He’s tearing the Academy of Country Music apart for their “meat parade” and “high school pageantry” following their announcement of the new ‘Merle Haggard Spirit Award’.
Literally just a couple of minutes before the Academy announced that Miranda Lambert would be the first-ever recipient of the ‘Merle Haggard Spirit Award’, country crooner Sturgill Simpson (and longtime friend of Merle Haggard) took to Facebook expressing that he thought their actions were “utterly disgusting”.
Beginning by revealing the reason Haggard had forsaken Nashville, Simpson tears into the ACM without hesitation.
“…Haggard said ‘Fu*k this town. I’m moving’ and he left Nashville,” Simpson writes. “It was right after a record executive told him that ‘Kern River’ was a bad song. In the last chapter of his career and his life, Nashville wouldn’t call, play, or touch him. He felt forgotten and tossed aside.”
But this is just where Simpson begins to get heated about, not only the ACM award, but a magazine cover that really left both him and Haggard on a sour note with the publication.
“I’m writing this because I want to go on record and say I find it utterly disgusting the way everybody on Music Row is coming up with any reason they can to hitch their wagon to his name while knowing full and darn well what he thought about them,” he says, slamming every large Nashville organization like the ACM.
Simpson goes on calling their treatment of Haggard “unjust” and says that the Academy of Country Music should “drop all the…bullsh-t they’ve been pumping down rural America’s throat” and start dedicating their programs to more actual Country Music.
He’s been outspoken about his views on what he considers to be “actual country music” before, and it’s clear that he only has ears for that old-school sound like Haggard’s tunes.
While Simpson is disgusted with the new award that shows just more of what he considers “high school pageantry, meat parade award show bullsh-t”, he’s also pissed that Garden & Gun Magazine pulled his and Merle’s cover photo from the very last magazine Merle was interviewed for.
He ends the lengthy Facebook post on a heavy note rife with frustration.
“Some days, this town and this industry have a way of making we wish I could just go sit on Mars and build glass clocks.”
What do you think of Sturgill Simpson’s view on the country music scene after Haggard’s passing? Do you agree?
Watch the video of Simpson performing for Garden & Gun Magazine below.