Strangers

About

Strangers is the debut studio album by country music artist Merle Haggard. It was released on September 27, 1965, by Capitol Record. Strangers was a hit album, reaching #9 on the Billboard country albums chart. Haggard had already recorded several sides for Tally, a record label formed by cousins Lewis Talley and Fuzzy Owen, when he was approached by producer Ken Nelson to jump to Capitol. Initially Haggard refused, opting to remain loyal to Owen and Talley, but Tally Records did not have the resources to break Haggard, who was creating quite a buzz in California. In Daniel Cooper's essay for the 1994 retrospective Down Every Road, Nelson remember, "So I called Fuzzy, and I said, 'Hey, come on, get down here and let's settle this thing. Because you're not gonna sell record. You don't have the facilitie, you don't have the promotion department, you don't have anything.' So he came down, and we signed Merle, and I bought all of his master. And that's how Merle came on the label." The deal meant Capitol obtained nearly two albums worth of material, including the recordings Haggard had made with Bonnie Owen. Fuzzy Owen became Haggard's manager and co-producer with Nelson at Capitol. The name of the album inspired his backup band's name The Stranger. .

via Last.fm

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