I'm A Lonesome Fugitive

About

With 1967’s <i>I’m a Lonesome Fugitive</i>, the spare, tough sound that Merle Haggard had been refining all decade long finally snapped into focus. Compared to the countrypolitan artists of the day—who were pop-friendly and string-oriented—Haggard was a reactionary, stripping away the polish to expose the bones underneath. And if countrypolitan had marked Nashville’s expansion into the broader stream of American music, Haggard represented a retreat to the pre-pop dawn of Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell, and Hank Williams. Just as rock music continually dies, only to be defibrillated by young purists taking things back to basics, Haggard used <i>I'm a Lonesome Fugitive</i> to remind people what country music had once been: raw, sentimental, out on bail—and a little bit drunk. The title track was Haggard’s first signature song, and its success kicked off one of the most unprecedented runs in music, country or otherwise: 34 Top 10 singles in a row. Haggard’s voice had a pure, brassy quality that made his tough-guy songs believable (“Drink Up and Be Somebody,” “Skid Row”) and his weepy ones even <i>more</i> so (“Whatever Happened to Me”). And in a genre that often divided artists into those who wrote and those who sang, Haggard was also one of modern country’s first singer-songwriters, a designation that eventually helped him catch on with rock-oriented audiences who, post-Dylan, considered him a representative of authenticity and self-reliance. But most of all, <i>Fugitive</i>’s strength is its emotional sleight of hand: Haggard could make the bad times sound good.

via Apple Music

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