[purchase]
Just as the Reduced Shakespeare Company boils down the epic works of Williams Shakespeare into two hours, this excellent medley of Merle Haggard hits does a good job of condensing some of the Bard of Country Music's best songs from the 1960s into a slightly overmodulated six-minute medley. The set is taken from his legendary live album, Okie from Muskogee, recorded in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. It was Haggard's first live album, and also his first record to go gold, then platinum. If this is your introduction to these songs, they sound complete; in fact, after I got used to these abbreviated renderings, the extra words in the full-length songs almost seemed unnecessary. Almost.
I would write more about this....but something about unnecessary extra words makes me want to stop here.
