1980 Madison Wisconsin Dane Cty Coliseum Merle Haggard - 1-Page Vintage Article

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1980 Madison Wisconsin Dane County Coliseum Merle Haggard - 1-Page Vintage Article
Original, Vintage Magazine Article.
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
MERLE HAGGARD
AND THE STRANGERS
DANE COUNTY COLISEUM
MADISON, WISCONSIN
Personnel: Haggard, vocals, electric guitar, fiddle;
Roy Nichols, Red Lane, electric guitars; Ronnie
Reno, acoustic guitar, harmonica, and backup vocal.
Gordon Terry, fiddle; Norman Hamlet, pedal steel
guitar; Mark Yeary, piano, Don Markham, sax and
trumpet, Billy Joe Claton, bass guitar; Biff Adam. Bob
Gallardo, drums, Bonnie Owens, backup vocal.
Merle Haggard's show at. the Coliseum
strongly reinforced his stature as one of
country’ musics greatest singers and one of its
most formidable bandleaders. Fronting a
country big band which included four
guitars, two drums, pedal steel, piano, fiddle,
saxes and trumpet, Hag was able to faithfully
render the Bob Wills-style western swing that
he so deeply reveres, yet still harness the
groups power to bring out the individual
subtlety inherent in each Haggard song.
Workin' Man Blues, vintage 1969 Haggard,
started things off at a brisk pace. But instead
of cutting it off sharply and distinctly separat-
ing it from the second lune, Hag gently
dissolved the brittle arrangement into a
smooth Always Laie, lovingly sung in homage
to its author. Lefty Frizzell, the late honks
tonk classicist who was as much an influence
on Haggard as Wills.
This pattern of alternating swingin' up-
beaters with mellower mood pieces con-
tinued throughout the rest of the one hour,
music-packed set. The autobiographical
Mama Tried, marvelously swung along by Roy
Nichols' lead guitar riff, gave way to the
sweetly intimate It's All In The Movies. The
tender ballad Today I Started Loving You Again
in turn led directly into the peppy classic
Ramblin ’ Fever.
Wherever Haggard went, the Strangers
followed closely with sparkling instrumental
work and varying arrangements that gave
each song its own character. Nichols and
Haggard would exchange supple leads or
twin together effortlessly, sometimes tripling
with rhythm guitarist Red Lane. Drummer
Biff Adam’s basic foundations were orna-
mented by Bob Gallardo’s crackling Rototom-
ming. Acoustic guitarist Ronnie Reno’s (Reno
is the scion of bluegrass banjoist Don Reno)
plaintive harmonica wails were answered by
Gordon Terry’s fiddle licks. Don Markham
added sax or trumpet according to swing.
Straight-lo-the-point solos were handed of!
liberally but always within the song’s context.
Obviously, though, the most appropriate
context for this big band was country swing.
Haggard learned all about country swing
and just about every other type of country
music in hometown Bakersfield, Southern
California’s major agricultural and industrial
trading center and consequent cultural
vortex. There the young Haggard came into...
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