We ran the story in November ‘07 when the nominating committee for the Grammy Awards determined that the latest Merle Haggard CD, The Bluegrass Sessions, was despite its title, not eligible for consideration in their Best Bluegrass Album category. By their reckoning, it was insufficiently bluegrass and was therefore ineligible.

According to a story in today’s edition of Nashville’s Tennessean, The Hag is still smarting over the decision. Never one to keep it close to the vest, he shared his thoughts with The Tennessean’s Peter Cooper.

“We intended this to be accepted by people who like bluegrass music, and I want to know how I missed that,” said Haggard, 70, whose album was judged by a screening committee — made up of anonymous industry professionals — as not containing at least 75 percent bluegrass material. “We went to No. 1 on the Billboard bluegrass chart, everybody that plays on it has bluegrass history, and we used bluegrass instruments.”

“It’s be neat if somebody came forth, stepped up and said, ‘I oppose this and this is the reason why. That seems like the decent thing to do. I want to know how I missed it, in someone’s opinion.”

The Grammy Awards will be presented on Sunday (2/10) in Los Angeles, CA.

Read the full piece on The Tennessean site.