Marty Haggard: A tribute to his dad, with The French Family Band

Marty Haggard grew up watching his father, Merle Haggard, define country music for nearly half a century. For this show he steps into the spotlight himself with a tribute to his dad, singing the songs that made the name famous: "Mama Tried," "Okie From Muskogee," "The Fightin' Side of Me," "Silver Wings," and the rest of the catalog that turned Merle Haggard from a California inmate into one of the most recorded country artists of all time.

The French Family Band backs him with the hard-country sound those songs require, twin fiddles and all. The group has built its own following across Texas and Louisiana, and the combination of a Haggard family voice with a band that knows this material note for note makes for an evening of serious traditional country.

A songbook worth the drive

For anyone who grew up with AM country radio or who has discovered the Bakersfield sound later in life, this is a rare chance to hear the songs performed by someone who learned them at the source. Merle Haggard wrote about working people, small towns, and the complicated pride of being American, and those themes still land hard in a room like the Greenville Municipal Auditorium.

Getting there from Arthur City

The drive from 3870 County Road 45080 to Greenville runs about an hour and fifteen minutes down US 271 and I-30, an easy Thursday evening trip. The auditorium is a compact, comfortable room for a show like this, with no bad seats in the house.