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11 Years Ago Today, These Two Legendary Outlaws Were at No.1 With a Tribute to Their Heroes—and Each Other.Your cart is currently empty!11 Years Ago Today, These Two Legendary Outlaws Were at No.1 With a Tribute to Their Heroes—and Each Other It’s all going to pot / Whether we like it or not / As far as I can tell / The world’s gone to hell / And we’re sure gonna miss it a lot.So sang Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard on “It’s All Going to Pot”, the lead single off their 2015 album Django and Jimmie.Neither artist sounds like they’re particularly buying what they’re selling on this, Haggard’s final studio album prior to his death from pneumonia 10 months later.Named for an unlikely pair of musical inspirations—jazz guitar virtuoso Django Reinhardt and Jimmie Rodgers, the “Father of Country Music”—Django and Jimmie pays joyful homage to these outlaw country legends and the legends that made them.On this day (June 11) in 2015, the “Pancho and Lefty” collaborators were back on top of the country albums chart.Videos by American Songwriter Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard Recorded This Album in Just Three Days According to Rolling Stone, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard announced Django and Jimmie nearly 32 years to the day after Pancho & Lefty first climbed to the top of the country charts, knocking Alabama’s Mountain Music from the top slot.“We’ve been talking about it for about 18 months,” Haggard told Rolling Stone.“We’ve been back and forth on the phone about what kind of song we needed to find, and we [even] wrote a couple of songs on the phone.When we got into the studio, it was probably three or four days, max.” “If Not For Django and Jimmie” In addition to producing the album, Buddy Cannon wrote five songs, including “It’s All Going to Pot”.While Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard had teamed up plenty of times throughout their respective storied careers, the two men didn’t want to collaborate for collaboration’s sake—they had to find the right material first.When Cannon sent the album’s title track—written by Jimmy Melton and Jeff Prince—to each artist separately, it sealed the deal.“It pulled my heart right out,” Haggard said.“I thought, ‘That’s a pretty good song.’” The album’s 14-song tracklist gave fans a mix of new and old, including a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and Haggard’s take on Nelson’s 1957 song “Family Bible”.Nelson also paid tribute to his longtime friend and duet partner, lending his vocals to a new recording of Haggard’s “Somewhere Between”.Despite what the album’s title suggests, there are no original songs from Reinhardt or Rogers on Django & Jimmie.It’s more a celebration of their enduring influence on Nelson’s guitar playing and Haggard’s songwriting.As they say in the title track, There might not have been a Merle or a Willie, if not for a Django & Jimmie.Featured image by Ethan Miller/Getty Images for The Smith Center Leave a Reply Only members can comment.Become a member.Already a member?