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March 17, 1973: A special evening with country music legend Merle Haggard in the East Room of the White House on St. Patrick's Day, 1973. Includes performances and a reading of a poem Haggard wrote for First Lady Pat Nixon on the occasion of her birthday. The program was filmed and produced by the Naval Photographic Center. The Naval Photographic Center White House Motion Film Unit Collection consists of motion film coverage of selected official activities of President Nixon filmed between 1969 and 1974.

On March 8, 1965, U.S. Marines landed on the beaches of Da Nang, sparking the first official engagement of American involvement in the Vietnam War. As the military presence escalated, hundreds of thousands of Americans protested. As television brought home images of war, a counterculture began to emerge. Just as the Beat Generation, or Beatniks, had rejected the prevailing social norms, this new breed, the hippy, saw themselves as “freaks” and were open to drugs and free love. Time magazine reported in July 1967 the hippie movement was “blooming in every major U.S. city from Boston to Seattle, from Detroit...

Wow The Mamas and Papas "California Dreaming" shooting up the charts this date back in 1966. Welcome to the Weekend. Your host here remembering El Rushbo and how he used to come up with headlines the big media would be rolling out to fit the narrative like: "Women And Minorities Suffer Worst" This bring us to the truth about the COVID-19 vaccine situation right now especially when you think about the single dose vaxxes like AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson. Heck the adverse effects clearly impacting women more than men. "Adverse Vaccine Effects Worse For Women" Wow what an accurate...

At the 5:40 mark in this 11-min video Merle’s son Marty talks about his late grandmother (Merle’s mother) then sings Merle’s hit “Mama’s Hungry Eyes”. The song begins at about the 7:30 mark and continues to the end of the 11 minute video. The entire video is excellent. The 3 sons tell interesting, often funny, stories about their dad. After that, check out the 2nd link (below). It’s to the same show. But in this clip brothers Ben and Noel sing several of Merle’s songs.All 3 of the sons are very talented. Marty, the oldest, especially looks and sounds like...

Marty Haggard sings "Mama's Hungry Eyes" on Country's Family Reunion Jump to the 5:40 mark in this 11-min video. It's where Merle's son Marty talks for a minute or so about his late grandmother (Merle's mother) before he sings Merle's hit "Mama's Hungry Eyes". The song begins at about the 7:30 mark and continues to the end of the 11 minute video. The entire video is good, but I wanted the MH fans among us to see and hear how much his son Marty looks and sounds likes him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgGvcoyQELY

...this weekend we mark the year of tyranny known as DC 19 (The Dictatorship of COVID-19). Day 362 Of The Dictatorship Of COVID-19, Day 362 Of America And The World Held Hostage "Just in the last 12 months in the United States of America we were under the threat of the force of law for losing our liberties if we decided to go outside our homes, if we decided to travel, if we decided that we were going to open our businesses and trade with each other, if we decided that we wanted to go to church and worship. These...

Day 314 Of The Dictatorship Of COVID-19, Day 314 Of America And The World Held Hostage The Joe Biden version of DC 19 ramping up... The Trump version of tyranny came before that the buck passed to Mike Pence (White House Task Force) who passed it to Deborah Birx on down to the governors and when the governors imposed the tyranny Donald Trump and the Republican-Conservative political machine "pinned the tail on the donkey" blaming Democrat governors for the restrictions and ignoring the Republican governors from Mike DeWine on who were tyrants... The suppression of free speech in full swing...

Day 265 Of The Dictatorship Of COVID-19: Tyranny Came Before The Election Welcome to the weekend. This post title about "Game Over" in Venezuela once the late Hugo Chavez was elected President in 1998 the freedom of the country and its economy doomed to their eventual fate. We've experienced this tyranny before our 2020 election that is said to have elected Joe Biden as our President here in the USA. The COVID-19 tyranny first unleashed in March and then lessened for a bit back again. Big Government like colleges, universities, public schools being kept open and Big Business like chain...

Welcome to the weekend the new lockdowns announced in places like France and Germany in recent days keep Big Business open with big factories and Big Government open with schools while many suffer from it... In this Corporatist world Stalinist purging of the "undesirable" elements and the challenge to remember Pastor Niemoller's words: "first they came for" And they're going after all kinds of people like Piers Corbyn brother of Jeremy Corbyn arrested for organizing a rally opposing the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK and now of course the former Labor Party leader getting suspended from his party for saying...

I never knew that Merle did impersonations. If you’re a fan of classic country music, this short clip will make you smile. Guaranteed.

One of the most beloved country duets of the 1980s, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard’s “Pancho and Lefty” is among the 2020 inductees to the Grammy Hall of Fame. This No. 1 hit, recorded in 1982 and released in 1983, was written by Townes Van Zandt, who appears several times throughout the video. (That’s him at the one-minute mark.) Nelson and Haggard had never heard the song until Nelson’s daughter, Lana, suggested it. At a time when music videos were brand new, with CMT and TNN both debuting in 1983, this cinematic clip helped propel the captivating story song to...

The Fighting Side Of Me Long before Trump said if you don't like this country you should leave, Merle Haggard sang it in a song. He even sang the song in the White House as a guest of President Richard Nixon.Here are the lyrics to the song. "The Fightin' Side Of Me" I hear people talkin' bad, About the way we have to live here in this country, Harpin' on the wars we fight, An' gripin' 'bout the way things oughta be. An' I don't mind 'em switchin' sides, An' standin' up for things they believe in. When they're...

Why don't we liberate these United States, We're the ones that need it worst. Let the rest of the world help us for a change, And let's rebuild America first. Our highways an' bridges are fallin' apart: Who's blessed an' who has been cursed? There's things to be done all over the world, But let's rebuild America first. Who's on the Hill and who's watchin' the valley? An' who's in charge of it all? God bless the army an' God bless our liberty, And dadgum the rest of it all. Yeah, men in position are backin' away: Freedom is stuck...

Keith Richards was facing seven years in prison in 1977 for a massive drug bust at his Toronto hotel room. The night before he was sentenced, he headed to Toronto's Interchange Studios and recorded several songs he'd learned from his late friend Gram Parsons. The highlight was "Sing Me Back Home," a ballad Merle Haggard wrote about his time at San Quentin. For our upcoming issue, Richards spoke with Rolling Stone about his appreciation for Haggard, who died earlier this month, who he calls "one of the great country singers of all time and a hell of a guitar player."I...

Merle Haggard, the country music icon who died Wednesday, credited President Ronald Reagan for playing a central role in helping him realize his dreams. “He was a wonderful man in my life. He gave me a second chance at life in the form of the pardon he gave me,” Haggard said in a CMT interview after Reagan’s death in 2004. Haggard, an acclaimed songwriter and performer, was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and one of the most influential figures in popular music —not just in country circles. Haggard died at home in Northern California on the...

Merle Haggard has died after a series of recent health struggles. The legendary singer passed away on April 6, 2016, which was also his 79th birthday. Haggard canceled tour dates in December of 2015 after he checked into a hospital and learned he had double pneumonia.

OILDALE, Calif. — The tanker trains loaded with crude oil still rattle down the tracks at the end of the alleyway where Merle Haggard, a living legend of country music, grew up in a boxcar that his father transformed into the family home. “The walls were thick: cool in the summer and warm in winter,” Lillian Haggard Rea, the musician’s 93-year-old sister, recalled of the boxcar that their father, James Haggard, a carpenter with the Santa Fe railroad, converted by hand during the Depression. It was, she said, “just a wonderful home to live in.” Like much of the music...

A few years ago, Merle Haggard was diagnosed with lung cancer and nearly became the latest country music legend to be felled by the unforgiving combination of hard living and age. Haggard beat the disease, returned to touring and now, at 73, he’s the subject of a PBS “American Masters” special airing tonight. The documentary, “Merle Haggard: Learning to Live with Myself,” portrays a man trying to come to terms with a life that took him from a train-hopping delinquent to an ex-con to a country music superstar, thanks to hits like “Mama Tried” and “Okie from Muskogee.” Haggard has...

Like Elvis Presley and Ray Charles, Merle Haggard is a singer in whose voice one can hear all the strands of American popular music.