REAL MEN: Willie Nelson Delivers Amazing Tribute To Merle Haggard

They were two men who were one of a kind: Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. Both country legends deserving of tribute in their own right, Haggard and Nelson weren’t just prolific, brilliant singer-songwriters. They were also two of the outlaws who saved country music from record industry-induced pop blandness.

They recorded together and were close friends. They lived hard and sang about it. And when one of them went home to the Lord earlier this week, the other was devastated.

Haggard passed away this week on his 79th birthday, after a battle with pneumonia.

After a 48-hour silence, Nelson finally paid tribute to his lost friend and brother:

“He was my brother. My friend. I will miss him,” Willie said in a short but sweet tweet. He included a link to the video for a song the two recorded together, “Pancho & Lefty.”

“Pancho & Lefty was a different beast. Released during a time when country artists were beginning to borrow more and more heavily from pop music, the album doubled down on twang and dusty cowboy imagery, bringing a sense of old-school honky-tonk back to a rapidly modernizing genre,” Rolling Stone said in a review (via QPolitical).

The two recorded the song near Nelson’s ranch in Texas back in the early 1980s. They would stay awake for days on end (I’m sure just on nothing stronger than a bit of coffee, right?), playing golf all day and recording at night.

“It’s a mutual-admiration society with us,” Willie said in an interview after their last album together, “Django and Jimmy,” was released last summer. “Merle’s one of the best. There’s not anyone out there that can beat him.”

An amazing tribute to the Okie from Muskogee. Farewell, Merle Haggard. This world will miss you — and your amazing talent — more than you will ever know.

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