Cody Jinks Calls Merle Haggard A “Triple Threat” & His All-Time Favorite: “He Stood Ahead Of Everybody”

High praise for The Hag.

Cody Jinks has always had a love for the legends and outlaws who paved the way for artists like him. Last year, Jinks honored one of his musical heroes by releasing a tribute record to Lefty Frizzell, titled Cody Jinks Sings Lefty Frizzell. When the album was released, he shared that one of the first songs he ever learned to play was “The Long Black Veil.” Lefty’s music holds a special place in his heart because of that, in addition to how he inspired so many of Cody’s other musical heroes:

“The first song my Dad taught me to play on guitar was Lefty’s, ‘The Long Black Veil.’ My favorite country singer/songwriter, Merle Haggard, was a Lefty fan. If you trace my country music lineage, you can hear a little Lefty in some of my stuff. I loved making this project!”

One of those other country music icons who inspired Jinks was the one and only Merle Haggard.

Back in 2016, Cody Jinks gushed about why Merle Haggard is such an inspiration to him during an interview with the Duchess of Rock N Roll, Sheryl Swift. At the time of this interview, Jinks was on the heels of releasing his now critically acclaimed 2015 record, Adobe Sessions.

While talking about that record, Swift shared that a lot of his songwriting reminded her of Merle Haggard, which led her to ask Jinks if he was a fan of Merle. Jinks’ response highlights that he’s more than just a Merle fan; he also admires Merle Haggard over many other country music greats.

“He’s my all-time favorite. He’s the…he’s it to me, man. I’m such a fan of so many guys in the same, you know, Kris and Waylon and all those guys, just a huge fan of all those guys.

But Merle’s always, you know, it’s always been… He was different from me. He kind of stood ahead of everybody in my opinion, um, for several different reasons. Merle’s a triple threat. Merle can write as good or better than anybody. He can sing as good or better than anybody, and he can pick his guitar. You know, and you don’t see…I mean, like, lead pick his guitar.

I mean, you don’t see a triple threat like that very often.”

A triple threat Hag is indeed.

Of course, we have seen Jinks tip his hat to this musical hero many times in his career, covering Merle Haggard songs during live shows, and he cut a cover of “The Way I Am” on his 2016 record, I’m Not The Devil. In Jinks’ rendition of “The Way I Am,” the similarities in the two men’s vocals are breathtaking, and it’s evident that Jinks has studied Hag’s music in depth.

Jinks is well on his way to being remembered as a triple threat, as he described Haggard nearly a decade ago.

Who knows, maybe Cody Jinks’ next tribute project will be for The Hag, or he can collaborate with Merle Haggard’s son to help him release all the unearthed music he recently discussed.

Merle Haggard Archival Songs

Recently, his sons Ben and Noel appeared on the Drifting Cowboy Podcast and they revealed that there’s already certain things in the works. Ben says he’s been “messing around” with some archival songs in the studio, explaining that they have a good amount of music and even live performances footage and audio in the archive that he thinks his mom will want to get out to fans:

“Oh yeah. Yeah. There’s some stuff we’ve been messing around with in the studio. There’s stuff of his, you know, a good amount of archive. Live shows and stuff… my mother will probably end up doing something with. Getting some stuff out there.”

Ben said a lot of it is brand new songs that have never been heard, and he thinks they need to “find a way out”:

“There’s stuff that has never been heard, new songs and stuff out there, for certain. Which need to find a way out, if you ask me.”

Obviously, if anything is actually going to come out, it sounds like they’re in the early stages, but considering how interested Ben is in getting some of that music out, I would not be surprised at all to see a project or something in the future, especially considering how well-received the Waylon stuff has been so far.

Noel added that they even have some more obscure stuff in the archive, like little home movies Merle made with his band and friends with cameras he bought from a Bakersfield TV station that was going out of business decades ago:

“There’s some homemade movies that he used to do in Bakersfield. There was a TV station that was going out of business, so he bought the cameras and the band, everybody… he had names for everybody… they were stating up probably longer than most people.

I was just a little kid running wires and stuff for them, you know. But it was hilarious. He’d do commercials and everything. Those have got to be somewhere, you know.”

Now that’s something we NEED to see…The post Cody Jinks Calls Merle Haggard A “Triple Threat” & His All-Time Favorite: “He Stood Ahead Of Everybody” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.