Poker has a protracted Old West and cowboy historical past and that apparently contains some common play amongst a few of nation music’s largest names. WhiskeyRiff.com mirrored lately on a game involving country legends Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings that left one of many card gamers feeling taken benefit of.
The sport befell early in Jennings’ profession within the Nineteen Sixties when he went from membership to membership, hoping simply to interrupt even after his performances, and featured Haggard and his supervisor Fuzzy Owens.
Cleaned Out
Many musicians have been recognized to play some playing cards, from the Eagles to Kris Kristofferson to Darius Rucker and extra. Willie Nelson regularly hosts games with celebrities that includes loads of pot smoking and enjoyable.
That Haggard-Jennings sport, nevertheless, left the latter feeling a bit taken benefit of. In 1996’s Waylon: An Autobiography, Jennings recalled taking a lack of round $5,000 that evening – fairly a piece of money for an artist barely scraping by on the highway.
He famous that his two opponents “cleaned me out … they won everything.” Was this simply bitter grapes or was there in poor health will? Considering the current ordeal he’d been via with the demise of a bandmate, Jennings felt he had been taken benefit of by pals.
“They were there to get my money. That was it,” Jennings famous. “I think Merle is a great singer and songwriter, and probably he was in as bad a shape as I was, but we’ve never been close since that night.”
Both artists would go on to huge success. Jennings grew to become a pacesetter in outlaw nation, promoting 40 million data worldwide and successful two Grammys and 4 Country Music Association awards. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999 and handed away in 2002.
Haggard went on to main success in the identical style with album gross sales of greater than six million, successful three Grammys and quite a few Academy of Country Music Awards. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1994 and died in 2016.