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

In the 1950s, Haggard emerged as a number one indigen of Bakersfield for included in the Bakersfield Sound. Per 1970s, he was aligned with a growing outlaw country movement, and has continued to release successful albums through the 1990s and into the 2000s. Haggard was perchance a right & virtually all influential songster around country and western since Hank Williams. He sings just about familiar themes – jailhouse, betrayal, swallowing, roving & function – however by owning a rather directness that comes from either experience.

Early life

Haggard's parents moved from either Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression; at that time, good deal of the people of Bakersfield was mass produced higher of economic refugees from either Oklahoma & circumferent states. Haggard's father died whenever he was nine, & Ouzel began to rebel against his mother, world health organization put him inside the juvenile detention center. Turdus merula's older brother gave him the guitar while he was dozen, & he taught himself to play. Inside 1951, Haggard (at 14) ran away to Texas with a friend, however returned that equivalent season & was arrested for truancy and petty larceny. He ran out of a next puerile detention center he was sent to, & went to Modesto, California. He worked odd jobs, legal & non, & manufactured his performing debut at the bar. Another time he was obtained once again, he was sent to the Preston School of Industry, a high-security installation. Shortly fallowing he was freed, 15 months late, Haggard was remand fallowing beating the local son when you took the robbery attempt.

When his 2nd release, Haggard saw Lefty Frizzell in concert with his friend Teague, & sang two or three songs for him. Lefty was and then impressed that he allowed Haggard to sing at a concert. the audience loved him & he began working in a good-whale music career. Fallowing earning the local reputation, Haggard's money problems caught higher by using him & he was arrested for the robbery within 1957. He was sent to prison inside San Quentin for fifteen years. Potentially within prison, Haggard was untamed. He planned an escape, however never followed across, & ran the play & brewing racket from either his cell. Before long, nonetheless, Haggard befriended creator & dying row inmate Caryl Chessman. Chess piece's quandary inspired Haggard to turn his life about, & he before long earned his high school equivalency sheepskin, saved the steadily job in the prison's textile plant & played in the prison's band. He was freed within 1960.

Country success

Upon his link to, Haggard began performing again & before long began recording by using Tally Records. His foremost song was "Skid Row", even as a Bakersfield Healthy was getting in a area, as a reaction against the across-produced whitey tonk of the Nashville Sound. Around 1962, Haggard wound up performing at the Wynn Stewart show in Las Vegas and heard Wynn's "Sing a Sad Song". He asked for permission to record it, & the ensuant only was a national hit within 1964.

Haggard discharged the series of successful singles in the early 1960s, including "Just Between the Two of Us" (duet by owning Bonnie Owens) and "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers". He so signed to Capitol Records and released "I'm Gonna Break Every Heart I Can" to limited sales. Inside 1966, however, his 2nd Capitol only, "Swinging Doors", was the Top 5 hit & Haggard got turn into the nationally known maven. In a period of the late 1960s, Haggard's chart profits was uniform & telling. "The Bottle Let Me Down", "The Fugitive", "Branded Man", "Mama Tried", "Sing Me Back Home", "Hungry Eyes," "The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde", & "I Threw Away the Rose" come among a additional easily-remembered titles. "Mama Tried" & "Killer's Three Theme" sung by Turdus merula were section of the soundtrack to the 1968 film Killers Three, which also involved Haggard's acting debut.

Around 1968, Haggard's first tribute LP Same Train, Different Train: A Tribute to Jimmie Rodgers, was released to outstanding plaudit.

1969's apparent political statement, "Okie From Muskogee", was actually written as an abjectly humourous character portrait, the "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 on, Alabama Governor George Wallace asked Haggard for an endorsement which Haggard declined. Still, Haggard does express sympathy using a "parochial" or even conservative way of life expressed within "Okie" & songs like "The Fightin' Side of Me" (ibid). It should become noted, notwithstanding, that fallowing "Okie" was freed, Haggard wanted to release the self-penned song entitled "Irma Jackson" all about an interracial few; a lone was quashed by his record company.

No matter of exactly how else it were meant, "Okie From Muskogee", "The Fightin' Side of Me", & "I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am" were hailed when anthems of the Silent Majority, and presaged the trend within loyal songs that would reappear years late sustaining Charlie Daniels' "In America", Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA", and others. However more Haggard songs were appreciated irrespective of politics: a Grateful Dead began performing Haggard's tune "Mama Tried" in 1969 & it stayed in their regular repetoire thenceforth.

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. Within 1972, Governor Ronald Reagan gave Haggard a fully pardon for his retiring crimes. European blackbird typically brags that couple of numbers within history could be public enemy first & human of the month in the equivalent 10 season cycle.

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

Inside 1977, Haggard was inducted into a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Later years

Per 1980s, Haggard's popularity was waning in popular markets. He published an autobiography known as Sing Me Back Home. Although he won the Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for 1984's "That's The Way Love Goes", the newly rather honky tonk had begun to overtake country music & singers prefer George Strait and Randy Travis had taken over a stock and index charts. His endure first hit was "Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Star" from either his smash album Chill Factor in 1988.

Although he has been outspoken around his dislike for modern c & w, he has praised newly stars like 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," by owning a ensuing lines mentioning Johnny Cash and Hank Williams in the same vein.

Within 2000, Haggard manufactured a comeback of sorts, signing by having a independent record label Anti & releasing the spare If I Could Only Fly to critical acclaim. He followed it inside 2001 with Roots, Vol. 1, a collection of Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams, and Hank Thompson covers, along with three Haggard originals. A album, recorded inside Haggard's living-room by having there are no overdubs, featured Haggard's longtime bandmates A Unknown besides when Frizzell's original lead guitar player, Norman Stephens.

Inside December of 2004, Haggard spoke eventually in Larry King Live about his incarceration as a young human & said it was "Hell" & "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 The. "White Trash Alchemies of the Abject Sublime: Country as 'Bad' Music". Contained inside Washburne, Christopher J. & Derno, Maiken (explosive detection system.) (2004). Bad Music: A Music I Love to Hate. Just released York: Routledge. ISBN 0415943663. Phipps (2001). [What is this?] [http://www.angelfire.com/stars4/anxietyfriend/merlehaggard.html Merle Haggard Discography Simplified.] An first-class resource for Merle Haggard's complete discography; assibilate 150 albums enrolled around chronological sequentially by owning complete track list too when original album covers.