"Mama Tried," Merle Haggard

Beloved of Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, "Mama Tried" is the story of Haggard's checkered early life. Newly re-pardoned by California's governor and feted at the Kennedy Center, Haggard, 73, reflects on meeting Richard Nixon at the White House:

The intelligence of Nixon was impressive. He was able to carry on a conversation with me and introduce me to about three other dignitaries and their wives, and tell me what their kids' names were. He knew all that. And at the same time, tell me a story about how he was in college when I was in prison, and host the whole evening with all these pots on fire.

Radio, Radio

Another reason to love Elvis Costello: His influences, according to Nick Paumgarten's wonderful profile in the Nov. 8 "New Yorker":

His [jazz musician] father turned him on to the Grateful Dead, which became Costello's band, in part because it was no one else's. (While Costello makes no apologies for his Deadhead phase, his biographers always seem to.) It was through the Dead, and subsequently the Band and Gram Parsons, among others, that he discovered the traditional American music they'd tapped into, such as Hank Williams and Merle Haggard. This in turn became the foundation, along with the likes of Van Morrison, for the kind of music he was starting to write and perform himself...The Band's Rick Danko was a major influence on Costello's style of singing.

'Spite Of All My Sunday Learnin'

A crackling Grateful Dead recitation of the story of Merle Haggard's early years, "Mama Tried," recorded at Duke University in April 1978. If you can, listen with headphones or earbuds. The audio is rocking.