what have i become my sweetest friend everyone i know goes away in the end and you could have it all my empire of dirt i will let you down i will make you hurt

those nineties records were ridiculously overrated though and it depresses me to no end to see them be the focus of any (not to mention many) obit. appreciations

But his cover of Hurt...man, i love the older stuff, but Hurt just rules...

...Wish i could find somewhere to download Wrinkled Crinkled Wadded Dollar Bill...

What Phil said - esp. the most recent one of the American stuff: I mean, yeah, there was a sort of "Johnny Cash is great when we take the Actual Country out him" feel to it, sorta - ditto the ANTI Merle stuff - but in both cases, when I check some of those critical biases and just listen to the songs, what I hear is a couple of my favorite artists making records that represent them well

that said, Merle's '60's stuff cannot be improved upon

Merle Haggard is the greatest country artist ever. period....I think his anti records were alot more non-country in their marketing....I thought they seemed like fairly traditional haggard records for the most part....

Johnny's American stuff is all over the place, sometimes great, sometime suspect....it does suck that they are being remember instead of Live at Folsom Prison or his sun stuff