MERLE HAGGARD and the Strangers with Mark O'Connor
Rancho del Cielo - President Reagan's Ranch
San Ynez Mountains, California
March 7, 1982


From the PBS television broadcast of "Young Artists in Performance at the White House"
Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s.
After retiring from singing in 1980 she became the general manager of the New York City Opera.

Beverly hosted the PBS series, "Young Artists in Performance at the White House" which had always spotlighted classically trained artists.
Merle was a request from the Reagan's and this fiddle based style seemed to be something Beverly was unfamiliar with.
You can hear how honestly surprised she is that musicians that were not classically trained could play so well.
To her credit she seems quite excited about this performance.
Now it's your turn.

[I can never leave anything alone and this is an upgrade over the original version that I shared in 2013]

01. Introduction by Nancy Reagan
02. Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink
03. Silver Wings
04. Workingman's Blues
05. My Favorite Memory
06. Footlights
07. Okie from Muscogee
08. Beverly Sills asks Merle about his musical roots
09. Pennies From Heaven
10. Beverly Sills talks to Merle about his life and about Mark O'Conner
11. Sweet Georgia Brown (Mark)
12. Beverly interviews Mark
13. Mark and Merle fiddle duet (unknown song title)
14. President Reagan tells a joke and then thanks Merle and Mark
15. Are the Good Times Really Over For Good? (w/ President Reagan's intro)
16. Rainbow Stew
[53:28]


"off air" source:
KCET TV > Quasar television (RCA outputs) > TEAC 4070G reel to reel

1990's
Revox B-77 > Phase Linear 1000 auto-correlator > Sony DTC-690 (my safety copy)

2013
Sony DTC-690 > Audigy 4 pro (via toslink) > Audacity (16-44, clean up & phase alignment) > CD Wav > Flac (Level 8)

2016
Har-Bal (Harmonic Balancing) > iZotope RX4 advanced & Adobe Audition 3.0 (combine all tracks, clean up of dropouts and electrical noises-pops and clicks) > CD Wav > TLH
Song information embedded with Stamp ID3 tag editor


This Motorola Quasar TV had great sound for broadcast television.
Even so this is from a television audio signal and was lacking bass and had a few crackles as found on old TV broadcasts [repaired now]

Quite a few more dropouts and electrical noises (like ticks and pops) were repaired this time.
Sure to be some remaining.

My dream is that someone out there will have the video and post it after seeing this.


For historical reference only and not intended for resale or any commercial use.

enjoy
-M- (Nov 2013)(April 2016 - Rev A: clean up and EQ)
Flying M Productions

FAN RECORDINGS FOR COLLECTORS
TRADE FREELY BUT PLEASE DO NOT SELL

R.I.P. MERLE


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