Bret Graham's tribute to Merle Haggard

Bret Graham's tribute to Merle Haggard on Thursday, April 21st at Brauntex Theatre looks like it was a great show! I had prior obligations or I would have been there, but here is video from his wife Cynthia, and hopefully more to come!

Mama Tried:

Sing Me Back Home w/Zack Walther & Joel Hoffman:

Bret Graham's Merle Haggard Tribute

Thursday, April 21st, Bret Graham is doing a Merle Haggard tribute show at Brauntex Theatre! Bret has already performed great Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson tributes at The Brauntex, and now in the wake of losing Merle Haggard back on April 6th, enjoy songs from the enormous catalog of songs that Merle masterfully performed over the years, some that were written by him, and some that have become Merle Haggard standards.

This is part of the ValMark Chevrolet Greatest Hits Live tribute series that started at Brauntex Theatre back in the fall of 2011! Below is video from Bret's Willie Nelson tribute!

Get tickets NOW!

VIDEO: Recap of Willie Nelson and Ryan Bingham

Who: Willie Nelson and Family + Ryan Bingham
When: Friday April 15, 2016
Where: Whitewater Amphitheater, New Braunfels

My wife and I saw Willie Nelson at Whitewater in 2010 with Ray Wylie Hubbard and Seth Walker opening the show, and at the time that was the best live show I had ever been to. I don't know if it was the spirit of Merle Haggard hanging in the air or something else, but Ryan Bingham opened the show and then he and his band got back up toward the end of Willie's set for a couple of Merle Haggard songs and they closed the show with a gospel set. MAN what a show! Willie always speaks through some lyrics of some songs, but try singing the same stuff for 40 or 50 years just because everybody wants to hear them and I'm sure you'd lose a little of your drive for giving 100% to those songs each time too! He did, however do MUCH less of that this time than he did in 2010, and I would say everything was almost perfect! Whitewater has done a great job rebuilding from the floods last May and October, and as usual they rebuilt bigger and better!

View photos from this show on Facebook<== LOOK!

Below I'm including a sample of Willie's show, and I'll eventually get a Ryan Bingham video posted as well, but I have to get this up soon, because I want you all to see how great this show was! I also might post a few complete songs to YouTube as well, so be on the lookout!

Also, thank each and every one of you for following Music of New Braunfels and reading what I post, it really means a lot that so many of you have found this service useful! Please make sure you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, too!

video:

links:
Whitewater Music Amphitheater's 2016 Live Music Calendar
willienelson.com
binghammusic.com

Photo: Sturgill and Merle

I saw this really cool photo of Sturgill Simpson and Merle Haggard in March retweeted by Ben Haggard. Turns out Ben was the photographer too!

Ben Haggard on Twitter
Sturgill Simpson on Twitter

Merle Haggard - Big City

This video is from Merle Haggard's 2014 appearance at Whitewater Amphitheater in New Braunfels, TX. SO glad I got to see him perform live before we lost him today! He will be GREATLY missed!



SO Sad to hear of the death of Merle Haggard

SO SAD to hear of the death of Merle Haggard

March 2014 at Whitewater Amphitheater

My original post is below, but tragically I just found out that Merle Haggard passed away today... I will add more information later if some becomes available...

Ben Haggard

Here is a post from Ben Haggard's Facebook page at 1pm today:
"A week ago dad told us he was gonna pass on his birthday, and he wasn't wrong. A hour ago he took his last breath surrounded by family and friends. He loved everything about life and he loved that everyone of you gave him a chance with his music. He wasn't just a country singer.. He was the best country singer that ever lived."

--original post--
Merle Haggard turns 79 today, join me in wishing him a happy birthday and speedy recovery from some recent health crud he's been dealing with that forced him to cancel shows in both March and April so far this year. Sorry that he won't be at Whitewater later this month, but I wish him well and hope to see him on stage again real soon!

Here's some video from that 2014 performance at Whitewater...