From Ronnie Reno, via J.D. Rhynes, who posted on the California Bluegrass Association web site, comes word that Merle Haggard is working on a bluegrass project.

That CBA news posting elicited a response from Elida Ickes on the CBA message board that her son, Rob, was playing dobro on the Haggard bluegrass sessions.

Rob said initially they all sat in a circle and just jammed on a few tunes that Merle was interested in doing. (Other players are: Aubrie Haynie, Marty Stuart, Ben Isaacs, and Charlie Cushman) Hope I spelled everyone’s name correctly and remembered everyone that was there. Then Merle said he liked this and suggested that they record just sitting in a circle jamming!!! That is what they did so it will be mostly live taping!! Rob said the first song they did was “I Wonder Where You Are Tonight.”

Another song Rob really liked is a new one that Merle wrote called, “Pray.” Rob said the whole time he could not believe he was sitting in the circle “jamming” with Merle Haggard. Again, it was the highlight of Rob’s life. He goes into the studio again today to finish up. They did 8 songs yesterday and hope to do 4 or 5 more today.

You can read the news posting on CBA’s site, and the follow-up bulletin board discussion there as well. We will try to contact some of the players and find out more about this project, which I am certainly eager to hear.

Thanks to Megan Lynch who first alerted us to this story, and Rick Cornish and Craig Wilson with CBA for their help finding the original post in their archives.