1966 Songs: Swinging Doors

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My apologies. Both songs today are country. I didn’t plan that, it’s just the way the alphabet falls. So Linda? NO! Dianne? NO!!!! Everyone else? Let’s go back 60 years to one of the giants of country music. Swinging Doors - Merle Haggard Earlier this month I featured the song “Just Walkin’ in the Rain” by Johnnie Ray. I mentioned that it was written by two prisoners, and that it wasn’t the only time cons made it to the charts. Enter Merle Haggard. Many of you know Haggard’s story, that he was in San Quentin for armed robbery and escape. Johnny Cash did one of his numerous prison concerts there in 1960, and that (along with the execution of one of his inmate friends) helped steer his life away from crime and towards music. Ex-con makes great: among his accolades were induction into the Country Music, Nashville Songwriters, and Songwriters Hall of Fame, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, a Kennedy Center Honor, a Lifetime Achievement Grammy, and numerous Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association, and Grammy awards. He died on his 79th birthday in 2016. This is as about as stereotypical country as you can get: steel guitar, a lost love, and crying in your beer. We expected nothing less from Hag, and he never failed us. Swinging Doors Written by Merle Haggard Recorded by Merle Haggard From Swinging Doors, 1966 A flashing neon sign: