In 2007, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and Ray Price launched their Last of the Breed Tour. The co-headlining outing saw three groundbreaking country legends on the road together. In just a few short years, Price would pass away in 2013. Haggard followed him three years later on his birthday. Today, Nelson is the only member of the tour—and the oldest country legend—who is still alive.
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Haggard, Nelson, and Price closed out the Last of the Breed Tour with a recorded concert. They made an album as well as a PBS television special that night. Backed by Price’s Cherokee Cowboys and Ray Benson and his band Asleep at the Wheel, the trio of legends performed some of their biggest hits on the tour’s final night. Watch Nelson and Haggard sing “Pancho and Lefty” below.
Nelson and Haggard recorded three albums together—Poncho & Lefty (1983), Seashores of Old Mexico (1987), and Django and Jimmie (2016). However, the title track of their first collaborative album would go on to be their best-known duet.
Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson Cover an Outlaw Legend
When it comes to Outlaw and Alternative country music, few songwriters receive as much respect as Townes Van Zandt. Criminally underrated during his lifetime, Van Zandt left behind a wealth of great songs. “Pancho and Lefty” is among his most popular songs.
“I realize that I wrote it, but it’s hard to take credit for the writing because it came from out of the blue,” Van Zandt said about the song. “it came through me and it’s a real nice song, and I think, I’ve finally found out what it’s about. I’ve always wondered what it’s about. I kinda always knew it wasn’t about Pancho Villa and then someone told me that Pancho Villa had a buddy whose name in Spanish meant Lefty,” he recalled. “But in the song, my song, Pacho gets hung … and the real Pancho Villa was assassinated,” he added.
Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson were among many artists who covered “Pancho and Lefty” over the years. However, they had the biggest hit with the song. It went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart when they released it in 1983.
