ROOTS of Country Music

Merle Haggard & The Strangers

An extraordinary number of musicians have passed through the ranks of the Strangers through the years. Here we have listed the players who actually toured with the band during the Capitol years as well as important session players. It is by no means complete, but rather a rough guide to the musicians who supported Merle Haggard from the beginning of his career until he left Capitol Records in 1976.

Tired of playing in front of house musicians in the numerous clubs he was working, Merle formed the Strangers back in the early Sixties and naturally, there were a few changes made along the way.

However, during their heyday, the award winning band consisted of Merle Haggard (lead vocal, guitar, fiddle), Roy Nichols (guitar), Norman Hamlet(steel), Bobby Wayne ( rhythm guitar), Dennis Hromek, Jerry Ward(bass), Biff Adams, Eddie Burris(drums), George French (piano)

Individually and collectively the Strangers were a very impressive group of musicians, as proven on the two albums they released for Capitol: Introducing My Friends The Strangers" (ST 445) and now Getting to Know Merle Haggard's Strangers" (ST 590).

As individual musicians, all of The Strangers have racked up awards and recognition. As a group, they were one of the best in the business.

Awards

Academy of Country and Western Music

Band of the Year (1969)

Introducing the Strangers

Al Bruno

(guitar, 1970-1971)

Born Al Bruneau in Canada, Al Bruno was a young guitar whiz kid who joined Conway Twittys road band in 1959.

After moving to the United States, he toured with many top pop and soul acts before moving to Los Angeles, Californian the mid-1960s. Bruno became one of the Capitol first-call guitarists, along with James Burton and appeared on many sessions for Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and others.

Although he was never a full time member of the touring Strangers, Bruno did a lot of work with Haggard, both in the studio and in concert. Bruno played on some Haggard vocal sessions, but his chief contribution was as a player on the Strangers solo records, most notably Stumbling, where Haggard calls out Brunos name in the introduction.

Biff Adam

(drums, 1970-present)

Biff Adam, the namesake of the instrumental Biff Bam Boom, was another member of the Strangers who came up through the ranks of the house band (Red Rhodes and the Detours) at the Palomino Club in North Hollywood, California (CA).

Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Biff first went to Los Angeles, CA with the Navy and after his discharged he decided to settle in California.

After spending some four years in Northern California, Biff moved to Los Angeles, CA and started working local clubs backing some of the biggest names in country music.

Biff Adam joined up with The Strangers in early 1970. Along with fellow Palomino Club expatriates Dennis Hromek and Bobby Wayne, Biff Adam was the bedrock for the next classic lineup of the Strangers and the next and the next after that. In fact, after all the turmoil surrounding the Haggard organization, Biff Adam is still the man on the drums nearly 40 years later.

Biff joined the band just in time to record the second Strangers solo LP, where he contributed his classic drum solo number Biff Bam Boom. He was the drummer on If We Make It Through December, Movin On, Carolyn, Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man), Grandma Harp and several dozen other number-one hit records, continuing to the present day.

Bill Woods

(piano, fiddle, 1972)

Bill Woods was one of the legendary figures in Bakersfield, with a long history that went back to the late 1940s. Originally a local radio disc jockey, he was also leader of the house band at the Blackboard Caf with his group Bill Woods and the Orange Blossom Playboys, a job he held for many years.

Woods was also one of the great record men in Bakersfield, California (CA), launching such labels as Bakersfield, Fire and many others that released dozens of seminal early Bakersfield country, rockabilly and novelty records.

Woods helped many people around Bakersfield, CA with their music careers, inspiring Red Simpson to write Bill Woods from Bakersfield. Merle Haggard recorded the song in 1971 for his Let Me Tell You About a Song album (LP) after hearing Simpson perform it live on the radio in Los Angeles.

Perhaps as a result of the songs popularity, Woods himself was invited to join the Strangers. Although he played piano with the Strangers on the road, he never recorded with the Strangers on piano. He played fiddle on several sessions, but no hits.

Woods had to leave the band after medical troubles forced him off the road. He had sustained major injuries in a racing car crash (automobile racing was the other great passion in his life).

Billy Liebert

(piano, 1971-1972)

Billy Liebert was a Los Angeles, California based piano and accordion player who came to prominence in the late 1940s as a member of Cliffie Stones Hometown Jamboree television show.

Liebert hada long association with Capitol Records, appearing as a session man on all of Cliffie Stones projects, including Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Molly Bee, and many others. Liebert played on a few Haggard sessions in late 1971 and early 1972, including the number-one single Grandma Harp.

Billy Mize

(rhythm guitar, 1964-1969)

Like Lewis Talley, this venerable Bakersfield, California stalwart was called in to play acoustic rhythm guitar on numerous Merle Haggard sessions over the years. Mize was never an official member of the Strangers, but he was part of the Bakersfield, CA scenes inner circle.

Billy Mize was a singer and steel guitar player who also occasionally played regular guitar. He was the steel guitar player on the Cousin Herb Henson television show until he left to play steel guitar on the Town Hall Party television show in Los Angeles following Marian Halls departure.

Mize released numerous records on his own, from the wacky Planet Named Desire rockabilly obscurity to a number of classic honky-tonk numbers on Decca Records in the 1950s, followed by a string of successful albums on Imperial Records in the 1960s and 1970s.

Mize wrote the honky-tonk classic It All Depends (On Who Will Buy the Wine), which was covered by Charlie Walker, Jerry Lee Lewis and, later, Merle Haggard.

Mize appeared on a number of Haggard sessions during the 1960s as a background acoustic rhythm guitarist.

Bob Morris

(bass, 1965, 1968)

Robert Morris was well-known around Bakersfield, California and he played with many different groups, most notably Buck Owens Buckaroos. In fact, he is the writer of Bucks theme song, Buckaroo. While never a member of the touring group, he wrote a ton of songs and played bass and guitar for both Buck and the instrumental Buckaroos albums.

Morris played bass on some of the earliest Merle Haggard sessions for Capitol Records in 1965, then reappeared in 1968 for several sessions, including the hit I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am. He also wrote songs that Haggard recorded (If You See My Baby, Whats Wrong with Stayin Home), and co-wrote Dont Take Advantage of Me with Bonnie Owens.

Morris wrote several other hits, including Made in Japan for Buck and It Takes a Lot of Money for Warner Mack, and later went on to run Buck Owens music publishing company.

Bobby Wayne

(guitar, 1970-1973)

Born Robert Wayne Edrington in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and raised in Tracy, California (CA), Bobby spent most of his life around country music and he's been playing professionally since he was fifteen. Wayne wrote some of the material for the group.

Wayne played with various groups starting in the late 1950s, then met Dennis Hromek, with whom he started a group called the Smith Brothers, based out of the Modesto, CA area, in the early 1960s.

Bobby and Dennis Hromek, in the minds of many historians, have more or less been thought of as a pair, as they traveled together from group to group.

Around 1965 Freddie Hart offered the Smith Brothers a road gig as his band the Heartbeats. They toured with Hart until the bookings dwindled, then joined Wynn Stewart in 1966, becoming members of his road band the Tourists.

The first session Bobby Wayne recorded with Stewart resulted in the smash hit Its Such a Pretty World Today, the biggest of his career. Bobby would record many sessions with Stewart in 1966 and 1967 and even recorded an unreleased instrumental called Spittin Guitar, showing his lead guitar experience.

The Tourists eventually wound up joining Buck Owens roads how and recording with Dick Curless, without Wynn. When that fizzled out, the pair of Bobby Wayne and Dennis Hromek split up for a while, with Bobby forming Bobby T. Adams and the Common People at the Nashville Nevada Club in Las Vegas and Hromek joining the Palomino house band, Red Rhodes and the Detours, in North Hollywood, CA.

Bobby eventually moved back to Los Angeles and joined the Palomino house band, where he recorded on the Red Rhodes and the Detours Live at the Palomino album (LP) for Happy Tiger records.

The entire band, except Bobby, quit the Palomino to tour behind the record. Bobby re-formed the house band with Tony Booth and remained there for a short while until Dennis Hromek and Biff Adams, who were both members of the Palomino house band that were now playing with Merle Haggard and the Strangers, got Bobby to join the Strangers in early 1970.

Bobby remained a solid core member of the Strangers for three years and played on many hits, including Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man), Carolyn, Grandma Harp, If We Make It Through December and the LP, The Fightin Side Of Me-Live in Philadelphia.

Wayne's contributions to the final four Strangers solo albums were many, in addition to singing and writing several songs (including Harolds Super Service, Just Sit Down and Cry, Repeat Performance and Sing a Happy Song).

Capitol Records had enough faith in Bobby to release a few of these vocals on singles bearing his own name. The pair of Bobby Wayne and Dennis Hromek became known for some legendarily wild behavior, and as a result they were released from the Strangers in 1973, breaking up what is considered by many to be one of the classic incarnations of the group.

Chuck Berghofer

(bass, 1969)

Charles Chuck Berghofer was a session bass player who spent several years in the mid-1960s touring and recording with the Everly Brothers. It was through this association that he met James Burton, who recommended him for sessions with Merle Haggard in 1969.

Berghofer played on several hit sessions, including Workin Man Blues, If I Had Left It Up to You, and The Fightin Side of Me.

Dave Kirby

(guitar, 1973-1976)

Dave Kirby played rhythm guitar on a large number of sessions between 1973 and 1976, including Things Arent Funny Anymore, Kentucky Gambler, Ive Got a Darlin (For a Wife), A Working Man Cant Get Nowhere Today and What Have You Got Planned Tonight, Diana?

Kirby also played into the Haggard history books when he married Merles third wife, Leona Williams, after her divorce from Merle.

Dennis Hromek

(bass, 1970-1973)

Dennis Hromek was the mainstay bass player for three solid years with the Strangers, where he played on a multitude of hits and the last four Strangers solo albums. Often paired by historians with guitarist Bobby Wayne, the two had a long and storied history together, starting with their first combo the Smith Brothers, based out of Modesto, California (CA in the early 1960s.

Dennis Hromek, born in Pittsburgh, Kansas, joined up with the Strangers in 1970. Although he started bass and guitar lessons when he was only seven, he had no ambitions of being a professional musician; he was working as a radio technician in Sonoma County, CA, when he was offered a job singing and playing in a local club.

Hromek and Bobby Wayne joined Freddie Harts Heartbeats in 1965 and toured with them until the bookings dwindled, at which point they were drafted by Wynn Stewart and his Tourists in 1966.

The first session that Hromek and Wayne played on with Wynn Stewart was the biggest hit of his career, Its Such a Pretty World Today. The pair continued with Stewart for two years, cutting many records with him, eventually touring as the Tourists without Wynn Stewart, as part of Buck Owens roads how, until that fizzled out sometime around 1968.

The pair split up for a while, but Hromek and Wayne eventually wound up in the Palomino Club house band, Red Rhodes and the Detours, based in North Hollywood, CA. During this time Hromek cut a budget album under his own name, Its Such a Pretty World Today and Other Country Favorites, for Custom Records and played bass on the classic live album (LP) Red Rhodes and the Detours Live at the Palomino for Happy Tiger Records.

After leaving the Palomino house gig, Hromek joined the Strangers, with Bobby Wayne following soon after. Hromek would go on to sing several songs on the Strangers solo albums as well as write and co-write several songs for Haggard, including Sing a Happy Song and Day Happy.

Hromek played bass on many of Haggards hits, including Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man), Carolyn, Grandma Harp and If We Make It Through December as well as the album The Fightin Side of Me-Live in Philadelphia.

Eventually Hromek and Bobby Wayne's wild lifestyle caught up with them and after a series of wild incidents they were let go from the Strangers organization in 1973, breaking up what many consider to be one of the classic incarnations of the Strangers.

Dixieland Express

(horn section, 1973)

The Dixieland Express was a three-piece Dixieland ensemble based out of Reno, Nevada (NV). Merle had performed with them at Harrahs Casino in Reno, NV and asked them to accompany him to New Orleans to record his next live album in March 1973, resulting in their appearance on the I Love Dixie Blues . . . So I Recorded Live in New Orleans album. Members on the recording included John McCormick, Gene Bowen, and Dale Hampton.

The band name derives from a bus line operated by Carolina Coach, called the Dixieland Express because of its fast service between Raleigh, North Carolina and Dallas. It was a fairly common name for Dixieland bands and currently there are several bands using the name, none of which have any connection with the group that played with Merle Haggard.

Don Markham

(Saxophone, horns, 1974-present)

After Merles foray into Dixieland music in the early 1970s, Don Markham was invited to join the Strangers on saxophone, trumpet and other horns, a position he still holds as of this writing.

Markham's history goes much further back, to many of the house bands around Bakersfield, California in the 1950s and 1960s. An interesting footnote is that Bonnie Owens' 1960 single for Del-Fi Records in Los Angeles, CA was a split session with Markham, who was recording a sax instrumental for Donna Records the same day. As of this writing Markham is still in the Strangers, making him one of the longest-running members after Norm Hamlet and Biff Adam.

Earl Poole Ball

(piano, 1970)

Earl Poole Ball was working as a session pianist and staff producer at Capitol Records when he began working on sessions for Merle Haggard and Bonnie Owens. In addition to playing on Haggard's Tulare Dust and the second and fourth Strangers solo albums (LPs), Introducing My Friends -The Strangers and Honky Tonkin, Ball would produce Haggards Bob Wills tribute LP and Bonnie Owens' Mothers Favorite Hymns gospel LP for Capitol in addition to the aforementioned Strangers Honky Tonkin LP.

Ball played on many of the influential country-rock records of the late 1960s, including the Byrds seminal Sweethearts of the Rodeo LP, the Flying Burrito Brothers LPs and Gram Parsons International Submarine Band LP.

Ball found his most permanent gig as Johnny Cash's piano player, a job he held for more than twenty years. Currently he lives in Austin and still plays with many local groups, including Heybale, which also features fellow Haggard alumnus Redd Volkaert.

Eddie Burris

(drums, 1967-1969)

(Oct. 27, 1931~Apr. 19, 2011)

Eddie Burris along with band leader Merle Haggard co-wrote the flag-waving country blockbuster Okie from Muskogee with which Muskogee would forever be identified. Burris said the song came together while the two were riding on their tour bus.

Roy Edward "Eddie" Burris was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but moved with his family to Bakersfield, California (CA), at an early age, as they struggled to make it as migrant farm workers. Burris played football at Bakersfield High School and later joined the Navy, serving in the Korean War.

Eddie pursued a career as a rodeo bull rider until a friend - Doyle Holley, who later became famous as a Buck Owens sideman - told him he needed a drummer for a nightclub band. That was in 1960. A couple of years later, Burris was playing regularly in Bakersfield clubs, where he soon got hooked up with Merle Haggard.

Eddie Burris was the road drummer for the Strangers for two years and recorded many sessions with Merle Haggard as well as the first instrumental Strangers album (LP). He appeared on Branded Man, Sing Me Back Home, The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde, Mama Tried and of course Okie from Muskogee.

Okie from Muskogee would be Eddie Burris' dubious claim to fame. He received 25 percent of the song for coming up with the roman sandals line in the song as Merle was struggling to finish it on the tour bus.

Eddie Burris was the drummer on the Okie from Muskogee Recorded Live in Muskogee, Oklahoma album, which was recorded shortly before he left the band in late 1969.

Weary of the music life, Burris left the band in 1970 and didn't pick up the drums again for 27 years. After leaving the band Eddie drove a truck for several years. He later got back into the music business writing songs and an occasional performance.

Eldon Shamblin

(guitar, 1970 and intermittently through the 1970s and 1980s)

Eldon Shamblin was the legendary long-term guitar player for Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

Merle Haggard reunited Shamblin with the rest of the Playboys when he recorded his Bob Wills tribute album in 1970. Shamblin would tour and record with Haggard intermittently over the next two decades.

Eldon's loping style of rhythm guitar can best be heard on the 1974 album The Roots of My Raising and the remake of Cherokee Maiden that became a number-one single that same year.

Fuzzy Owen

(steel guitar, various times 1962-1966)

Charles Fuzzy Owen was and is one of the key players in the Bakersfield music scene, having made the first Bakersfield-area record in 1952 (the original version of Dear John by Fuzzy and Bonnie Owens on the Mar-Vel label), played steel guitar and bass on numerous country recordings, including Ferlin Husky and Tommy Collins early hits, co-owned the Tally label and recording studio, and served as Merle Haggards manager from the beginning of his career to the present.

Fuzzy was also a well-regarded steel guitar player and on several occasions played steel guitar for Merle Haggard. He was the steel guitar player on Merle's first recordings for Tally in 1962 and 1963 and then filled in at various times, most famously after Ralph Mooneys dismissal from the Strangers in 1966, until Norm Hamlet established the permanent steel guitar position in the band in 1967.

Gene Price

(bass, 1969, guitar, 1970)

Gene Price was another short-lived member of the Strangers, but he appeared on the Okie from Muskogee live album, where he sang In the Arms of Love. When Dennis Hromek was brought in on bass in late 1969, Price moved to rhythm guitar for a short while before being replaced by Bobby Wayne.

Gene is credited with co-writing Huntsville with Buck Owens, but oddly enough the same song is credited to Merle Haggard and Red Simpson in other discographies.

George French Jr.

(piano, 1963-1970)

(died 1992)

George French Jr. was a well-known piano player around Bakersfield. He was an early member of Buck Owens Buckaroos and appeared on some of Bucks earliest Capitol Records.

Merle Haggard was introduced to French when he was playing for Wynn Stewart at the Nashville Nevada Club in Las Vegas, Nevadain the early 1960s. Eventually the gig ended and the entire band, including French on piano, joined Merle Haggard in the studio and on the road.

French recorded a staggering number of sessions in the six years he was in the Strangers, all the early hits, from Sing Me a Sad Song and (My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers up to Mama Tried and Silver Wings. He was on the first Strangers solo album (LP ) but was gone by the time Haggard made the Okie from Muskogee-Recorded Live in Muskogee, Oklahoma LP in late 1969.

French came back for most of 1970, including the Bob Wills tribute LP and the third Strangers solo LP, Getting to Know . . . The Strangers. By November 1970 he had left the group.

Glen Campbell

(guitar, banjo, vocals, 1966-1968)

Glen Campbell hailed from Arkansas, but his teen-idol good looks and virtuoso guitar abilities brought him to Hollywood, California in the early 1960s, where he made an unsuccessful string of teen pop singles while earning his bread and butter as a session guitar player.

Campbell was doing a lot of work for Ken Nelson at the Capitol Tower (including sessions for the Beach Boys, with whom Campbell toured with for a time and was brought in for Merle Haggards The Bottle Let Me Down session in June 1966. Campbells vocals blended so well with those of Haggard and Bonnie Owens that he was invited for nearly every session from then until February 1968, playing rhythm guitar and singing harmony vocals.

Campbell played banjo on The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde. Haggard thought the song called for banjo, and someone ran down the street from the Capitol Tower to a music store to obtain a banjo, which Campbell learned quickly enough to record on the session.

Merle thought enough of Campbell's talent to include Glen's Capitol single By the Time I Get to Phoenix inside the promo mailings of his Today I Started Loving You Again release. Soon Campbell was a massive success in his own right and his schedule was too busy to continue sessions with Haggard.

Glen D. Hardin

(piano, 1969-1970)

Hardin, another consummate session man around Los Angeles, California had played in the post Buddy Holly Crickets lineup and was a member of the Shindogs with James Burton. It was probably Burton who brought Hardin in for several sessions in 1969 and 1970, when Burton brought in Chuck Berghofer and Jim Gordon to replace Merle Haggard's departed rhythm section.

The first session Hardin did with Merle was Workin Man Blues in May 1969. He also played on the hit singles Okie from Muskogee, The Fightin Side of Me, and the fourth Strangers solo LP, Honky Tonkin. Hardin was another one of the cadre of musicians that James Burton would take with him to Elvis Presleys band in the 1970s.

-Gordon Terry

(fiddle, 1970 and intermittently through the 1970s and 1980s)

(died Apr. 9, 2006)

Gordon Terry was a young prodigy and fiddle champion from Alabama who moved to Nashville, Tennessee (TN) in the early 1950s and toured with Faron Young before moving to the Los Angeles, California area in the late 1950s, where he joined the cast of the Town Hall Party television show.

Terry recorded a string of good, but unsuccessful, singles under his own name and eventually he became a fiddle player extraordinaire for many country stars, including Merle Haggard.

Terry joined Merle Haggard's band during the recording of the Bob Wills tribute LP in 1970 and continued to tour with them on a semi-regular basis throughout the 1970s.

Terry semiretired in 1983 due to ill health and bought a farm south of Nashville, TN in Pulaski, TN. He died at his daughters house nearby on April 9, 2006.

Hargus Pig Robbins

(piano, 1971-1975)

Hargus Robbins, forever known in country music lore as Pig, became blind at the age of four. He was something of a child prodigy on the piano and after an early career as a solo artist, he became Nashville's busiest session piano player.

Robbins played on literally thousands of sessions, including Merle Haggard sessions from the early 1970s following George Frenchs departure from the group. Haggard would often schedule sessions in Nashville, Tennessee so he could get Robbins (and Johnny Gimble, who also lived in Nashville).

Robbins played on the hits Carolyn and If We Make It Through December as well as a number of songs on the Strangers fourth and fifth LPs, Honky Tonkin and Totally Instrumental With One Exception.

After Mark Yeary joined the Strangers as the permanent piano man in 1973, Robbins continued to play on Haggard sessions, on piano and electronic keyboard, for several more years, especially at sessions done in Nashville, Tennessee.

Helen "Peaches" Price

(drums, 1963-1966)

Peaches Price was a well-respected female drummer in the Los Angeles, California (CA)area who began playing in the mid-1950s with various local acts.

She is probably best remembered as the drummer for Wynn Stewart, playing on nearly every session he did from 1961 to 1965 and again in 1968, part of the classic lineup of the band that included Ralph Mooney on steel guitar, Roy Nichols on lead guitar, Bobby Austin on bass, and Gordon Terry on fiddle.

In 1963, as a member of Wynn Stewarts band, she played drums on one of Merle Haggard's earliest sessions for Tally Records. She then played on every Haggard session for the next two years, which included the hits Sing a Sad Song, (My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers and Swingin Doors.

When Roy Nichols wife, Marcia, joined the Strangers in 1972, she was billed as the first female Stranger, sadly glossing over Peachess contribution to the world of country drumming.

James Burton

(guitar, 1966-1969)

James Burton was never a full-time member of the Strangers, but his role as session guitar player for Merle Haggard is so important that he must be included on this list. Burton hailed from Shreveport, Louisiana, where he was a teenage electric guitar prodigy.

Burton played on his first hit, Suzy Q by Dale Hawkins, when he was only 15 years old. From there he played on the Louisiana Hayride behind a number of acts, eventually joining Bob Lumans band when they moved to Los Angeles, California.

Luman was signed to Imperial Records, where Ricky Nelson had also recently been signed and when Nelson heard Lumans band rehearsing at the offices, he stole them away, forming a core band that would record and tour until the mid-1960s.

James Titttle

(bass, 1974-1976)

Ronnie Reno brought James Jimmy Tittle to the Strangers, introducing him to Merle Haggard at his home in Bakersfield, California.

Tittle appeared on many of the later Capitol records, including Always Wanting You, The Roots of My Raising, Cherokee Maiden and Here Comes the Freedom Train.

Jerry Ward

(bass, 1965-1969)

Little is known about Jerry Ward, the first official bass player of the Strangers, except that his real name was Howard Lowe.

Ward was the bassist on nearly all the sessions between December 1965 and February 1969, except for a period when Haggard's childhood friend Leon Copeland filled in.

Ward was the bassist on the first instrumental Strangers album (LP) and he wrote many songs, including Marys Mine for Merle and Best Part of Me and Dont Tell Me, for Bonnie Owens.

Jim Gordon

(drums, 1966, 1969)

Jim Gordon was a well-known Hollywood studio musician who spent several years recording and touring with the Everly Brothers in the mid-1960s. It was through the association with the Everlys that session guitarist James Burton came to know Gordon, so when Haggard needed a session drummer following the departure of Peaches Price, Gordon filled in until the Strangers found a regular drummer in Eddie Burris.

Gordon returned for a pair of sessions in 1969. He played on such hits as The Bottle Let Me Down, I'm a Lonesome Fugitive, and Workin Man Blues.

Jody Payne

(guitar, 1971)

Alabama-born Jody Payne toured with the Strangers in 1971, and even though it was a short association, Payne is featured on the Land of Many Churches album.

Payne came up through the ranks of Wynn Stewarts Tourists, following the lead of Dennis Hromek and Bobby Wayne, before he joined the Strangers.

Payne is perhaps best known as the lead guitarist for Willie Nelson, a job that he took shortly after leaving Haggard's band and has held ever since.

Joe Red Simpson

(rhythm guitar, 1964-1969)

Like Lewis Talley, this venerable Bakersfield stalwart was called in to play acoustic rhythm guitar on numerous Merle Haggard sessions over the years. Simpson was never an official member of the Strangers, but he was part of the Bakersfield scenes inner circle.

Joe Red Simpson was a Bakersfield singer and songwriter who goes back to the early 1950s. He wrote many songs covered by Bakersfield artists, including Merle Haggard and Buck Owens.

Most famously, he and Merle co-wrote You Dont Have Very Far To Go, for Merle and Sams Place for Buck Owens. Later in the 1960s and early 1970s Simpson recorded a string of truckin albums for Capitol and had a top-10 hit with I'm a Truck.

Simpson played on many sessions for Merle Haggard on background acoustic guitar, most importantly on Mama Tried and he was the un-credited rhythm guitarist on the Live in Muskogee album.

Johnny Gimble

(fiddle, 1970s)

Johnny Gimble was yet another alumnus of Bob Wills Texas Playboys that Merle Haggard became acquainted with during the recording of his Bob Wills tribute LP in 1970.

Subsequently Gimble became a fixture on Haggard's records, recording and occasionally touring with Haggard whenever his schedule allowed. Often Haggard would arrange a recording date in Nashville, Tennessee (TN)in order to have Gimble (and Pig Robbins, who also lived in Nashville) on the record.

Gimble also wrote for Merle, including Guide Me, Lord on the Land of Many Churches LP and Slow n Easy on the Strangers Honky Tonkin LP. He left Nashville, TNin 1978 to return to Texas and has occasionally worked with Haggard since then, most recently on the 1999 Live at Billy Bobs Texas album.

Johnny Meeks

(bass, 1973-1974)

Johnny Meeks hailed from South Carolina, where he was a young guitar and steel guitar prodigy. He was asked to join Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps in 1957 and had the thankless job of replacing guitar virtuoso Cliff Gallup, but he admirably held his own, bringing a new stinging and trebly sound to Vincents recordings that is instantly recognizable. Meeks stayed with Vincent for less than two years, but that stint is still his biggest claim to fame.

After leaving Vincents band, Meeks played with the Champs, of Tequila fame. Eventually he fell into the country music scene around Los Angeles, California where he played with the Palomino house band, Red Rhodes and the Detours, in the late 1960s.

It was from this Palomino house band that Haggard drew sidemen Dennis Hromek, Bobby Wayne and Biff Adam. Meeks was asked to join the Strangers following Dennis Hromek and Bobby Waynes sudden departure from the band in 1973 and he stayed with the organization for a little more than a year. Meeks played on many of Haggard sessions around this time, including the hit Movin On.

Leon Copeland

(bass, 1967, 1969)

Leon Chase Copeland was a childhood friend of Merle Haggard and briefly a member of the Strangers and he recorded on many sessions in 1967 and again in 1969.

Copeland wrote at least one song recorded by Haggard, I'm Free and, in addition to playing on several of Bonnie Owens' sessions, he wrote Lead Me On for her. The song was as close as Bonnie Owens ever came to a national hit and it wound up being an oft-covered hit for other artists, including Loretta Lynn with Conway Twitty, who took it to the top of the charts in 1971.

Lewis Talley

(rhythm guitar, 1962-1969)

Lewis Louie Talley was never a member of the Strangers officially, but he was on Merle Haggard's payroll from the beginning of his career until his death, in a capacity that even Merle himself couldnt exactly define.

Talley was a hugely influential figure in the early years of the Bakersfield country music scene. He was a singer with an uncanny resemblance both visually and vocally to Hank Williams and he had a great deal of local success as a performer on the Cousin Herb Henson Trading Post television show. He also started the Tally Records label in Bakersfield, which released numerous local discs in both the country and rockabilly styles.

Talley released a large number of records under his own name, including an insanely rare live album called Lewis Talley and the Tally-Whackers on the Tally label sometime in the mid-1960s.

Known by all as a lovable drunk, Talley was part of the Haggard organization from the outset (Merles first three singles were on the Tally label) and when the money began coming in, Merle kept him on the payroll for decades.

During this period, from the start of Merle's career until the new Strangers lineup was unveiled in 1970 featuring Bobby Wayne on rhythm guitar, Talley was a constant background rhythm guitarist on Merle's records nearly every single session from his first, Skid Row, until Workin Man Blues in 1969.

Marcia Nichols

(guitar, 1972-1973)

(died 1976)

The Marcia Nichols story has been described as a good story with a bad ending. Marcia Lynne Ashcraft was a talented young guitarist who married Roy Nichols and became a member of the Strangers in fall 1972. Although she mostly played rhythm guitar, she has been described as a gifted lead guitarist as well.

Her time with the Strangers was brief. Having Marcia tour with the band turned out to be a disaster, as Marcia and Roy were always fighting. Eventually Merle Haggard forces Marcia out of the band, choosing to keep Roy.

She appeared on the Strangers solo album Totally Instrumental-With One Exception, where she is touted as the first female Stranger (despite the fact that Peaches Price had played drums for Haggard in the early years).

Marcia also wrote Come Into My Arms for Merle, which was included on the If We Make It Through December album.

After leaving the Strangers, Marcia continued playing in country bands around Bakersfield. She died in 1976 in a fatal car accident, driving home drunk after a gig.

Mark Yeary

(piano, 1973-1992)

After George French Jr., Merle Haggard had several short-lived piano players running through the ranks of the Strangers. Mark Yeary would prove to be one of the longest-running members of the group, with close to twenty years under his belt by the time he left the group in 1992.

Yeary was born in Los Angeles, California (CA)and moved with his family to Bakersfield, CA when he was fifteen years old. After the initial culture shock, he began playing in local rock and roll and soul groups. Eventually he landed a job on the Jimmy Thomason television show, where Merle Haggard first saw the shaggy-haired youngster with promising talent.

Merle liked the idea of hiring a young piano player he could mold to his liking and he offered Yeary a job with the Strangers. Yeary accepted, and his very first gig with the band was playing at the White House for President Richard Nixon.

Yeary would play on every session from July 1973 until he left the group in 1992, including the last Strangers solo LP Totally Instrumental-With One Exception.

Mark played on the hits Movin On, Always Wanting You, Its All in the Movies, The Roots of My Raising, Cherokee Maiden and many others. He also wrote It Dont Bother Me for Haggard, released on the Merle Haggard Presents His 30th Album LP.

Merle Haggard

During his career, Merle Haggard accumulated 38 number one singles, eighteen major music awards and composed dozens of songs. Haggard and his band The Strangers helped define and advance the Bakersfield Sound of the West Coast.

While Merle's music remained traditional country, his music was drawn from various forms of original American music and in the process he developed a distinctive style of his own.

Pictured right Merle Haggard

Haggardwrote and recorded a body of songs that enabled him to rule the country music charts from the mid-60s through the mid-80s.

Norman Hamlet

(steel guitar, 1967-present)

Norm Hamlet is a steel guitarist best known as a member of Merle Haggard's Stranger's group.

A native Californian, (CA) Norm started playing guitar when he was still in his teens and by 1952, he had his first professional job with a band, touring during his high school summer vacation. Norm worked North Central California for a number of years with several different groups, finally ending up in Bakersfield, CA in 1965.

After playing local clubs and a syndicated television show briefly, he joined up with The Strangers. Norm was on the road with the Strangers for many years. He contributed some excellent instrumentals to the group, also. Many of them were written with Roy Nichols.

In 2005 Hamlet had quadruple heart bypass surgery and recovered well at his home in Bakersfield, CA. In April 2006 while on tour with Merle Haggard Hamlet's Dobro was stolen and a reward was offered and was later found.

Phil Baugh

(guitar, 1966)

Phil Baugh was never a full-time member of the Strangers but is still an important footnote. Merle's first recording session at the Capitol Tower in April 1965 featured both Phil and Roy Nichols. Later, Baugh recorded with Haggard on the Swingin Doors session in 1966, playing a signature solo that is still copied note-for-note today.

Baugh, a legendary guitarist, hailed from Northern California. In the late 1950s he moved to the Los Angeles area, where he played guitar for just about every country act around. He had a hit in 1965 with Country Guitar, which showed his prowess on practically every style of country guitar picking.

When Roy Nichols took a job in Lake Tahoe in 1966, he recommended Haggard use Baugh, with Swingin Doors being the result.

Baugh also recorded often with Bonnie Owens, Rose Maddox and others before moving to Nashville, Tennessee and becoming an oft-used session man in the 1970s and 1980s.

Ralph Mooney

(steel guitar, 1963-1967)

One of the most legendary steel guitar players of all time, Ralph Mooney, was born in 1928 in Duncan, Oklahoma, but moved to California as a teenager in the 1940s. He began playing steel guitar after hearing Leon McAuliffe of Bob Willss Texas Playboys.

Based around Los Angeles, California in the 1950s, Mooney had an easily recognizable bent-single-note style on the pedal steel that made him a very in-demand player. He became the in-house steel guitarist for Capitol Records, where he cut an impressive array of sessions.

Wynn Stewart brought Ralph Mooney to that first Capitol session to augment Ken Nelson's session men.

In 1955 Mooney wrote the hit Crazy Arms, which became a massive hit for both Ray Price. His pedal steel began to be heard on records by Wanda Jackson, Skeets McDonald, Wynn Stewart, Rose Maddox, the Collins Kids and especially Buck Owens. His style on Bucks early hits became part of the signature Buck Owens sound.

Mooney's association with Haggard began in 1963, when he played on the Sing a Sad Song session for Tally Records, which was essentially the Wynn Stewart Nashville Nevada Club house band backing Haggard. Mooney then played on all of Merle's early hits, including (My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers, Swingin Doors, The Bottle Let Me Down, and many other tracks in the 196567 period.

Ralph Mooneys tenure as a full-time member of the Strangers was short-lived, however. The band really only assembled and began touring in 1966, and by 1967 Mooney was gone after an incident where he tried to steal the bus and drive it home in the middle of a cross-country tour. Mooney was sent home, Fuzzy Owen (himself a more-than-competent steel guitarist) finished the tour and the search was on for a permanent replacement.

Mooney released an album with James Burton, Corn Pickin and Slick Slidin, for Capitol Records in 1968. He found a permanent job with the Waylon Jennings organization in 1970 and stayed until his semiretirement in 1992.

Red Lane

(guitar, 1970, 1972, 1973)

Red Lane another auxiliary session rhythm guitar man, appeared on several of Merle Haggard's sessions, including No Reason to Quit, Jesus Take a Hold, Shellys Winter Love and Its Not Love (But Its Not Bad). He also wrote the songs One Row at a Time and Somewhere to Come When It Rains.

Ronnie Reno

(guitar, mandolin, vocals, 1973-1982)

Ronnie Reno is the son of the legendary Don Reno, of Reno and Smiley bluegrass fame. Ronnie had recording experience dating back to the 1950s, when at age ten he was a member of the Reno and Smiley act.

After a decade with Reno and Smiley, he joined the Osborne Brothers for a five-year stint, where he and the Osbornes perfected the harmonies for which they are now famous. Ronnies vocal harmonies caught Merle's attention and he was invited to join the Haggard road show as an opening act.

Eventually Ronnie proved so popular that he was invited to join the Strangers, where he remained a solid member for nine years. Reno's soaring vocals were his trademark, but he also played guitar, mandolin and other stringed instruments.

Ronnie played on many hit sessions, including Movin On, Always Wanting You, Roots of My Raisin. He also wrote songs for Merle, including Union Station. He cowrote After Loving You and was featured as a guest vocalist on Travelin', on Merle Haggard Presents His 30th Album.

Ronnie Tutt

(drums, 1969)

Ronnie Tutt was another drummer brought in by James Burton to fill a recording date. He played on only one session, resulting in the hit If I Had Left It Up to You.

Tutt's inclusion in the Haggard legacy is worth mentioning, if only because he and James Burton later became core members of Elvis Presleys band.

Roy Nichols

(lead guitar, 1963-1987)

(Oct. 21, 1932 ~ Jul. 3, 2001)

Roy Nichols made his way to Bakersfield, California (CA) from Fresno, CA in the days when Bakersfield was just starting to boom. Distinctive in his style throughout his career, he made a name for himself by supporting Lefty Frizzell, Wynn Stewart and Merle Haggard.

Roy was lead guitarist for Merle Haggard & the Strangers. He played back-up for Wynn Stewart for five years, before joining the Strangers, where he spent more than two decades.

Roy Ernest Nichols was born in Chandler, Arizona, in 1932. After moving to Fresno, CA as a young boy, Nichols took up the guitar and by the age of sixteen was proficient enough to play on a local radio show hosted by DJ Barney Lee, where Nichols' expertise on the strings was heard by Fred Maddox, bass player and leader of the Maddox Brothers and Rose. Maddox offered the youngster a job and Nichols began what would be a lifelong career in music.

Nichols played with many local San Joaquin Valley acts, but his next major touring job was with Lefty Frizzell, who by the time Roy joined the band in 1954 was a huge star.

Nichols found considerable work as a sideman and recorded a few sides with the Farmer Boys for Capitol Records in Hollywood, California. His flashy solo on the Farmer Boys 1955 recording of Charming Betsy is one of the fastest country guitar solos ever recorded and in fact may equal or surpass anything that Jimmy Bryant ever recorded.

After his stint with Frizzell, Nichols joined the Cousin Herb Hensons Trading Post television show in Bakersfield, CA where he remained lead guitarist until Henson died in 1963 of an aneurism. During that time Nichols rubbed shoulders and played with everyone from local Bakersfield stalwarts Buck and Bonnie Owens to Billy Mize and Cliff Crofford, as well as nearly every artist who toured through Bakersfield and appeared on the show.

Nichols took other jobs to supplement his income and in 1961 he began a long association with honky-tonk legend Wynn Stewart. Nichols performed with Stewart at his Nashville Nevada Club in Las Vegas, Nevada for several years, where he famously asked the visiting Merle Haggard to get up and play a few songs during an intermission (a chance meeting that resulted in Merle's first break, playing bass with Wynn Stewart and using Stewarts composition Sing a Sad Song as his first hit record).

Nichols would record and tour with many acts in the early 1960s. Between 1961 and 1964 he recorded several sides with Rose Maddox (many of which also featured future Stranger Norm Hamlet on steel guitar), including the entirety of her Big Bouquet of Roses album (LP), the Alone With You LP, and several single releases.

In 1961, possibly through the Maddox connection (Rose Maddox joined the Johnny Cash road show in 1961), Nichols toured with Johnny Cash and was the lead guitarist on Cash's hit Tennessee Flat-Top Box, recorded at Radio Recorders in Hollywood, CA.

Nichols recorded many sessions (some with Merle Haggard on rhythm guitar!) for Bakersfield stalwart Tommy Collins between 1960 and 1964, also for Capitol Records. Collins' sessions were literally a breeding ground for young Bakersfield talent, giving valuable early studio experience to Buck Owens, Lewis Talley, Fuzzy Owen, Nichols and others.

Nichols also recorded with Wynn Stewart extensively between 1962 and 1965, though he does not appear on either of Stewart's big hits, Wishful Thinking from 1961 (right before Nichols began recording with Stewart) and Its Such a Pretty World Today from 1967 (right after Nichols left to tour with Haggard full time). Nonetheless, Nichols contributed some wonderful solos to many of Stewarts records, such as Donna on My Mind, Halfway in Love and Take It or Leave It.

Roy Nichols is famous for his use of the Fender Telecaster guitar, a guitar that he (as well as James Burton) used to create the trebly, biting twang that defines 1960s country. Roy also had a custom-made Mosrite double-neck guitar with his name on it that he played often in the early 1960s.

Capitol Records recorded a live album in September 1963 at the Bakersfield Civic Auditorium in honor of the tenth anniversary of Cousin Herb Hensons Trading Post, released under the inappropriate title Country Music Hootenanny (a title Capitol Artists and Repertoire (A&R) man Ken Nelson fought against and lost). Nichols was the lead guitarist in the house band, appearing on tracks behind such acts as Glen Campbell, Roy Clark, Rose Maddox, Joe and Rose Lee Maphis and Merle Travis. The album also represents the only track ever released under Roy Nichols' name, a virtuosic instrumental version of the old-timey standard Silver Bell, incorrectly listed on the cover as Silver Bells.

The Bakersfield Civic Auditorium show was memorable not only because of the album recorded that night, but also because it was where Ken Nelson first approached Merle Haggard about recording for Capitol Records. Merle turned Nelson down flat, declaring his loyalty to Fuzzy Owen and Lewis Talley of Tally Records, who had just started releasing Merle Haggard singles a short time earlier.

However, Nelson persevered and within a year and a half Merle Haggard was recording for Capitol Records with Fuzzy Owen as his manager and Roy Nichols as his first call session guitar player. When Merle put together his road band in 1966, now known as the Strangers, Roy Nichols was the lead guitar player. It was a legendary association that would last for twenty-two years.

The partnership was not without its ups and downs, however. In the early stages of Merle's career, Nichols took work with other, better-paying artists when Haggard's bookings were down (which is why Phil Baugh played on Swingin Doors). Nichols was working a well-paying gig up in the Lake Tahoe area and couldnt make the session).

As time went on, Nichols alcohol and drug abuse got so bad that it couldnt be ignored. In 1976 Nichols had a reaction to a mystery drug he took in Europe that was so severe, he essentially lost his ability to play the guitar and had to learn the instrument again from the ground up. Although Nichols did continue to play, he never fully recovered from this incident, which led to him leaving the Strangers in 1987.

Nichols retired from playing, with his poor health being a major factor. He did appear in the PBS documentary The Bakersfield Sound, playing guitar behind Fred and Rose Maddox and he appeared live for one last star-studded night of legendary Bakersfield musicians at the Palomino Club in North Hollywood, CA in 1992. The Academy of Country and Western Music honored Nichols with nominations for Guitarist of the Year several times.

In 1996 he suffered a major stroke and was confined to a wheelchair and on July 3, 2001, he died. It was an event sadly unreported in most newspapers and the media, largely due to Chet Atkins death only days before.

Tiny Moore

(mandolin, 197376 and intermittently through the 1980s)

(died 1986)

Tiny Moore was another alumnus of Bob Wills Texas Playboys who appeared on Merle Haggard's Bob Wills tribute album (LP) in 1970. His style of electric mandolin is legendary, influencing many guitar players and he brought an exciting presence to Haggards band.

Moore lived in Sacramento, California where he had settled after playing with Billy Jack Wills band at Wills Point, a West Coast club owned by Bob Wills.

Merle Haggard appeared on one of Tiny Moores solo albums, Tiny Moore Music, playing guitar in the style of Bob Wills guitarist, Junior Barnard. Moore taught music lessons at a store in Sacramento until his death in 1986.

Tommy Ash

(drums, 1969)

Tommy Ash was a well-known drummer around Bakersfield, California who played on a lot of Capitol recording sessions. He joined the Strangers as the road drummer for a very short time in late 1969. During his tenure with the band he appeared on two recording sessions, but no hits.

Tommy Collins

(rhythm guitar, 1964-1969)

Like Lewis Talley, this venerable Bakersfield stalwart was called in to play acoustic rhythm guitar on numerous Merle Haggard sessions over the years. Tommy Collins was never an official member of the Strangers, but he was part of the Bakersfield scene inner circle.

Collins was one of the first to befriend the fresh-out-of-prison Merle Haggard and eventually wrote several big songs for him, including Sam Hill, Carolyn, and Roots of My Raising. Haggard had a hit in 1981with a song about Collins, simply called Leonard.

In the early years of his career, Merle Haggard played acoustic rhythm guitar on several Tommy Collins sessions. Collins returned the favor for Merle and appeared on many sessions as a background rhythm guitarist.

Researched, compiled and written by Richard Bell, Roots of Country Music, Nov. 2, 2011