OldiesButGoodies

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BEN HAGGARD GREW UP BESIDE A COUNTRY LEGEND. IN THE END, HE WAS SIMPLY A SON TRYING TO HOLD ON TO HIS FATHER. To millions of fans, Merle Haggard was an American icon whose songs had survived generations. To Ben Haggard, he was Dad. Ben had grown up around guitars, tour buses, studios, and the unmistakable weight of a famous last name. But in Merle’s final chapter, none of that mattered. The crowds could not stop time. The awards could not make his father stronger. As illness took more from the man who had once commanded every stage he entered, Ben remained close. They still had music. They still had the studio. And near the end, father and son recorded together one more time. What sounded like another song would soon become something far more painful: a final piece of time preserved forever. THE WORLD LOST MERLE HAGGARD, THE LEGEND — BUT BEN LOST THE MAN WHO HAD BEEN THERE BEFORE HE EVER UNDERSTOOD WHAT THE WORD “LEGEND” MEANT.

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Introduction: To the world, Merle Haggard was one of the greatest voices country music has ever known. His songs told stories of ordinary people with extraordinary honesty, earning him a…

Country

HE SPENT MORE THAN THREE DECADES CARRYING COUNTRY MUSIC ON HIS SHOULDERS — BUT ALAN JACKSON’S GREATEST LEGACY MAY HAVE BEEN WAITING BEYOND THE SPOTLIGHT. More than 50,000 people came to Nissan Stadium for the songs, the steel guitars, and the small-town stories that made ordinary life feel sacred. But behind every mile stood something quieter: a wife, three daughters, and a family who had shared him with the world for most of their lives. Alan never needed to explain what they meant to him. His music already had. “Drive” carried the memory of his father. “Remember When” carried the story of his marriage. And so many other songs carried the home he never stopped loving. That is why his goodbye felt bigger than applause. The music made Alan Jackson a legend — but the family beyond the lights may be what made him whole.

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Introduction: Alan Jackson’s Greatest Legacy Was Never Just the Music More than 50,000 fans filled Nissan Stadium to celebrate Alan Jackson, but the evening felt like far more than a…

Country

FOR YEARS, MERLE HAGGARD’S MOTHER FEARED HER SON WAS THROWING HIS LIFE AWAY. SHE LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO SEE WHAT HE BECAME. Flossie Haggard watched grief change her youngest son after his father died. She watched the boy she loved grow restless, angry, and increasingly difficult to reach. There were runaway attempts, trouble with the law, locked doors, and finally the place no mother wants to imagine for her child: prison. At one point, Merle Haggard’s future seemed to be disappearing before her eyes. She could not have known that the same pain driving him toward destruction would one day pour through a microphone and speak for millions. Years later, the son she had worried might never find his way became one of the defining voices in American music. The prison record could not erase the songs. The mistakes could not stop the transformation. SHE HAD SEEN HIM AT HIS LOWEST, LONG BEFORE THE WORLD STOOD TO APPLAUD — AND PERHAPS NO ONE UNDERSTOOD THE DISTANCE MERLE HAD TRAVELED BETTER THAN HIS MOTHER.

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Introduction: For many years, Flossie Haggard carried a burden that countless parents know all too well: the fear that her child might never find his way. Long before the world…

Country

THERE WAS ONE EMPTY PLACE IN MERLE HAGGARD’S HEART THAT FAME, MONEY, AND 38 NUMBER-ONE HITS COULD NEVER FILL. America saw the outlaw, the survivor, the voice of working people. But beneath everything Merle Haggard became was still a nine-year-old boy who had lost his father. James Haggard’s death did more than leave an empty chair in the family home. It seemed to leave a restlessness inside Merle that followed him through rebellion, trouble, prison, success, and eventually into the songs millions would call their own. Fame came. The awards came. Number-one records filled the walls. Yet none of them could bring back the man whose absence had changed the direction of his childhood. Perhaps that is why Merle could sing about loneliness without sounding like he was acting. Perhaps every broken road in his music led back to one loss he never truly escaped. BEHIND THE LEGEND WAS A SON WHO SPENT A LIFETIME ACHIEVING EVERYTHING — EXCEPT THE ONE THING HE WANTED MOST: MORE TIME WITH HIS FATHER.

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Introduction: The One Loss Merle Haggard Never Outgrew: The Father He Could Never Stop Missing The world came to know Merle Haggard as one of country music’s greatest storytellers. He…

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Oldies Music

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Oldies Music

The funniest detail in Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” might be the maternity dress. The woman in the song is finally ready to throw it away, and she already knows what she’d rather wear. Loretta gives that little moment the pleasure it deserves. After years of pregnancies and promises about seeing the world, here’s a woman making plans of her own. When the record came out in 1975, many country stations refused to play it. It still became a hit. Listen again and notice how much of the song’s nerve comes from its humor. Loretta could let a woman sound fed up and delighted in the same verse, and you could believe every word of it. What other Loretta song made you laugh before you realized how much truth she’d packed into it?

Oldies Music

Paul Anka Could Keep a Room Full of Strangers Awake. At His Daughters’ Recitals, Anne Sometimes Had to Nudge Him. In his 2013 memoir, Paul Anka remembered trying to make it to his daughters’ school recitals between stretches on the road. Sometimes he fell asleep in the middle of a performance, and Anne would nudge him awake. Of all the stages Anka could have written about, there’s something especially tender about this one. His place was in the audience, and he wanted to be there when his daughters looked out. Paul met model Anne de Zogheb in Puerto Rico in 1962. They married in Paris the following year and raised five daughters, eventually settling in Carmel, California, in the 1970s. His memoir returns to the strain of moving between touring and family life. Anyone who’s rushed home from work for a school concert might recognize something of themselves in that little nudge.

Oldies Music

When Robin Stepped Away, His Sister Lesley Sang with the Bee Gees on British Television. In April 1969, a press photographer caught Lesley Gibb outside London’s Revolution Club, where she had been rehearsing with her brothers. The rehearsal was for a television special recorded at Talk of the Town. Robin had stepped away from the group, and Lesley joined Barry and Maurice for the show. Contemporary coverage treated her appearance as news in its own right. A reviewer for Disc and Music Echo praised her performance and drew attention to the difficulty of singing before an audience and television cameras. For years, the Bee Gees’ public story had revolved around the voices of three brothers. For this broadcast, a fourth sibling entered that story from a position few viewers would have expected. The rehearsal photograph catches the moment before the performance became public: Lesley had already done the work of learning where her voice belonged.