Country Music

Classic Country Music Hits

Country Music

Ben Haggard never forgot the first time he was allowed to play guitar onstage with his father. There was no rehearsal. No warning. Not even a quiet, fatherly “You ready, son?” It was just another show — the crowd buzzing, the band tuning up, the lights warming the stage. Someone handed Ben a guitar. Then Merle turned, looked at him, and gave a single nod. No words… but the message was unmistakable. For Ben, that nod felt like being handed a lifetime of trust all at once. “My dad wasn’t the type to give birthday presents or write long letters,” Ben later said. “But that nod… it was a whole song in itself.” They played the set as if they’d been doing it for years. No missteps. No second-guessing. Just a father leading — and a son finally stepping beside him. Merle didn’t make a big deal of it afterward. He never did. But a few days later, Ben’s phone buzzed with a short message from his dad: “You played just like me.” Five words. No decoration. But for Ben Haggard, it was the greatest compliment he would ever receive.

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Introduction

Some songs don’t just get sung — they linger.
And “If I Could Only Fly” is one of those rare, aching songs that feels like a whisper from the heart… especially when Ben Haggard sings it.

Originally written by Blaze Foley, and later made famous by Merle Haggard in the twilight of his life, “If I Could Only Fly” became something of a final confession — a slow, beautiful ache wrapped in melody. It’s about distance. Regret. Wanting to be closer to someone you love but just… can’t. Not physically, not emotionally, not in this life.

When Ben sings it, though — something different happens.

It’s not just a cover. It’s a conversation. A son quietly replying to a father who’s no longer here. Ben’s voice doesn’t try to imitate Merle’s; he lets the silence breathe, lets the song mourn and mend at the same time. You can hear the weight of legacy in every note — but also the warmth of love that’s still alive, even when the person isn’t.

If you’ve ever lost someone, or wished you had said more while there was still time… this song will find you. And it won’t shout. It’ll sit beside you, gently — like a memory you’re not quite ready to let go of.

“If I could only fly / I’d bid this place goodbye…”
— And in Ben’s voice, it’s not just a wish. It’s a promise.

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Country Music

BILLY JOE SHAVER BURIED HIS WIFE, HIS MOTHER, AND HIS SON. THEN HIS HEART GAVE OUT ONSTAGE AT GRUENE HALL — AND THE CROWD DIDN’T EVEN KNOW HE WAS DYING. By 2001, Billy Joe Shaver had already lost more than most country songs could hold. He was not a polished Nashville product. He was the Texas songwriter behind much of Waylon Jennings’ Honky Tonk Heroes, the man who wrote like the road had cut him open and left the truth showing. Then the losses came close together. His wife Brenda died in 1999. His mother died that same year. On December 31, 2000, his son Eddy Shaver — his guitar player, his blood, his shadow onstage — died of a drug overdose at 38. Billy Joe kept moving because stopping probably felt worse. On August 25, 2001, he walked onto the stage at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas. The room was historic. The crowd was there for songs. They did not come to watch a man collapse under the weight of the last two years. Then his chest started failing him. Billy Joe was having a heart attack while performing. He kept going long enough that the audience apparently did not realize how close the night came to turning into his final show. Afterward came surgery. Then recovery. Then another record. Most singers talk about surviving the road. Billy Joe Shaver survived a song, a stage, and a heart that finally tried to quit in the middle of the set.

Country Music

HIS WIFE DIED THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING. THREE WEEKS LATER, THE KING OF HONKY-TONK WAS FOUND DEAD IN THE SAME FLORIDA HOME. Gary Stewart was never built like a clean Nashville star. He came out of Kentucky poverty, grew up in Florida, and sang country music like the bottle was already open before the band counted off. In the mid-1970s, people called him the King of Honky-Tonk. “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)” went to No. 1 in 1975. But the road under him was never steady. There was the drinking. The drugs. The old back injury. The disappearing years when country music moved on and Gary Stewart kept slipping further from the bright part of the business. Mary Lou was the person who kept showing up beside him. They had been married for more than 40 years. She had seen the bars, the money, the chaos, the fall, the comeback attempts, and the quiet Florida days after the big moment had passed. Then November 26, 2003 came. Mary Lou died of pneumonia, the day before Thanksgiving. Gary canceled his shows. Friends said he was devastated. On December 16, Bill Hardman, his daughter’s boyfriend and Gary’s close friend, went to check on him at his Fort Pierce home. Gary Stewart was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Fans remember the voice bending around heartbreak like it had nowhere else to go. But the last chapter was not on a stage. It was a widower in Florida, three weeks after losing the woman who had survived the whole honky-tonk storm with him.

Country Music

IN A FAMILY FULL OF SONS CARRYING GUITARS, MERLE HAGGARD’S OLDEST DAUGHTER CARRIED A QUIETER PIECE OF THE NAME. The Haggard name usually comes with a guitar in its hands. Marty. Noel. Ben. Sons standing under stage lights, singing the songs their father left behind, trying to carry Merle’s voice without pretending they could replace it. Dana Haggard carried the name differently. She was Merle’s oldest daughter — part of the family before the legend became untouchable, before the songs turned every wound into something fans could sing along with. She grew up under a father whose life was never simple: prison behind him, road ahead of him, music pulling him away and bringing him back in pieces. Not every child of a country legend becomes the public keeper of the catalog. Some carry the weight more quietly. Dana’s story reminds people that Merle did not leave only songs, guitars, tour buses, and old photographs. He left children. People who knew the man before and after the crowd did. People who had to live with the private version of a public voice. When Dana died in 2018, only two years after Merle, it felt like another quiet room closing inside the family. Fans mourned the singer. His children kept mourning the father. And some grief in the Haggard family never needed a microphone to be real.

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Country Music

BILLY JOE SHAVER BURIED HIS WIFE, HIS MOTHER, AND HIS SON. THEN HIS HEART GAVE OUT ONSTAGE AT GRUENE HALL — AND THE CROWD DIDN’T EVEN KNOW HE WAS DYING. By 2001, Billy Joe Shaver had already lost more than most country songs could hold. He was not a polished Nashville product. He was the Texas songwriter behind much of Waylon Jennings’ Honky Tonk Heroes, the man who wrote like the road had cut him open and left the truth showing. Then the losses came close together. His wife Brenda died in 1999. His mother died that same year. On December 31, 2000, his son Eddy Shaver — his guitar player, his blood, his shadow onstage — died of a drug overdose at 38. Billy Joe kept moving because stopping probably felt worse. On August 25, 2001, he walked onto the stage at Gruene Hall in New Braunfels, Texas. The room was historic. The crowd was there for songs. They did not come to watch a man collapse under the weight of the last two years. Then his chest started failing him. Billy Joe was having a heart attack while performing. He kept going long enough that the audience apparently did not realize how close the night came to turning into his final show. Afterward came surgery. Then recovery. Then another record. Most singers talk about surviving the road. Billy Joe Shaver survived a song, a stage, and a heart that finally tried to quit in the middle of the set.

Country Music

HIS WIFE DIED THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING. THREE WEEKS LATER, THE KING OF HONKY-TONK WAS FOUND DEAD IN THE SAME FLORIDA HOME. Gary Stewart was never built like a clean Nashville star. He came out of Kentucky poverty, grew up in Florida, and sang country music like the bottle was already open before the band counted off. In the mid-1970s, people called him the King of Honky-Tonk. “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)” went to No. 1 in 1975. But the road under him was never steady. There was the drinking. The drugs. The old back injury. The disappearing years when country music moved on and Gary Stewart kept slipping further from the bright part of the business. Mary Lou was the person who kept showing up beside him. They had been married for more than 40 years. She had seen the bars, the money, the chaos, the fall, the comeback attempts, and the quiet Florida days after the big moment had passed. Then November 26, 2003 came. Mary Lou died of pneumonia, the day before Thanksgiving. Gary canceled his shows. Friends said he was devastated. On December 16, Bill Hardman, his daughter’s boyfriend and Gary’s close friend, went to check on him at his Fort Pierce home. Gary Stewart was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Fans remember the voice bending around heartbreak like it had nowhere else to go. But the last chapter was not on a stage. It was a widower in Florida, three weeks after losing the woman who had survived the whole honky-tonk storm with him.

Country Music

IN A FAMILY FULL OF SONS CARRYING GUITARS, MERLE HAGGARD’S OLDEST DAUGHTER CARRIED A QUIETER PIECE OF THE NAME. The Haggard name usually comes with a guitar in its hands. Marty. Noel. Ben. Sons standing under stage lights, singing the songs their father left behind, trying to carry Merle’s voice without pretending they could replace it. Dana Haggard carried the name differently. She was Merle’s oldest daughter — part of the family before the legend became untouchable, before the songs turned every wound into something fans could sing along with. She grew up under a father whose life was never simple: prison behind him, road ahead of him, music pulling him away and bringing him back in pieces. Not every child of a country legend becomes the public keeper of the catalog. Some carry the weight more quietly. Dana’s story reminds people that Merle did not leave only songs, guitars, tour buses, and old photographs. He left children. People who knew the man before and after the crowd did. People who had to live with the private version of a public voice. When Dana died in 2018, only two years after Merle, it felt like another quiet room closing inside the family. Fans mourned the singer. His children kept mourning the father. And some grief in the Haggard family never needed a microphone to be real.

Country Music

BEFORE “OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE,” BEFORE THE NO. 1 HITS, A BROKE SONGWRITER NAMED TOMMY COLLINS BROUGHT MERLE HAGGARD GROCERIES. YEARS LATER, MERLE WROTE HIM INTO A SONG. Tommy Collins was already deep in the Bakersfield scene when Merle Haggard came out of prison and tried to turn a rough voice into a living. His real name was Leonard Sipes. Merle knew him before the world knew Merle. Collins had written songs. He had worked the West Coast country circuit. Buck Owens had played in his band. He knew how a country song had to hold together line by line, title by title, hurt by hurt. Merle listened. Collins did not just teach him chords or clever lines. He taught him how to make every word answer the title. When Merle had nothing, Collins helped him. Not with speeches. With groceries. Then the years turned. Merle became the star. Collins slipped through trouble, drinking, divorce, hard times, and the kind of silence that can swallow a songwriter after the radio stops calling. In 1981, Merle released “Leonard.” Not “Tommy.” Leonard. He used the private name, the name under the stage name, the man before the myth. The song reached the country Top 10, but the real story was smaller than the chart. Merle Haggard remembered who fed him before Nashville knew his name.