Profile of Merle Haggard on Famous Like Me

Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 in Bakersfield, California) is an American country music singer and songwriter.

In the 1950s, Haggard emerged as the first native of Bakersfield to get involved in the Bakersfield Sound. By the 1970s, he was aligned with the growing outlaw country movement, and has continued to release successful albums through the 1990s and into the 2000s. Haggard was perhaps the best and most influential songwriter in country music since Hank Williams. He sings about familiar themes – jail, betrayal, drinking, wandering and work – but with the sort of directness that comes from personal experience.

Early life

Haggard's parents moved from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression; at that time, much of the population of Bakersfield was made up of economic refugees from Oklahoma and surrounding states. Haggard's father died when he was nine, and Merle began to rebel against his mother, who put him in a juvenile detention center. Merle's older brother gave him a guitar when he was twelve, and he taught himself to play. In 1951, Haggard (at 14) ran away to Texas with a friend, but returned that same year and was arrested for truancy and petty larceny. He ran away from the next juvenile detention center he was sent to, and went to Modesto, California. He worked odd jobs, legal and not, and made his performing debut at a bar. Once he was found again, he was sent to the Preston School of Industry, a high-security installation. Shortly after he was released, fifteen months later, Haggard was sent back after beating a local boy during a robbery attempt.

After his second release, Haggard saw Lefty Frizzell in concert with his friend Teague, and sang a couple songs for him. Lefty was so impressed that he allowed Haggard to sing at the concert. The audience loved him and he began working on a full-time music career. After earning a local reputation, Haggard's money problems caught up with him and he was arrested for a robbery in 1957. He was sent to prison in San Quentin for fifteen years. Even in prison, Haggard was wild. He planned an escape, but never followed through, and ran a gambling and brewing racket from his cell. Soon, however, Haggard befriended author and death row inmate Caryl Chessman. Chessman's predicament inspired Haggard to turn his life around, and he soon earned his high school equivalency diploma, kept a steady job in the prison's textile plant and played in the prison's band. He was released in 1960.

Country success

Upon his return, Haggard began performing again and soon began recording with Tally Records. His first song was "Skid Row", just as the Bakersfield Sound was developing in the area, as a reaction against the over-produced honky tonk of the Nashville Sound. In 1962, Haggard wound up performing at a Wynn Stewart show in Las Vegas and heard Wynn's "Sing a Sad Song". He asked for permission to record it, and the resulting single was a national hit in 1964.

Haggard released a series of successful singles in the early 1960s, including "Just Between the Two of Us" (duet with Bonnie Owens) and "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers". He then signed to Capitol Records and released "I'm Gonna Break Every Heart I Can" to limited sales. In 1966, however, his second Capitol single, "Swinging Doors", was a Top Five hit and Haggard had become a nationally known superstar. During the late 1960s, Haggard's chart success was consistent and impressive. "The Bottle Let Me Down", "The Fugitive", "Branded Man", "Mama Tried", "Sing Me Back Home", "Hungry Eyes," "The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde", and "I Threw Away the Rose" are among the more well-remembered titles. "Mama Tried" and "Killer's Three Theme" sung by Merle were part of the soundtrack to the 1968 film Killers Three, which also included Haggard's acting debut.

In 1968, Haggard's first tribute LP Same Train, Different Train: A Tribute to Jimmie Rodgers, was released to great acclaim.

1969's apparent political statement, "Okie From Muskogee", was actually written as an abjectly humorous character portrait, a "documentation of the uneducated that lived in America at the time, and I mirror that. I always have. Staying in touch with the working class." (Phipps 2001) Later, Alabama Governor George Wallace asked Haggard for an endorsement which Haggard declined. However, Haggard does express sympathy with the "parochial" or conservative way of life expressed in "Okie" and songs such as "The Fightin' Side of Me" (ibid). It should be noted, however, that after "Okie" was released, Haggard wanted to release a self-penned song entitled "Irma Jackson" about an interracial couple; the single was quashed by his record company.

Regardless of exactly how they were intended, "Okie From Muskogee", "The Fightin' Side of Me", and "I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am" were hailed as anthems of the Silent Majority, and presaged a trend in patriotic songs that would reappear years later with Charlie Daniels' "In America", Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA", and others. But other Haggard songs were appreciated regardless of politics: the Grateful Dead began performing Haggard's tune "Mama Tried" in 1969 and it stayed in their regular repetoire thereafter.

Haggard's next LP was A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (Or My Salute to Bob Wills), which helped spark a revival of swing music. In 1972, Governor Ronald Reagan gave Haggard a full pardon for his past crimes. Merle often brags that few figures in history can become public enemy number one and man of the year in the same ten year period.

During the early to mid 1970s, Haggard's chart domination continued with songs like "Someday We'll Look Back", "Carolyn", "Grandma Harp", "Always Wanting You" and "The Roots of My Raisin'". 1975's recession anthem "If We Make It Through December" cast Haggard back to being a champion of the working class.

In 1977, Haggard was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Later years

By the 1980s, Haggard's popularity was waning in pop markets. He published an autobiography called Sing Me Back Home. Although he won a Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for 1984's "That's The Way Love Goes", a new kind of honky tonk had begun to overtake country music and singers like George Strait and Randy Travis had taken over the charts. His last number one hit was "Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star" from his smash album Chill Factor in 1988.

Although he has been outspoken in his dislike for modern country music, he has praised newer stars such as George Strait and Randy Travis. The Dixie Chicks paid him tribute in their 2002 song "Long Time Gone", which criticizes Nashville trends: "We listen to the radio to hear what’s cookin’ / But the music ain’t got no soul / Now they sound tired but they don’t sound haggard," with the following lines mentioning Johnny Cash and Hank Williams in the same vein.

In 2000, Haggard made a comeback of sorts, signing with the independent record label Anti and releasing the spare If I Could Only Fly to critical acclaim. He followed it in 2001 with Roots, Vol. 1, a collection of Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams, and Hank Thompson covers, along with three Haggard originals. The album, recorded in Haggard's living room with no overdubs, featured Haggard's longtime bandmates The Strangers as well as Frizzell's original lead guitarist, Norman Stephens.

In December of 2004, Haggard spoke at length on Larry King Live about his incarceration as a young man and said it was "Hell" and "the scariest experience of my life."

Discography

• A Portrait of Merle Haggard (1969)
• A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (Or My Salute to Bob Wills) (1970)
• Back To The Barrooms (1980)
• Branded Man (1967)
• Going Where The Lonely Go (1982)
• Hag (1971)
• I'm a Lonesome Fugitive (1967)
• I'm Always On A Mountain When I Fall (1978)
• I Love Dixie Blues...So I Recorded Live in New Orleans (1973)
• If We Make It Through December (1974)
• Just Between the Two of Us
• Legend of Bonnie & Clyde (1986)
• Let Me Tell You About a Song (1972)
• Mama Tried (1968)
• Okie from Muskogee
• Poncho And Lefty (1982)
• Presents His 30th Album (1974)
• Pride in What I Am (1969)
• Ramblin' Fever (1977)
• Same Train, Different Time (1969)
• Sing Me Back Home (1968)
• Someday We'll Look Back (1971)
• Songs For The Mama That Tried (1981)
• Strangers (1965)
• Swinging Doors (1966)
• That's The Way Love Goes (1983)
• The Fightin' Side of Me (1970)
• The Land of Many Churches (1971)
• The Roots Of My Rising (1977)

Sources

• Fox, Aaron A. "White Trash Alchemies of the Abject Sublime: Country as 'Bad' Music". Contained within Washburne, Christopher J. and Derno, Maiken (eds.) (2004). Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415943663.
• Phipps (2001). [What is this?]
• Merle Haggard Discography Simplified. An excellent resource for Merle Haggard's complete discography; over 150 albums listed in chronological order with complete track listings as well as original album covers.

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