That night, Merle and the Strangers had done a show in front of a sell­out crowd at the Hampton Coliseum. It was the second show—the first had been in Savannah, Georgia, the night before—of a short road trip that had begun with a three-day drive from California. Before the show, a trio of burly young men from Morehead City, North Carolina (they referred to each other as Bubba), in their own words, “went out and drank ourselves some whiskey,” and returned intending to catch the last few numbers of Randy Travis, a lanky singer who had lately emerged as a country-music superstar, and with whom Merle was billed, before settling in for Merle’s show. The trouble was that Merle, the one they had come all that way to see, was already offstage, having opened for Travis, who was the headliner. Their howls of dismay were plaintive and unavoidable—especially if you happened to be sitting in the Strangers’ bus after the show, when one of the Bubbas barged in to express, briefly, his outrage, or in the Coliseum Sheraton’s bar, where all three continued to vent their fumy opinions until closing time.

I asked Merle if he agreed with the trio’s assessment that “no way in hell, on earth or anywhere else should Merle Haggard open for anyone.”

I do. But his response is, well it's wise. There's no other word for it. The rest of the interview is just as interesting.