Merle Haggard helped shape the kind of country music Alan Jackson grew up respecting.
ALAN JACKSON ALWAYS KNEW MERLE WAS ONE OF THE GREATS.
Merle came from an older, rougher generation of country stars. His songs carried prisons, boxcars, hard roads, working men, and the kind of loneliness that helped define outlaw country.
Alan’s sound was different.
Cleaner.
More traditional.
But he still understood exactly what Merle meant to country music.
Alan Jackson Honors Merle Haggard With “That’s The Way Love Goes”
But here’s what made their connection special…
Merle eventually saw Alan’s talent too. Toward the later part of Merle’s career, he even opened for Alan, which Alan admitted felt strange because Merle was one of his heroes.
That is the old generation passing the torch to the new.
But it was not like Merle worshipped everything around Alan.
In fact, there was one thing he hated.
And that’s not all…
Alan once shared that his mother made a lemon icebox pie he loved so much that he kept it on the backstage catering table.
One day, Merle was eating with the bands when someone asked how the food was.
Merle said it was pretty good, but warned everyone not to eat that “yella pie.”
Alan never told him it was his mama’s pie.
Here’s the truth…
That little pie story says more than it seems.
Merle could be blunt, funny, and impossible to soften.
Alan could take the joke because he knew the respect between them was real.
And after Merle died on his 79th birthday in 2016, Alan recorded “That’s The Way Love Goes” as a tribute to the man who helped teach country music how to sound honest.
Do you think Alan Jackson carried Merle Haggard’s traditional country spirit forward?