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I actually knew Merle from the time I was a little girl. My mom owned a bar called the Blue Note in a small town outside of Bakersfield and hired him to play there when he first started playing around town. He got in a fight in the bar with some guy who was flirting with his first wife Leona and the local cops took him to jail. Mom had to go bail him out to finish the night. Lol
Mom was good friends with his first wife. They went to school together.
After he started recording he used to still come around to the local bars in Lamont and Weedpatch. By then I was old enough to drink and ran into him often. Later I started cocktails get and bar tending and he was friends with guys who owned some of the places I worked so saw him a lot. I had him thrown out of one of the places I worked because he was drunk and harassing my cocktail waitresses. He was shocked over that one.
About 6 years ago not too long before my mom passed away she was sitting in an Oildale bar called Trouts. He came in and sat down with her for about an hour.
That’s the last I heard anything about him being in town other than doing a few concerts at the Crystal Palace. He had moved up north many years ago but would stop in various places if he was passing through.
Ahhhhhh memories.