Among country music stars there’s never been a better ole boy than Merle Haggard. Known as “the poet laureate of the hard hats,” his songs celebrate plain people in places like Muskogee, Okla. and, often, the pleasures and perils of two-fisted boozing (I Don’t Want to Sober Up Tonight). Moreover, he knows whereof he sings. He spent seven of his first 23 years in stir for robbing and carousing (occasionally at the same time), and he celebrated his 21st birthday in San Quentin in solitary—for whipping up some home brew right on the premises. So during a Fort Worth show at Billy Bob’s Texas, which has billed itself as “the largest honky-tonk in the world,” what was more natural for Haggard, 45, than to introduce his new hit C.C. Waterback by pulling out a quart of Canadian Club (a C.C. Water-back is C.C. with a water chaser) and passing it around to the boys in the band? Then, without bothering to count the house, Merle pulled the stopper: “I want to buy everyone here a C.C. Waterback,” he announced.