Country Music

For two rugged individualists who boldly blazed their own trails, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard have had parallel career trajectories. They both perfected scrappy, raw-boned styles that helped deliver country music from its overproduced ‘60s Countrypolitan doldrums, both found their spiritual center outside of Nashville (Nelson in Austin, Haggard in Bakersfield), and both became icons whose mythology threatened to obscure their actual achievements. And now, each man in his seventies, Willie and Merle make their respective debuts on long-established folk labels Rounder and Vanguard on the same day, with two winningly visceral, back-to-basics albums. Admittedly, Haggard began his roots-rediscovery journey a decade earlier, while Nelson spent the 2000s sleepwalking through one ill-conceived “theme” album after another, but now their aesthetic paths have twined again. On Country Music, Nelson sounds more alive and committed than ever, tackling traditional folk and gospel tunes alongside country classics from Ernest Tubb and Merle Travis. I Am What I Am is full of new songs from Haggard’s pen, each a taut, timely observation on life as an aging legend, framed by simple, spontaneous-sounding arrangements that sound like ol’ Merle’s having the time of his life. Young upstarts could learn a lot about the core values of country music from these elder statesmen’s embrace of personal truths.