Right at the time one of his signature songs (Okie From Muskogee) was all over the radio, reflecting the extreme divide in the country between young and old, hip and square, stoned and straight, hippie and redneck, left and right (some things never change), Merle played The Circle Star Theater in San Carlos (just south of San Francisco). A friend and sometimes bandmate of mine went to the show, courtesy of another friend who was working at the company doing the sound that night. They managed to get themselves on Merle's tour bus, and when inside discovered Merle and his band sitting around the table on the bus, a huge pile of coke in the middle of it and them. Merle, like Trump, knew his audience, but wasn't exactly one of them ;-).
