Kickin' Out the Footlights...Again
| Kickin' Out the Footlights...Again | |||||
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| Studio album by George Jones and Merle Haggard | |||||
| Released | October 24, 2006 | ||||
| Recorded | Summer 2006 | ||||
| Genre | Country | ||||
| Length | 41:79 | ||||
| Label | Bandit | ||||
| Producer | Merle Haggard, Lou Bradley, Keith Stegall | ||||
| George Jones chronology | |||||
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| Merle Haggard chronology | |||||
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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| Robert Christgau | (*) |
Kickin' Out the Footlights...Again is a studio album by American country music artists George Jones and Merle Haggard, released in 2006.
Jones and Haggard had previously recorded one album together in 1982, A Taste of Yesterday's Wine, which produced the number one single "Yesterday's Wine". Their friendship stretched much farther back, however, to when Jones first heard the Haggard-penned "I Threw Away the Rose," which rose to number 2. In his 1981 autobiography Merle Haggard: Sing Me Back Home, Haggard recalls playing somewhere in Texas when someone handed him a phone saying Jones was on the line. Jones slurred his appreciation for the song and said he was coming to see him immediately. "It wasn't hard to see that ol' George was pretty wasted," Haggard wrote. "I hung up the phone and some of the others in the room said they wouldn't be surprised if he showed up. I told them I didn't think so, 'cause hell, he was supposed to be doing concerts all week." The next day Jones arrived, kicking the door in and eventually folding up the roll-away bed that Haggard's sleeping manager Fuzzy Owen was on and wheeling it out of the room. Jones would record "I Threw Away the Rose" himself, as well as several other Haggard compositions over the course of his career, and say repeatedly over the years that, next to Hank Williams, Haggard was his favorite singer.
In 1996, Jones was a surprise guest on an episode of TNN's Prime Time Live that was saluting Haggard and, in 1997, Jones and Haggard performed a rendition of "The Way I Am" together on another TV special honoring Haggard called Workin' Man - A Tribute. A year later Haggard returned the favor by appearing on The George Jones Show, a series of television specials on TNN. Haggard also took a guest spot on Jones's 1998 song "It Just Doesn't Get Any Better Than This", which also features other country icons like Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash.
Twenty-five years after their last album, Jones and Haggard took a different approach in 2006, each singing five songs originally recorded by the other, then teaming up for four full-fledged duets. One of these is the title track, which chronicles the tales of an aging country singer, a song clearly intended to appear somewhat autobiographical for these two legends (when Haggard appeared on Jones's television show, Jones requested that Haggard sing a verse of it and called it his favorite Hag song).
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Wikipedia