Last of the Breed – Radio City Music Hall – 3/22

It’s not often I get to wear my Lucchese and Stetson on the D train headed downtown to the Rockafeller stop to Radio City Music Hall but on this wet, muggy Spring evening I had an occasion to do so. The brief “Last of the Breed” tour showcasing three legends of Country Music – Ray Price, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson – accompanied by nine-time Grammy winning Western-swing band, Austin’s Asleep at the Wheel was making a stop on their brief tour in New York City.

Southern emigres and enthusiastic wanna-bes from miles around have descened on this sold-out transformed house of honky-tonk in a kind of red state / blue state détente to pay tribute to great, timeless music.

Three men with careers spanning over 150 years and 300 releases between them could easily be defined (along with George Jones and Kris Kristofferson) the most influential living figures of country music. Their paths have cross-crossed the country music landscape over the years (Willie used to be Mr. Price’s bass player, Mele and Willie topped the charts with a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Pancho and Lefty). If there can be a unifying force between of all of them it would be the genre-bending Texas swing master Bob Wills and his fiddle-playing,improvisational style, and that style was on full display this evening.

You respect your elders, so Ray Price (81) kicked things off with a half-hour set backed by his Cherokee Cowboys. Dapper in a suit and red tie Price exudes the smooth baritone that has defined him all these years while highlighting some of his greatest work- Steel guitar and twin fiddles set down the foundation for San Antonio Rose, Crazy Arms, Heartaches by the Number, Please Release Me, Help Me Make it Through the Night. Songs of love and heartache from a man that makes you believe he’s been there.
A brief instrumental interlude and in Mele Haggard shuffles nonchalantly onto the stage as though he were just one of the band, taking center stage, takes up a fiddle and gets things moving with “Take Me Back to Tulsa.” The packed hall went nuts and I almost smell the holy hillbilly sacrament of whiskey and old leather right there on 6th Avenue. The sound of the ages rode on Merle’s voice that night, “I Wonder if You Feel the Way I Do This Morning, This Evening, So Soon”, “Silver Wings”, “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink”, songs of the downtrodden- “This goes out to all the convicts here tonight.” he announced before breaking into Sing Me Back Home, and taking sly jabs at current events – “Honey, don’t worry about what George Bush does” was slipped into the lyrics of “That’s the Way Love Goes.” Haggard was full of passion, piss and vinegar.

Then just when you think it couldn’t get any better in strolls Willie, saddle up ‘ol Trigger and he and Merle take off with the classic Haggard 60’s retort “Okie From Muskogee” where I assume Willie sang the line “We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee” with some sense of irony. Then “Pancho and Lefty” and “Reasons to Quit,” “Ramblin’ Fever” and a new song by Willie “Back to Earth.” Mickey Raphael, Willie’s faithful band harmonica wizard punctuated Willie’s off-kilter phrasing and Merle’s solid-as-stone baritone with sounds reminiscent of a whippoorwill call or a lonely train whistle.

Ray Price reappeared to cover a few songs from the release, honoring Wills with “Roly Poly” and “Please Don’t Leave Me Any More Darlin” and one of my favorites, “Night Life” this portion brought the two rambunctious youngsters to heal by the old-school elegance of a master and they followed suit willingly on support.

Willie then took the reins and did cuts he can now do in his sleep – “You Were Always on My Mind”, “Whiskey River” and “On the Road Again” introduced his song “Superman: as one he wrote while taking time off recuperate from carpal-tunnel and introduced a new song “You Don’t Think I’m Funny Anymore” that was genuinely hilarious.

The years of classic country music strata was unearthed before a rabid New York City crowd which was on their feet, wooping and hollering, after almost every song. For a moment the fervor was so genuine, the dotted Stetons in the crowd, the drunk in the lobby being “handled” by the cops- I felt the soul of a honky-tonk permeated the Hall that Rockefeller built leaving it altered forever. It took these legends – this music that Nashville seems hell-bent to squelch as a result of market-testing or sheer embarrassment of their hillbilly roots – to make myth live this warm city night.