National Public Radio’s afternoon news and information show, All Things Considered, featured an interview with Merle Haggard yesterday (1/3) about his 2007 release, The Bluegrass Sessions.

The Hag spoke with Melissa Block about his life at 70 years old and his new music, and clips from several songs on the new CD are featured.

From the interview…

One of the new tracks, “Learning to Live with Myself,” was written in his bathtub ‚Äî or at least, according to Haggard, “There was water everywhere.”

“At my age, I’ve learned how to live with my spouse and I’ve learned how to live with my beautiful children,” Haggard says. “I learned how to be friends with everybody and do everything. The only thing I hadn’t learned how to do was to learn to live with myself. I think that’s probably the hardest thing we all have to do. We can lie to everybody else, but you can’t lie to yourself.”

The piece runs nearly ten minutes and you can hear the entire thing on the NPR site – where they also feature a web extra, with Haggard speaking of his fondness for Jimmie Rodgers.

The nominating committee for the National Academy Of Recording Arts & Sciences, who distribute the Grammy Awards each year, decided yesterday that the new release from Merle Haggard, titled The Bluegrass Sessions would not be eligible for Grammy consideration in the Best Bluegrass Album category in this year’s voting.

Billboard reported today that despite the CD being #1 on their Bluegrass chart the past four weeks, the new Haggard album would be considered in the Best Country Album category instead.

Chris Harris of McCoury Music, who released The Bluegrass Sessions, expressed some frustration with NARAS over this decision.

“When I contacted NARAS, they would not identify the committee, their qualifications, or why they don’t classify this album as bluegrass. Their stance just doesn’t make sense. With that said, of course, we’re grateful that members can at least vote for The Bluegrass Sessions in other country categories, including Country Album of the Year,” Harris said. “But by every reasonable definition, this is a bluegrass album, and we–Merle, Ronnie [Reno], Del [McCoury] and everyone involved in the project–think that Academy voters ought to be able to consider it for Best Bluegrass Album.”

Today’s (9/30) edition of The Chicago Sun-Times has an interview with Merle Haggard, primarily about his upcoming CD release, The Bluegrass Sessions, due out this coming Tuesday (10/2) on McCoury Music.

In the interview, the Sun-Times’ Dave Hoekstra talks with the Hag about his interest in bluegrass, and how he came to record this new project as an acoustic, bluegrass-flavored album. He also reveals this interesting tidbit:

The Bluegrass Sessions was recorded in two days last November in the front room of Ricky Skaggs’ studio outside Nashville. Haggard said he is thinking of a bluegrass tour — if the CD does well.

Read the full article on the Sun-Times web site.

McCoury Music has now posted an online video of the first recording session for his upcoming release, The Bluegrass Sessions, which we posted about a few days ago.

The video shows Hag recording Holding Things Together with Aubrey Haynie, Marty Stuart, Carl Jackson, Rob Ickes, Charlie Cushman and (presumably) Ben Isaacs.

Find the video on the McCoury Music site.