Seashores of Old Mexico
Seashores of Old Mexico | ||||
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Studio album by Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson | ||||
Released | October 13, 1987 | |||
Recorded | Pendernales Recording Studio, Spicewood, Texas | |||
Genre | Country | |||
Length | 38:29 | |||
Label | Epic | |||
Producer | Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson | |||
Willie Nelson chronology | ||||
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Merle Haggard chronology | ||||
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Seashores of Old Mexico is a studio album by Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson. It is a sequel to their enormously successful 1983 duet album Pancho and Lefty and was released in 1987. They are backed by The Strangers. The only charting single was a cover of a 1979 Blaze Foley song, "If I Could Only Fly", which peaked at number 58 on the 1987 Billboard Hot Country Songs singles chart.[1]
Background
Haggard and Nelson, who would each be plagued with financial problems in the years ahead, chose to produce the album themselves. However, it did not contain a hit single like their previous duet album had and peaked on the Billboard country albums chart at number 31. The album is dominated with songs composed by Haggard, although Nelson does contribute "Why Do I Have to Choose." Two remakes are included: the title track, which Haggard had written and recorded in 1974, and Haggard's 1969 ballad "Silver Wings." Perhaps the biggest surprise on the album is the inclusion of the Beatles classic ballad "Yesterday", a song that Nelson had performed regularly in concert in the sixties but Haggard had cited as a marker of the end of the good ol' days on his 1982 hit "Are the Good Times Really Over (I Wish a Buck Was Still Silver)."
Critical reception
Martin Monkman of AllMusic believes the album pales in comparison to its predecessor, writing, "Alas, little of what made the earlier album so great is in evidence. At times the album sounds like a Merle Haggard record with Willie Nelson on hand as support."[2] In his 2013 book The Running Kind, Haggard biographer David Cantwell is especially critical of Haggard's singing on "Yesterday": "His rich baritone, in especially fine form on Seashores' every other track, feels like it's been unexpectedly pumped with air and left out overnight in the chill and damp. His phrases, which normally snap off crisply or, more often, fade slowly like a sunset, here merely crumple."[3]
Track listing
- "Seashores of Old Mexico" (Merle Haggard)3:36
- "Without You on My Side" (Haggard)3:06
- "When Times Were Good" (David Lynn Jones)6:40
- "Jimmy the Broom" (Haggard, Freddy Powers)3:35
- "Yesterday" (John Lennon, Paul McCartney)3:26
- "If I Could On'y Fly" (Blaze Foley)5:14
- "Shotgun and a Pistol" (Haggard)3:05
- "Love Makes a Fool of Us All" (Glenn Martin, Hank Cochran)3:30
- "Why Do I Have to Choose" (Willie Nelson)3:54
- "Silver Wings" (Haggard)3:43
Personnel
- Merle Haggard– vocals, guitar, fiddle
- Willie Nelson – vocals, guitar
The Strangers:
- Roy Nichols – guitar
- Norm Hamlet – steel guitar
- Clint Strong – guitar
- Mark Yeary – piano
- Dennis Hromek – bass
- Biff Adams – drums
- Jimmy Belken – fiddle
- Gary Church – trumpet
- Don Markham – saxophone
with:
- Johnny Gimble – fiddle
and:
- Spencer Starnes – bass
- Dean Reynolds – upright bass
- Donna Faye – backing vocals
References
- v
- t
- e
- The Strangers
- Biff Adam
- Jimmy Belken
- Eddie Burris
- Gary Church
- Wayne Durham
- George French
- Dennis Hromek
- Don Markham
- Johnny Meeks
- Marcia Nichols
- Ronnie Reno
- Clint Strong
- Jim Tittle
- Jerry Ward
- Bobby Wayne
- Mark Yeary
- Strangers
- Swinging Doors ‡
- I'm a Lonesome Fugitive ‡
- Branded Man ‡
- Sing Me Back Home ‡
- The Legend of Bonnie & Clyde ‡
- Mama Tried ‡
- Pride in What I Am ‡
- Same Train, a Different Time ‡
- A Portrait of Merle Haggard ‡
- A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (or, My Salute to Bob Wills) ‡
- Hag ‡
- Someday We'll Look Back ‡
- Let Me Tell You About a Song ‡
- It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad) ‡
- If We Make It Through December ‡
- Merle Haggard Presents His 30th Album ‡
- Keep Movin' On ‡
- It's All in the Movies ‡
- My Love Affair with Trains ‡
- The Roots of My Raising ‡
- Ramblin' Fever
- A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today ‡
- My Farewell to Elvis
- I'm Always on a Mountain When I Fall
- Serving 190 Proof
- The Way I Am
- Back to the Barrooms
- Big City
- Going Where the Lonely Go
- That's the Way Love Goes
- It's All in the Game
- Kern River
- Out Among the Stars
- A Friend in California
- Chill Factor
- 5:01 Blues
- Blue Jungle
- 1994
- 1996
- If I Could Only Fly
- Roots, Volume 1
- The Peer Sessions
- Haggard Like Never Before
- Unforgettable
- Chicago Wind
- The Bluegrass Sessions
- I Am What I Am
- Working in Tennessee
- Songs I'll Always Sing
- Merle Haggard's Greatest Hits
- His Epic Hits: The First 11 (To Be Continued...)
- Down Every Road 1962–1994
- 16 Biggest Hits
- Hag: The Best of Merle Haggard
- Okie from Muskogee ‡
- The Fightin' Side of Me ‡
- I Love Dixie Blues ‡
- Rainbow Stew Live at Anaheim Stadium
- The Epic Collection (Recorded Live)
- Amber Waves of Grain
- The Land of Many Churches ‡
- Songs for the Mama That Tried
- Cabin in the Hills
- Two Old Friends (with Albert E. Brumley, Jr.)
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