshod over notions of taste and politics.

See the list:

1. The Byrds – Life in Prison
2. Miranda Lambert – Misery and Gin
3. The Everly Brothers – Sing Me Back Home
4. Old ’97s – Harold’s Super Service
5. Lynyrd Skynyrd – Honky Tonk Night Time Man
6. Country Joe McDonald – Rainbow Stew
7. Will Oldham – If I Could Only Fly
8. The Fall – White Line Fever
9. Dave Alvin – Kern River
10. Shelby Lynne and Allison Moore – Silver Wings
11. The Melvins – Okie from Muskogee
12. David Allan Coe – Mama Tried
13. Keith Richards – Sing Me Back Home
14. Willie Nelson – Today I Started Loving You Again
15. Clint Black – I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am
16. Rosanne Cash – You Don’t Have Very Far to Go