He was and remains the working man’s poet; a man who sings about regret, loneliness, prison, drinking, heartbreak and patriotism better than just about anyone and has a 40 plus year career to prove it. Sprung from the dusty turf of Bakersfield, California and its bleak Kafkaesque oil fields, Merle Haggard has spent a lifetime (practically three lifetimes if you listen hard to his story) bringing his brand of blue collar, sweat of your brow version of country music. Music that just about all of us can relate to in one-way or another.
Music that bleeds red, white and blue.
Haggards roots reach back to Oklahoma even before he was born. His parents moved to California in the midst of the Great Depression. Back in Oklahoma his parents’ farm had burnt down to the ground and like so many others from Dust Bowl area, they packed up and headed towards the west coast looking for work. His father found work with the Santa Fe Railroad as well as picking up some carpentry work on the side. The family moved into a boxcar that Merle’s father had converted into a house. Born two years later in April 1937, Merle, along with his siblings, hardly had an idyllic existence but it was honest and simple, at least until 9 years later when his father died of a brain tumor. The loss of his father hit Merle hard as the two had been very close. His mother took a job working as a bookkeeper to make ends meet and with the assistance of some distant relatives, she managed to keep the family together. Merle had an interest in music and his mother taught him some basic guitar chords, hoping that music would help soothe the hurt of the loss of his father.
But it wasn’t enough to keep Haggard on the straight and narrow. Soon Merle was acting out, committing petty crimes, hopping freight trains and skipping school. At the age of 13, he did his first stint in juvenile detention. Being jailed did not straighten him out and he found himself bounced back in several times, often escaping but never for very long. At the age of 15, Haggard was arrested for a failed robbery and placed in a high security juvenile facility and sentenced to 15 months. “The trouble with me,” he said in a Newsweek article ‘was that I started taking the songs I was singing too seriously. Like Jimmie Rogers, I wanted to ride the freight trains. As a result, I was a general screw-up from the time I was 14.’
By the time he was released, Merle had begun performing locally and gaining a little local notoriety. During this time Haggard went to a concert by Lefty Frizzel. The story goes that Merle went back stage to meet Frizzel and sang a few songs for him. Frizzel was so impressed that he refused to go on until management agreed to allow Merle to come out on stage with him and sing a few songs. The audience loved him and Merle, in turn, loved the audience. It was the moment when he decided that music was to be his career. But money problems caught up with him again soon after and Merle was arrested for trying to rob a local Bakersfield tavern. This time there was no going back to a juvie-joint. The judge smacked the gavel and Merle Haggard was sent to San Quentin prison for a 15-year stretch
While in San Quentin Haggard he continued his anti-social behaviors and for a brief time began brewing alcohol and running a gambling racket from his cell, all the while focusing on just trying to survive. On his twenty-first birthday, he sat alone in solitary confinement having been sent for being caught intoxicated. The impact of this was powerful. That and the fact that he met a man named Caryl Chessman who was in San Quentin on death row. Watching a man live out his final days churned on his soul. He also met a man named Rabbit while in the joint. At one point, Rabbit planned an escape and offered Merle a chance to join him. By this time Haggard had decided to just finish off his time and get out and declined the invite. Rabbit managed to escape and was on the run for a while. But the attempt ended up costing the lift of one of the guards and when Rabbit was caught he was brought back to San Quentin and placed on death row. The circle was complete and Haggard knew at that point that he would never go back. “You don’t think much about freedom until you don’t have any,” Haggard has said in interviews. It’s a sentiment that runs rampant through his songs. He threw himself wholeheartedly into his music and even joined the prison band where he had a chance to meet one of his idols, Johnny Cash. “I’m not sure it works like that very often,” he to The Atlantic Monthly, “but I am the one guy that the prison system straightened out. I know damned well I am a better man for it.’
When he was finally released at the age of 23, Merle returned to Bakersfield where he took work with his brother wiring houses and taking the odd job here and there all the while getting stage time locally and in Las Vegas as a back up guitarist and bass player. This was during the boom of the ‘Bakersfield Sound’ which was coming on strong as direct response to what many felt was the slick, over-produced sound of Nashville. In 1962 Haggard met with Fuzzy Owen who owned the small Tally Records studio. Owen became his manager and mentor, coaching him on his song writing and singing and in 1963 he recorded Merle’s first few singles. The second of these, ‘Sing A Sad Song’, a cover, became Haggards first record to make the country charts. The follow up, ‘All My Friends Are Gonna Be Strangers’ broke into the country top ten. That was the break that he needed and Capitol Records came in an offered him a contract. Merle immediately formed a band and started writing furiously. He became a hit maker. By 1968, Merle Haggard became one of country’s most prolific and consistent writers and performers.
Interestingly though, early on in his career, Haggard didn’t write much about his broken past or his time in prison. He was embarrassed by it and wanted to avoid it. But as he began to grow professionally, a man that had always been an idol soon became a friend. Haggard has said that it was Johnny Cash who had told him to open up his past in his songs. “He told me to write about my past so that the tabloids wouldn’t be able to.’
It was through this honesty and his ability to take an unflinching look at real life that Haggard had become a hero of sorts to a segment of society that was, in the 60’s, largely forgotten or ignored by the record companies; the blue collar-working folks who lived between the coasts.
In 1969 Merle Haggard accidentally became a political spokesman of sorts. And this happened somewhat accidentally. He released what is considered to be his biggest hit with ‘Okie From Muskogee’, which became an anthem of sorts to those who were opposed to the ‘hippie’ movement. With lines like:
We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee;
We don't take no trips on LSD
We don't burn no draft cards down on Main Street;
We like livin' right, and bein' free.
I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
And white lightnin's still the biggest thrill of all
‘Okie’ struck a chord and helped further polarize the country. ‘You’re Walking On The Fighting Side Of Me’ added a little more fuel to the ultra-patriotic image that Merle was flirting with.
It got to the point where then Governor of Alabama and Presidential hopeful, the super-conservative George Wallace asked him for an endorsement. Merle declined. In several interviews Haggard has stated that ‘Okie’ and ‘Fightin’ Side’ were actually done somewhat light-hearted and tongue in cheek. Yet despite the intent, the songs hit home.
By the time the Vietnam War had ended so did Merle’s flirtation with politics. He turned his attention onto more personal subjects like poverty, heartbreak, prison time and the like (the staples of a country music lyricist). He continued to be a major factor in country music through the seventies and the eighties. By the late eighties however he began to get burned out from a life on the road and in the studio. He said in an interview, ‘The main part of this life is like a twenty year bus ride.’ And yet he kept his career alive despite the changes that were occurring within country music. He appeared on many tribute albums and worked with other legends in country music like Willie Nelson. Their duet on ‘Pancho and Lefty’ hit the charts as well. In 1987 Haggard hit the charts again with ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Star’ bringing his total times at number one on the charts to 39.
In 1990 Haggard jumped labels after his contract with Epic expired landing with Curb Records. Contract issues held up his debut for Curb for four years. The lack of a release coupled with a rather extravagant lifestyle and issues with the IRS, Haggard’s finances took a major hit. In his early 50’s, Merle Haggard was bankrupt. Fighting his way back, Haggard released a handful of records for Curb with only one single, ‘In My Next Life’ breaking low into the charts. But he wasn’t done. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996 and began hosting his own radio program.
By 2000, he again switched labels and went with the primarily punk bands, Anti Records. His first album, ‘If Only I Could Fly’ was released in 2000 to critical acclaim. Haggard continues to record and tour when he is able although time is catching up to him now. His health now has become an issue. Heart problems and a brief bout with lung cancer have slowed him a bit. Although in a firm tribute to the guts of the man, he was touring less than two months after having part of one lung removed.
Merle Haggard is an American icon. A man who made some poor choices, fell into the system and climbed back out. Has seen a lot of life, been up and been down and all the while never giving up. You don’t have to be a fan of country music to appreciate his story. But chances are if you do sit down and listen to some of his tracks, you’ll come away a fan.
Legendary producer Don Was has said of Haggard ‘He’ll tell you he’s a country singer, but to me the essence of rock and roll is a cry for freedom and rebellion. And I don’t know who embodies it better. Every aspect of his life is a refusal to submit.’
And isn’t that what rock and roll is all about?
[FONT=Tahoma]"All I can do is be me ... whoever that is". Bob Dylan [/FONT]
