Branded Man

About

Branded Man is the fourth studio album by country music singer Merle Haggard and the Stranger. It was released on Capitol Records in 1967. After a troubled youth that saw him in and out of youth reformatorie, Haggard was finally sent to Bakersfield jail for a bungled robbery and, after an escape attempt, transferred to San Quentin prison on February 21, 1958. He was released in 1960. By 1967, he was on the cusp of country stardom when he hit #1 on the country singles chart with the Liz Anderson composition "I'm A Lonesome Fugitive." Understandably, Haggard was concerned about the effect his time in prison might have on his career but, as Daniel Cooper writes in the liner notes to the 1994 box set Down Every Road, it had little effect at all: "It's unclear when or where Merle first acknowledged to the public that his prison songs were rooted in personal history, for to his credit, he doesn't seem to have made some big splash announcement. In a May 1967 profile in Music City New, his prison record is never mentioned. But in July 1968, in the very same publication, it's spoken of as if it were common knowledge." Haggard would be legally pardoned for his past crimes by California's Governor Ronald Reagan in 1971. The single "Branded Man" hit #1 on the US country music charts in 1967, the first of four straight #1's Haggard would score in the next two year. The song is a little reminiscent of an old Roy Acuff song called "Branded Wherever I Go," which producer Ken Nelson had recorded with the Louvin Brothers in 1962. Branded Man kicked off an incredible artistic run for Haggard; in 2013 Haggard biographer David Cantwell state, "The immediate successors to I'm a Lonesome Fugitive - Branded Man in 1967 and, in '68, Sing Me Back Home and The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde - were among the finest albums of their respective year." Haggard wrote or co-wrote seven of the album's 12 track, which feature many of the same session players who appeared on his previous two album, including guitarists James Burton and Glen Campbell, and steel guitarist Ralph Mooney. Also contributing were The Strangers guitarist Roy Nichols and Bonnie Owen. Owens co-wrote two of the album selections with Haggard, while Bakersfield pioneer and Haggard mentor Tommy Collins had a hand in writing four song. Ken Nelson took a hands-off approach to producing Haggard. In the episode of American Masters dedicated to him, Haggard remembers: "The producer I had at that time, Ken Nelson, was an exception to the rule. He called me 'Mr. Haggard' and I was a little 24, 25-year-old punk from Oildale... He gave me complete responsibility. I think if he'd jumped in and said, 'Oh, you can't do that,' it would've destroyed me." In the same documentary, Dave Alvin marvel, "There's a purity to those record. A couple of acoustic guitar, a couple of electric guitar, and Merle's voice. And bass and drum. Those are just pure, those are timele." In the documentary Beyond Nashville, Nelson recall, "When I first started recording Merle, I became so enamored with his singing that I would forget what else was going on, and I suddenly realized, 'Wait a minute, there's musicians here you've got to worry about!' But his songs - he was a great writer." .

via Last.fm

The Clerk says

Start your shelf to read the full take →