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Friday, 20 January 2012 06:55

Written by Rich Kienzle

Merle Haggard, Country Music Hall of Famer, 2010 Kennedy Center Honors recipient, Grammy winner and one of America's (not just country's) great troubadours is in a Macon, Georgia hospital (the Medical Center of Central Georgia) suffering from pneumonia.

According to UPI, The 74 year old was on tour with his band the Strangers, and canceled a scheduled Macon appearance Tuesday just minutes before he was to go onstage. He'd apparently not felt well when he left his California home and his condition worsened.  His publicist has indicated he seems in good spirits. Plans are to cancel and reschedule seven upcoming concert dates to give him time to recuperate.

Haggard underwent surgery for lung cancer in 2008, resulting in the removal of part of his right lung, but bounced back with regular tours and recordings including two albums in the past two years: I Am What I Am (2010) and his 2011 album Working in Tennessee, which made my PG Top Country Albums of 2011 list.  He was hospitalized in Texas this past summer for a heart issue that he says. With typical straightforwardness, he says that proved to be a false alarm, according to comments by Haggard on his website.  

Haggard is booked for two Central Pennsylvania concerts in April: one in Shippensburg and another in Williamsport, assuming he's sufficiently recovered.

Here's a bit of Hag with Kris Kristofferson singing "Okie From Muskogee" at a 2011 show at Harrah's in Cherokee NC. The fun he's having with it shows the song is more a period piece from a bygone era nowadays. The lanky guitarist behind him is his son Benny, a formidable Telecaster picker. That's saying something. Not only is Merle himself a powerful lead guitar man, he's employed some great ones--the late Roy Nichols, his original lead man, Clint Strong and the late Eldon Shamblin, a former member of Bob Wills' Texas Playboys, among them.

And this is Haggard about 40 years ago on the CBS show Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour doing some of the surprisingly good imitations of other stars, a specialty of his stage shows way back when. The Buck Owens is uncanny.  Campbell, during his days as a studio musician, played and sang harmony on some of Haggard's early singles.  As for Buck, he and Merle had a somewhat ... complicated relationship.  Merle was married to Buck's ex-wife: singer Bonnie Owens, who recorded on her own and sang with Merle onstage. Buck's Blue Book Music published nearly all of Merle's classic early songs like "Mama Tried." That said, Buck would readily admit his enduring admiration for Merle's genius as a songwriter.

UPDATE:

The Macon Telegraph is reporting that Haggard is about to be released so he can return home to California to recuperate.  This is obvious good news, and the Macon concert has been rescheduled for late April. 

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