Holding Things Together: Merle Haggard Songbook / Various (CD)

Details: UK collection. Universally known to his fans and peers as 'Hag', the late Merle Haggard was one of the prime exponents of the 'Bakersfield Sound', developed in the early '60s as an alternative to the increasingly smooth and homogenized country music that was coming out of Nashville. Haggard was also one of country's most prolific hitmakers and composers, writing more than three quarters of the hundred plus songs he placed on Billboard's Country charts between 1962 and 1990, as well as numerous album tracks. This entry in Ace's Songwriter Series offers a broad cross-section of premium Hag copyrights, as reinterpreted by artists as diverse as Gram Parsons, Bettye Swann, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Grateful Dead and legendary 'Singing Cowboy' Roy Rogers, to name but a few. Most of the featured songs are famous enough to be recognized by their titles and are rightly considered to be country music classics but as ever, we have unearthed a few lesser known killers - some of which are appearing on CD for the first time.

Tracklist:

1. Swinging Doors - Jerry Lee Lewis
2. Okie from Muskogee - Roy Rogers
3. Irma Jackson - Barrence Whitfield
4. Just Because You Can't Be Mine - Bettye Swann
5. Silver Wings - the Knitters
6. The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde - Tammy Wynette
7. White Line Fever - the Flying Burrito Brothers
8. Kern River - Dave Alvin
9. Honky Tonk Night Time Man - Lynyrd Skynyrd
10. Life in Prison - the Byrds
11. Holding Things Together - Merle Haggard
12. Everybody's Had the Blues - Brenda Lee
13. Mama Tried - the Grateful Dead
14. The Farmer's Daughter - Chip Taylor with Ghost Train
15. I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am - Dean Martin
16. Life's Like Poetry - Dolly Parton
17. (Today) I Started Loving You Again - Wynn Stewart and the Tourists
18. Sing Me Back Home - the Everly Brothers
19. I Can't Hold Myself in Line - Elvin Bishop
20. Rainbow Stew - Country Joe McDonald
21. Living with the Shades Pulled Down - George Thorogood and the Destroyers
22. I'd Rather Be Gone - Hank Williams JR
23. I Must Be Somebody Else You've Known - International Submarine Band
24. The Bottle Let Me Down - Emmylou Harris