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"16 Biggest Hits” by Merle Haggard
An Appreciation by The Old Soundman
It was one of those rare nights that my whole family gathers around the big dinner table at Casa OSM. I had taken the night off from the club, and The Old Soundwoman made some great pasta sauce with asparagus and eggplant - man, I can pack away some of that stuff, let me tell you! The Young Soundman was sitting there sulking because I won’t buy him an iPod. I told him, buck a cable for every XLR you solder up for me, son!
He shouted, “That would be over 300 cables!” I responded, “You better bring home some good grades from math class, you’ve got quite a way with numbers, there!” “Mom, can I be excused?” he asked, shoving his chair back from the table.
“What am I going to do with you two?” she sighed. “Take your plate to your room and finish it there, Junior.” He stomped off in the fashionable boots I bought him, probably planning to watch some “surround-sound” DVD on the nice TV set that I bought him, too. He probably rented the DVD on my Blockbuster card, and probably won’t take it back on time.
But, as the OSW reminds me, it’s better that he acts out that way, instead of in the ways that I did when I was his age. She might have a point there. Then the Young Soundwoman started raving about a record called “Wonder Wonder” that she just bought, by some young singer from Chicago, named Edith Frost. I said I knew her uncle, Jack, but that didn’t get any laughs. They’re a tough crowd, those two ladies of mine.
“The clarity of Steve Albini’s engineering just blows me away,” the YSW enthused dreamily. “The way he recorded the vocal and the instruments on the song “Cars and Parties” is so pristine!” “Look, people have been recording things cleanly and clearly for years, just look at Merle Haggard’s ‘16 Biggest Hits,’” I commented. My thoughts at that point were in truth drifting rapidly towards the warm pecan pie that I could smell as the OSW took it out of the oven. I was just imagining that huge slab of Ben and Jerry’s vanilla ice cream that I was going to lay on top of my super-size slice of pie, when suddenly, I could not believe my ears!
“Who’s Merle Haggard?” the Young Soundwoman asked. I spit out coffee all over my lap.
“WHO’S MERLE HAGGARD??!!” I screamed.
“Don’t you shout at our daughter!” the OSW snapped, advancing on me with the pie cutter. “Da-ad!” the YSW said disgustedly, “so what if I don’t know some dinosaur rocker that you were into before I was born!”
“MERLE HAGGARD IS NOT A DINOSAUR ROCKER!” I howled.
“I’m not going to tell you again, buddy, you keep it down! Shut your pie hole!” the Old Soundwoman yelled, and whacked the pie cutter against the chopping block for emphasis.
“But, honey, that was blasphemy,” I whined, “you know how I feel about the Hag!” I was just hoping that I was not going to lose out on my slice of pecan pie - she has been known to hurl the whole pie out into the compost heap, when I say the wrong thing.
“Dad, I can’t believe you are being such a jerk about this!” the YSW said. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I looked at her with big cow eyes. “But Merle Haggard is a national treasure! He is a country artist, a legend really, and it just blew my mind that you have never heard of him.” We buried the hatchet, and I promised to buy her an iPod, if she would go sit down with me in my listening room for one hour, and listen to Merle’s “16 Biggest Hits.”
13 of the 16 were re-recorded in 1994, at sessions produced by Merle himself. The other three were co-produced with Dean Holloway and Lewis Talley, on previous releases by the Hag, “Big City” and “Where The Lonely Go." See, this is why I dig Merle. It wasn’t called “Where the Ultra-Successful Swine Who Sort of Look Like George Clooney Go.” No, Merle is not only down with the workingman, he is down with the loser workingman, the one who doesn’t have a gorgeous wife and bright, if somewhat troubled, children, the way I do.
I know all about this Albini, OK? The only thing he ever did that impressed me was his essay, “The Problem With Music.” He was into artists’ rights when Don Henley and Sheryl Crow were still passed out at the Hotel California. He shows you how a major label can front a band $250,000, and each member only winds up with four grand.
I never saw what the big fuss is about his engineering. Sure, the record he did with Nirvana sounds excellent. The Pixies, okay, that was pretty outstanding. PJ Harvey, yeah, I’ll concede that was damn good. Scrawl, Tad, Page and Plant, none of that stuff really floats my boat. But hey, Albini never writes in to ask me any questions, so we have a mutual non-admiration society.
You might say, “Old man, he doesn’t do any live sound gigs, why would he write in to you?” You kids today are sooooo negative.
Maybe my cultural prejudices make me more susceptible to the sonic subtleties on Merle Haggard’s record. Let me enumerate them to you, as I did to the YSW on that evening, as she probably only stayed awake by visualizing that iPod she was going to get, for putting up with my mad ravings. OK, I had a couple of Red Bulls while we were listening, and I was already flying high off that pie and ice cream sugar buzz. But, my culinary weaknesses aside, “16 Biggest Hits” is a genuinely amazing sounding record.
Number one, you can tell that Merle is the furtherest thing from a dinosaur rock artist, because the snare is always totally audible, but never louder than the vocal. Am I the only person that is sick of the insanely intrusive snare sounds that have been torturing us for the last 20 years? And yes, you studio types are not the only offenders, there have been some real war criminals in the live arena as well, and we use much bigger speakers than you guys do.
The vocals are way up front, as you would expect. They are not over-effected, another factor that is charming and relaxing to yours truly. Really, if gun manufacturers can be sued for the deaths of people killed with their products, shouldn’t Eventide and Antares be equally liable for the damage that cretins all over the world have perpetrated, using the effects units that those companies make and sell, with no waiting period?
How about the intro to “I’m A Lonesome Fugitive?” Now, that’s a guitar recording! I’m sure they didn’t “re-amp” anything, unlike the obsessive fussbudgets who think that reading every issue of Tape Op will somehow help them become cult-indie-band engineers. I’m sure that Merle’s studio did not have a whole row of some spoiled little rooster-haired geek’s collection of Dumbles, Riveras, and Matchlesses. I’ll bet you twenty bucks that this part, which sets up the vocal’s entrance so perfectly and poetically, was played through a Fender or Peavey amplifier!
Did you know that if the FOH mixer for Merle’s concerts goes above 100 dB, the tour manager hands him a ticket home, and the systems guy finishes the show? Yeah! That’s right! Take that, Trent Reznor! Take that, Baldheaded Billy Corgan! Take that, Angus! Wait a minute, Angus is cool - I got carried away there.
Check out the way the acoustic guitars lay in the mixes. They almost don’t exist. It sounds like the high-pass was rolled up to about 500 Hz. You wanna know why? Because it’s Merle’s name up on the marquee, Chuckles! People don’t buy the record to hear the git-tar player, they want to hear Merle sing! Three chords and the truth, Pops!
“Daddy, my name isn’t Pops,” the YSW interjected. “I know, I know,” I quickly shot back to cover up my momentary disorientation, “it was just a figure of speech. But check out this piano! And the steel guitar! And the trumpet coda at the end of ‘Sing Me Back Home!’ All the edges are rounded off! It doesn’t hurt! It is pleasant sounding! Do you think Albini ever thinks about that, a guy who used to have a band called Rapeman?”
Check out the bass on “Mama Tried.” THAT is minimalism, Steve buddy! Forget your precious Slint! You need to study Merle’s records. This is artistry. No more than what is necessary, and no less. It is perfection. A puzzle with all the pieces, assembled by some people who were playing, singing and recording when you were just a gleam in your parents’ eyes!
“Mom, Dad is talking crazy with his eyes closed again!” the YSW sang out. Oh, no! Here comes the OSW! I got up halfway out of my chair and and gave her a big smile, but she wasn’t having any of it. “You just settle down, buster, now you heard her say she would listen to your damn record, and she will, but that doesn’t mean you can babble at her all the way through it! If you like this music so much, show some respect and listen to it quietly!”
“OK, baby!” I answered, shooting daggers from my eyes at the YSW, who was giggling madly with her hand over her mouth, behind her mother’s back..
“Oh, man, check out the railroad spike!” I hollered, I couldn’t help it, but my outburst drew the OSW back in the room, to start beating me with her dishtowel. There is this sound on “Workingman’s Blues,” it really sounds like somebody hitting two railroad spikes together. It is so outside! It is so weird! Merle, you surrealist! Sun Ra didn’t have anything on you, brother!
Did you know that Merle was high on pot all the time, even when he wrote and released “Okie from Muskogee?” He admits it now, and says the song was really a sympathetic, almost a novelistic portrayal, of a character, not really himself. In his autobiography, he also talks about being addicted for years to an unnamed stimulant, which must have been meth, since he speaks pretty freely about a lost weekend on coke, with some woman, on his houseboat parked on Lake Shasta. You hear that, Lemmy? Merle was way ahead of you, pal.
Talk about mixes, listen to the way the Telecaster is entwined with the brushes that the drummer is using on the snare and high hat, on “The Fightin’ Side Of Me.” And check out the wacky bass fill after the first chorus – you think John Paul Jones and the late John Entwistle never heard this stuff? Okay, the modulation is kind of corny. But how many records can you find where, out of 16 tunes, there is only one somewhat embarassing moment? I don’t think your Mr. Albini has a higher batting average than that!
“He’s not ‘my’ Mr. Albini, Dad, I just happen to like this one Edith Frost record. Are you sure you’re not drunk?” the YSW asked. “I am not drunk, young lady,” I said sternly, “but maybe I was thinking out loud.” I cleared my throat and continued, “How about these background vocals on ‘Daddy Frank?’ Notice how they evoke a family singalong feeling? That’s no accident! And the Dixeland horns that start to come in towards the end? Okay, to you and me they might be pretty square, but back then, on a country record, this was pretty darn progressive!”
Merle wasn’t done with the world of horns, either, there is a rockin’ tenor doing fills and a shouting solo on “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink.” It happens over the most tastefully played and recorded piano comping I’ve heard this year. It’s recorded like velvet, the goal is not to impress everybody over at Soundelux and Universal Audio with the crispness of the response at 15K, the goal is to give an enjoyable listening experience to people kicking back with a cocktail in their rec rooms, or their vehicles. The Telecaster guy also takes a distorted solo that actually makes musical and harmonic sense, and then ends in a planned, rather than haphazard, fashion. The drumming is funky and in the pocket, and not trying to fight with the other instruments for space in the mix.
I wish Merle gave credit to his engineers, that is the only negative comment that I will make about him. But how can you stay mad at a guy who writes lyrics like this?
“Sleep won't hardly come
When there’s loneliness all around
I've got to keep goin’
Travelling down this lonesome road
I'm rollin’ with the flow
Goin’ where the lonely go …”
There’s two kinds of people in the world. The kind who will admit they have been there, in that lonely place, and know what Merle’s talking about. And the kind of who have been there too, but can’t bring themselves to admit it. The second kind, I don’t have time for. Steve Albini, I’ll bet you’re man enough to admit you have felt the Loneliness. Even if you don’t work with country artists. You probably can’t say so in front of your buddies in Shellac, but I bet you’re the kind of guy that could hear “Silver Wings” in a truck stop and have it bring a tear to your eye, when you remembered saying goodbye in an airport somewhere, to someone you cared about.
Listen to the Hag, Steve. Listen and learn.
Luv
- THE OLD SOUNDMAN
