Rhett Akins and Jamey Johnson Bring the House Down at the Grand Ole Opry With a 1977 Merle Haggard Classic

Rhett Akins used a special moment in his career to honor one of his heroes. The famed songwriter became the latest member of the Grand Ole Opry, and, ahead of his induction, he took the stage with many of his famous friends to celebrate his accomplishment.

While Akins performed songs he’d written for or with alongside Jon Pardi, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, and Thomas Rhett, he and Jamey Johnson did something different.

Instead of performing one of their songs together, they opted to use their time on stage to pay tribute to a legend—Merle Haggard.

The men teamed up to sing Haggard’s 1977 hit “Ramblin’ Fever,” and delighted the Opry crowd in doing so.

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Rhett Akins Reveals Reason Behind His Merle Haggard Tribute

Ahead of the show, American Songwriter spoke to Akins, who explained the reason behind the tribute to the man he considers “the epitome of the ’60s and ’70s.”

“Jamey and I were misfits. We were on the same record labeled in in 2006. They hated us. They didn’t like our songs, they didn’t like our clothes, they didn’t like the way we acted. We were too Willie [Nelson] and Waylon [Jennings] for them,” Akins said. “They sent us on a tour bus for a year just to get rid of us. We came back to town and they said, ‘Hey, we think it’s best if we part ways.’”

Though the record label dropped both of them, they took those memories they made traveling around together with them.

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“You don’t know the countless hours that me and Jamey spent, not only writing songs, but passing a guitar back. We’d go, ‘Bet you don’t remember this, Merle Haggard song. Bet you don’t remember this Hank [Williams] Jr. song,’” Akins recalled. “We sat up and just played every country song ever written.”

“I wanted Jamey and my segment to be more about the times that we were together when we weren’t doing that well, the record label didn’t like us, but we knew that there was something inside of us that was gonna keep going regardless of what Nashville told us,” he continued. “… It’s not like I’m being snarky or anything. It was just kind of like, ‘Hey, I know y’all didn’t believe in us, but we believed in us.’ We wanted to be like our heroes and we were going to play one of our heroes tonight.”

Photo by Chris Hollo c/o the Grand Ole Opry