The Strangers, road crew and friends

AND A PICTURE IS A THOUSAND WORDS AND EVERY

PICTURE TELLS A STORY!  DON'T IT?

I've a number of pictures of all The Strangers and more information about each one, and I plan to call and do a short interview with them for some of their thoughts on the friend and boss Merle Haggard.  Like Willie and Family, it was the same with Merle and the Strangers... they were Family.  Merle, like one of his huge heroes Bob Wills, was a band leader.  Was always fun when

Merle would play the fiddle during his set, and he would take the bow and wave it and direct his band in a Bob Will's way.

 

I could see beyond getting the sound right at sound checks, it was a time for him to spend some time with the guys in the band.

He always bragged on them on stage and introduce them with some funny skits they would do.  He formed the band back in

1965, in Bakersfield and has been known for decades as one of the top band in country music.  The band itself won a number

of awards, including several as touring band of the year.

 

Jim Christie on drums

Renato Caranto on sax

Scott Joss on fiddle/mandolin/guitar and vocals

 

 

During the decade plus ride with Haggard the following guys were in the band:

  • Renato Caranto – tenor saxophone
  • Jim Christie – drums
  • Floyd Domino – keyboards
  • Ben Haggard – electric guitar, lead guitar, lead and backing vocals
  • Noel Haggard – lead vocals, electric guitar
  • Theresa Haggard – backing vocals
  • Norman Hamlet – steel guitar
  • Scott Joss – fiddle, mandolin, guitars, backing vocals
  • Taras Prodaniuk – bass guitar
  • Doug Colosio – keyboards, bass guitar
  • Biff Adam - Drums
  • Don Markham -  Sax
  • WILL NAME MORE PEOPLE THAT PLAYED IN BAND OVER THE YEARS

 

 

Longest member of the Strangers Norm Hamlet on the left and next

to him on guitar is Ben Haggard, youngest member of the Strangers.

Taras Prodaniuk would fly in from Austin, Texas.

Dwight Yoakum for a number of years...

 

Haggard and saddle pals on the road from the road...

On the right of Merle is Fuzzy Owen, a central person in not only the Bakersfield sound

but in the life and career of Merle's.  He was a co-owner of Tally Records and recorded

Merle's first record after meeting him in 1961.  It was in 1962 that he signed him to the

label.  These two men can tell a million stories about those early days where they were

themselves creating that sound.

 

In 1950 Fuzzy had worked with Bonnie Owens and released the record "A Dear John

Letter" a duet on Mar-Vel Records.  Bonnie had been married to Buck Owens and

would later marry Merle in 1965, and Merle talked about her to me for years.

 

For all the years after Merle left Tally Records and went to Capital and began on his

long road to fame, Fuzzy has been on the road wearing the hat of Road Manager,

and taking care of the financial duties of payments from the promoters.  In that itself

you could see the loyalty to the men that helped Merle get where he was today was

paid with loyalty having these guys still on his team.  Willie is another cowboy that

operates on loyalty.

 

 

Frank Mull was with Merle for many years, knew his mother, and put in four decades on the road with Haggard wearing the tour manager hat, working on the advance work, booking hotels, getting the bands travel arrangements from their home towns, merchandise, doing the guest lists, making sure Merle got

his food, back stage passes, who would get to see Merle, who would get on his bus, or have things autographed, and on and on...

 

When he wasn't on the road he was at home in Nashville doing the advance work for the next tour and loading up his bus with the office and merchandise, and also carried some of the bands equipment.

 

I'VE A FEW HUNDRED STORIES ON MERLE'S FRIEND FRANK.  Merle

told me a number of times Frank was like a brother to him, and he had a

unspoken gratitude for all that Frank did for him.  Some just a few words

between these two men got so much done and so many miles traveled with

just the understanding about what needed to be done.

  

 

Ninety percent of the time on the road Merle would do sound check with

the Strangers.  His band and their sound was very important to Merle.

Was also a time he could hang more with the guys and chat and share

some time and energy with the Strangers.

Peter Wolf and Merle in New York on Dylan tour...I could see

Merle liked Peter and they spent some good time on Hag's bus.

During the 5 days at the Beacon they hung out a few times, a

few years later he and Haggard would do a duet on his album.

 

Merle liked most to spend time with his music friends from the

business on his bus during the day, maybe after sound check

and after the show.  Over the years Merle would mention his

ole friend Johnny Rodriguez, he would tell a songwriting story

about Lefty Frizzell, Whitey Shafer, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny,

and some other songwriters in a hotel room many years back.

 

Merle talked often to me about his idol Lefty Frizzell and the

times in his life and music he was around Lefty.  On one of

Hag's backstage All Access Passes was a picture of Lefty,

and he had pictures around his house of Lefty, and Merle

bought and owned Lefty's guitar.

 

The last 6 months of Hag here on earth he and I were working

on a movie on Lefty and more on that down the road in the

book...

 

Chapter in my other book on my introducing Merle Haggard to Les Paul.

That is all I am going to say right now...

Merle, Neil Mcoy and Noel Haggard in Tucson, Arizona back in

about 2007 on Merle's bus, and Merle in his fishing hat...his son Noel

toured with Merle for that last decade of his life and would open the show.

 

MIRANDA LAMBERT MEETS MERLE

 

The picture to the right of teen Miranda Lambert, meeting

Merle Haggard was in 2005, in Oregon at a concert that she

was one of the opening acts.  I had been told that there was

a young girl at the show that was a big fan of Merle Haggard,

so I told Merle this, and he and I walked to her bus where he

knocked on the bus door... and a very surprised Beverly

Lambert opened the door, soon followed by Rick Lambert

and Miranda.  Then, there is the signed guitar story...and more.

 

 

 

CUT TO: 11 years later the Merle Haggard Sprit Award from

the Academy of Country Music is given to Miranda Lambert

While hanging out in the lobby of the small Redding airport I got a call from Frank checking on us, and he wanted to tell me that there was going to be a young girl singer songwriter by the name of Miranda Lambert that was one of the opening acts at the show. He told me that she had signed with Sony and word was she grew up on Merle's music. His CD was the first one she owned when she was 13 years old. She had new album out and will be there in her own bus. I looked up and saw Merle wave at me as he and Ben started out the door leading to the runaway where the jet was ready for us to board.

Looking back it was again one of those times that the situation was so unbelievable to me that I was in a daze of being, in such a wind of fate and destiny that it was hard to wrap my head around the reality of it all. The plane trip with Bennie and Merle was an out of body experience, just seeing the joy his son was feeling while boarding a jet after just sitting there in his living room at home on a flight simulator game. Bennie amazed Merle and I with how good he was at flying the virtual jets. I got to see him and his dad talk about jets while we are ready to take off in their own jet was a great look at the father and son love that Merle had for Bennie. Merle told some jet stories about Roger Miller and Johnny Cash and how some artist blew their savings owning jets and having to keep pilots paid. I told Merle that I had read that Rodney Crowell asked Johnny Cash, his father-in-law at the time, for Rodney was married to Rosanne Cash, “Johnny what is the real secret to getting famous?” Johnny told him, “You got to go to the airport 290 times a year.” Merle laughed as he looked out the window and noticed his ranch as the jet was gaining altitude.

After we got there and parked the bus, I went walking around and looking for Miranda Lambert's bus. After I found her bus, I got a copy of her CD and took it back to show Merle and tell him about her being there and wanting to meet him. He looked at her picture on the CD and said, "Don't bring her on the bus, let's surprise her and go to her bus." We got right up and headed to her bus parked right next to the Lonestar band bus. Merle just walked up to the bus door and knocked on the door and when Beverly Lambert, Miranda's mom opened the door she screamed, “Oh my, it's Merle Haggard!” Later, she told us she peed in her pants. Miranda came up behind her and you could see the shear shock on her face and a huge Texas grin. Right behind her was her dad Rick looking over her shoulder and saw the Hag, then they all began to file out of the bus for the grand meeting and you could see and feel their very earnest excitement

During Haggard's set, we set up a place on stage for the Lambert tribe to sit and got a speaker set up so they could hear good. After the show the band bus takes Merle, Bennie and I back to the airport to board the jet back to Redding and to the ranch. A few times on the trip back, Hag and I would talk about what a great talent Miranda was and how she just knocked our boots off, leaving no doubt that she was on her way up. I had no idea, and I’m sure that Merle didn't either, that this was the beginning of as big a star as she would become like a fire with “kerosene” thrown on it. We would all have a growing friendship through the next decade, and I am soon to approach her to see if she will write the forward to this book.

Haggard's Family on the Road

 

Biff Adams

started playing drums with Merle in 1970

Noel Haggard

MORE OF

THE STRANGERS BAND

COMING SOON

 

Run on the pavement, run from the jails, run down the road...run run run

Ben Haggard joined the band when he was 15 years old

From the start I knew that Merle Haggard did not like to be photographed.  He for sure did not like to pose for photographs.

His road crew that were helping with security knew how to help him avoid having to look at cameras and deal with the crazy

fans and photographers, especially with the beginning of the digital age and everybody and their dog had a camera in the

pocket on their iPhone.  I knew, for the most part, just film Merle "the troubadour" doing what he does and not to act out for

the camera, and that was find with me...look at his fact on the right when he saw me taking the pic of him and Theresa.  LOL

 

It was for sure and long and winding road and Merle Haggard was and will go down, and went down as a road warrior.  In

his life from a box car to the lock ups he was forced in by the California Youth Authority, to his confinement in San Quentin.

 

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Buffalo Benford Standley

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