With ‘Best Troubador’, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy pays homage to a longtime and forever hero, the late Merle Haggard.
A singer who, some 25 years previously, first performed in public by playing a Merle Haggard song, Bonny has often cited Merle’s work in performance, on records and in conversation with anyone who was around, even talking to Merle himself for Filter magazine in 2009.
‘Best Troubador’ flips through his song book, landing on pages unmoored from their time and located anew. Moving from 1978 to 1969 to 2003 to 1981 allows the album to circle Haggard’s music in a simulation of thought and memory, slipping around from spot to spot as if they were discrete impressions, unknown but knowable yet.
Double LP includes bumper sticker and digital download code.
Press – Reviews in The Line Of Best Fit. Ads in Mojo, Uncut, Loud & Quiet, Crack.
Online – Uncut, CMU, The Line of Best Fit, Consequence of Sound, The Ransom Note, Thank Folk For That, Stereoboard, Americana, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone.
Tracklist
The Fugitive
I’m Always On A Mountain When I Fall
The Day The Rains Came
Haggard (Like I’ve Never Been Before)
I Always Get Lucky With You
Leonard
My Old Pal
Roses In The Winter
Some Of Us Fly
Wouldn’t That Be Something
Pray
That’s The Way Love Goes
Nobody’s Darling
What I Hate (Excerpt)
I Am What I Am
If I Could Only Fly