Merle Haggard & Freddy Power - "Pancho And Lefty"

"Pancho and Lefty" is a song written by country music artist Townes Van Zandt. Often considered his "most enduring and well-known song," Van Zandt first recorded it for his 1972 album The Late Great Townes Van Zandt. The song has been recorded by several artists since its composition and performance by Van Zandt, with the Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard version selling the most copies and reaching the Billboard top hits list.


Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) was an American country singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler.
Haggard was born in Oildale, California, during the Great Depression. His childhood was troubled after the death of his father, and he was incarcerated several times in his youth. After being released from San Quentin State Prison in 1960, he managed to turn his life around and launch a successful country music career, gaining popularity with his songs about the working class that occasionally contained themes contrary to the prevailing anti-Vietnam War sentiment of much popular music of the time. Between the 1960s and the 1980s, he had 38 number-one hits on the US country charts, several of which also made the Billboard all-genre singles chart. Haggard continued to release successful albums into the 2000s.

Freddy Powers, legendary behind-the-scenes country musician, has died at the age of 84. The songwriter and producer battled Parkinson’s Disease for years before he passed away on June 21. Powers was considered a pillar of the outlaw country genre, blending styles of Dixieland with honky tonk.

The talented musician was born in 1931 and grew up in Seminole, Texas, getting his start in music in his own family band. He later worked with Paul Buskirk in Fort Worth, a relationship which connected him to Willie Nelson, and the rest is history.

Powers played in Nelson’s band, and later co-produced his 1981 record Somewhere Over the Rainbow. In the 1960s and 1970s, Powers and his band, the Powerhouse Four, had a Las Vegas residency at the Riviera Casino. In the '80s, Merle Haggard invited Powers to move to California, and the pair of them lived on houseboats on Lake Shasta. It was there Powers wrote several of Haggard’s No. 1 hits, including “A Place to Fall Apart.” The legends toured together, making Powers a member of Haggard’s band, the Strangers, and Powers also wrote George Jones’ “I Always Get Lucky with You,” as well as tunes for Ray Charles, Big & Rich and more.
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