Off Beat: Merle Haggard Is Still Grumpy
By Matt Unangst
Merle Haggard filed a lawsuit today against a company for using his name without his permission and forging his signature. The company, Nashville-based Green Train, plans to promote the fight against environmental destruction by putting on a cross-country train tour and concert series (the train will be powered by bio-diesel). The tour is to begin in Portland, Oregon in April and travel across 28 states over the next six weeks, and then a European tour is planned for next year. But now the plan has hit a snag…
Haggard had agreed to give $20,000 to support the tour and said that he would ask his friends in country music to join him in so doing. The company’s founder, Bob Wolf, then used Haggard’s name in promotional material and sent letters to numerous other country artists asking for support, on which he forged Haggard’s signature. Haggard also claims that Wolf stole money from the company for his own use. Green Train may have another problem – they aren’t registered as a charitable organization in Tennessee, so they couldn’t even legally solicit a donation from Haggard.
Merle Haggard may be one of the crankiest old men on earth, but he certainly appears right in this case. Wolf was not going to have an easy time finding anyone worthwhile to ride on his crazy train for six weeks. And how could he have thought he would get away with forging Haggard’s signature? The green movement is going to be hijacked by con artists just like every other social movement.
Source: The Tennessean
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Sunday, February 15, 2009 9:23PM
Both men had a great idea, it's just a shame a volunteer came between their long time friendships. Merle was definitely a founder, along with Bob Wolf. Too bad the whole truth is not printed with the original story. For then the comments might all read; “Merle, do the right thing this time and call Bob Wolf and work out your issues, out of court and without attorneys.” Life is too short to spend your time this way, or to allow your legacy to go down in the history books like this.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009 8:48PM
I made a website dedicated to this specific event in its infancy because I thought it was such a great idea. The cause was awesome, and what better way to promote environmental causes than on a train that runs on biodiesel. It's just too bad all of this happened and had to shadow the pure intentions of the project.