After putting together my 16-title top-ten albums list last week, I felt a bit sheepish about one in particular, Merle Haggard and the Strangers' Mama Tried (1968, their third album of the year). Partly because I first heard it last October, and partly because I wasn't sure I had given it a thorough enough listen.

But this week, I took some time to listen to it this week (it's only 32 minutes — 37 with bonus traks — so I've given it a good dozen, and it's confirmed its place on that pedestal for me. Four of the twelve songs, including two well-known covers ("Folsom Prison Blues," and "Green Green Grass of Home"), talk about a convict's time in prison on a serious charge (life without parole, shot a man in Reno, about to be executed). Maybe it's just a theme he went with on a few, but in hearing the other songs about jealousy, loneliness, and a hard upbringing, I almost feel that this is a concept album, the story of a murderer, and I'm trying to decipher exactly who he killed. Two of the jealousy songs are especially chilling sung by the same man who's sings of "when they'll lead me through that door and burn my life away." He'll "always know when you've been cheating... don't forget it either," and warns his woman who's talking to the milkman and iceman that "If you don't Run 'em off, I'll swear you're cheating on me." So, did he kill his woman, someone she actually cheated on him with, or just an innocent flirting delivery man? And does the "Little Old Wine Drinker" who moved to Chicago after his woman left with another man for Florida pursue that woman, or does getting burned by her make him more jealous in a later relationship?

So, it's a concise little album, without some of the broader themes (anti-hippie, pro-Jesus, etc) that would show up over the next six albums/three years. I love concise little albums.

Musically, he and the Strangers seem to be in the sweet spot between the simpler-sounding early albums while still keeping that subtly-swinging Bakersfield sound that would again sound broader in a few years. In that way, it reminds me of OutKast's ATLiens, where Organized Noize pushed as much as they could out of a limited palette of sounds and options. (That's my fave OutKast album, fwiw.)

I may also have put this on the pedestal because it was my first Hag experience. I bought the double-album reissue of Mama Tried/Pride in What I Am back in October on my birthday. Ten days later, I went back to the record store for the three other double-album packages they had in stock. Mama Tried doesn't have most of my favorite Hag songs, but it does fit together better than anything else I've heard.

For your listening pleasure, may I present a lip-synching "performance" of the title track. If you don't dig it, disregard the review above and leave the album alone.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxQbvSjQy9A

OK, now that you've read my ramble, share your random ten.