Merle Haggard had a legendary career, rising to become one of the biggest icons in country
music history.
But it was far from easy.
This is the tragic real-life story of Merle Haggard.
Merle Haggard was born on April 6, 1937 into poverty.
His family had moved to California during the Great Depression and set up home in a
refurbished old boxcar.
Things got even tougher, though, when Haggard's father James suddenly died in 1946 when Merle
was just nine years old.
Merle told Rolling Stone,
"Something went out of my world that I was never able to replace."
In his father's absence, Merle turned to music.
His parents had never appreciated music, and his mother frowned upon entertainers.
But Merle found himself sneaking into music halls to listen to the country stars of the
day, like The Maddox Brothers and Rose and Lefty Frizzell.
Merle also turned to something else: crime.
When he was 11, his fed-up mother turned him over to the authorities, calling him, quote,
"incorrigible."
By his teens he was a regular, frequently in an out of prison - and he often got out
by escaping.
Haggard once said he had escaped from jail some 17 times.
Finally, in 1957, he ended up in San Quentin for robbery charges.
While he was originally unsure how long he would be in prison, he ended up spending three
years there before leaving.
In his 2011 autobiography, My House of Memories, Haggard detailed one of the most transformative
experiences of his life.
A friend tried to entice him to make another jailbreak.
This time, Haggard stayed put.
The friend ended up killing a highway patrolman during the escape attempt and was sent to
death row, then executed.
Haggard, shaken, vowed to turn his life around
That wasn't the only transformative experience Haggard went through in prison.
While still serving his sentence, he was one of a number of inmates who attended a live
performance by country legend Johnny Cash inside the walls of San Quentin,
Haggard was inspired.
In My House of Memories, Haggard wrote that watching Johnny Cash made him a better man.
He detailed how men at the prison were enthralled by Cash's presence on New Year's Day and were
impressed with his performance, interacting enthusiastically with the musical icon.
What really stood out to Haggard was the fact that Cash made a genuine effort to connect
with the prisoners and was empathetic.
Haggard later said,
"I didn't care for his music before that — I thought it was corny.
But he had the crowd right in the palm of his hand."
Later in life, the two became close friends.
In fact, when Cash was dying, Haggard visited him in the hospital ICU wearing a doctor's
coat.
When Cash asked him why he was there, Haggard replied, quote, "I'm here because I love you."
After he left prison on parole in 1960, Merle Haggard decided to focus on the one thing
that he'd been ignoring for a long time: music.
When he wasn't working for his brother, Lowell, he'd devote his Saturdays to music.
Haggard wrote in his autobiography that he was simply trying to figure out what he could
do in the music scene when something unexpected happened: A stranger, Jack Collier, showed
up at his house and asked him whether he'd like to be a part of a band, explaining that
their frontman had accepted a different job and that they were looking to fill the position.
Haggard immediately agreed.
The group performed together four times a week, helping him to start his career in the
music industry.
Haggard wrote,
"That little gig was the beginning.
And it went all the way from that to where I am today."
Haggard would spend the next few years honing his music skills and working several gigs
until he landed a spot with Capitol Records in the early 1960s.
Haggard's first major hit was "Sing a Sad Song," which hit number 19 on the Billboard
country charts in January, 1964.
It didn't exactly make him a household name, but the song did set Haggard on his way to
success.
Haggard was married five times, with varying degrees of success.
He and his first wife, Leona, had four children together during the course of their eight
year marriage.
But they also fought all the time, and those fights often turned into physical abuse on
both sides.
According to reports, Leona once beat Merle in public, while on another occasion, she
jumped out of a moving car to avoid being hit by Haggard.
Haggard said that a major issue in their marriage was the fact that while he was in San Quentin,
Leona became pregnant with another man's child.
He said the abuse reached a peak when, after his release, she began mocking him in front
of her new lover.
Haggard attacked her and began to strangle her.
He said,
"I remember thinking in my mind, 'Well, I know where I'll be going — I'll be going
to death row, San Quentin.'
But I was so upset with her...
[Then] I came back to reality."
They finally divorced in 1964, and Haggard went on to marry four more times.
He credits his second wife, singer Bonnie Owens, for helping him with some of the biggest
hits of his career; though they divorced in 1978 after 13 years of marriage, she still
continued to tour with him as his backup singer until her death in 2006.
He married his fifth and final wife, Theresa Ann Lane, in 1993, and they remained married
until Haggard's death in 2016, an event that hit her very hard.
She later said,
"I'm just now picking myself up out of the dirt, and barely.
I'm barely walking, cause I lost my everything.
He was my world."
Merle Haggard reflected on his life through his music, including the tough parts like
his time in prison and the experience of losing his father through songs like "Mama Tried,"
"Sing Me Back Home," and "Branded Man."
While he was initially reluctant to talk about his hard times, he opened up about his experiences
after being encouraged by Johnny Cash, revealing on The Johnny Cash Show that he did in fact
have a prison record.
Haggard had been worried that being an ex-con would destroy his career.
But instead, it actually boosted his career because it showed viewers a unique side to
the singer while cementing the fact that he was a real person singing from real, tough
life experiences.
Haggard later revealed,
"Johnny Cash once told me, 'Hag, you're the guy people think I am.'"
Haggard became an outlaw country legend before outlaw country was even a thing.
And that had a lot to do with the fact that he bucked industry trends and record label
wishes by putting out some quite political and very controversial songs in the late 60's
and early 70's.
One of his biggest hits ever was "Okie from Muskogee," a song which repudiated the hippie
youth counter culture.
It was embraced by the so-called "silent majority" of conservative middle Americans who supported
Nixon and the Vietnam War.
Haggard followed up the success of "Okie from Muskogee" with an even more overtly political
song, "The Fightin Side of Me," which essentially accused anti-war protestors of being anti-American
as well.
The anthems were wildly popular with conservatives, and equally unpopular with liberals.
But despite the strident messages of his songs, Haggard himself eventually grew ambivalent
about how the tunes were received.
He viewed "Okie from Muskogee" as less a song about his own feelings and more an expression
of what some of his countrymen were feeling.
For instance, despite "Okie from Muskogee" famously disparaging marijuana usage, Haggard
himself was a regular user.
"Okie from Muskogee is a hit for other reasons.
Which, a lot of them I'm not sure of."
Just as Johnny Cash spent a lot of time playing free gigs at prisons for the inmates, Merle
Haggard did too.
Remembering the massive impact Cash's San Quentin appearance made on his life, Haggard
returned to the prison where he once served time on multiple occasions, and also performed
at Fort Leavenworth, Huntsville, and several prisons for women.
He told Rolling Stone that when it comes to putting on a prison concert, you just had
to roll with what the audience wants and let them guide your performance.
"You kind of let them direct you.
They sometimes are adamant about an area of your career that you might not even be aware
of.
They want something that you might have forgot about.
They're in charge of their show and they know it and I let them know it.
They just kind of help me along."
Merle Haggard went through a rough patch in the 1980s, battling drug addiction.
He wrote candidly in his memoir My House of Memories about this dark period of his life,
in part because he wanted to be open and honest with his children about both his past and
the dangers of drug abuse.
"I said early in this book that I reluctantly confess these things about myself, knowing
my children will read them.
[...] I believe my kids know I wouldn't lie to them."
Haggard's past unexpectedly became a hot button topic again in 2015, when country singer Luke
Bryan referenced Haggard's drug use in an interview, saying
"I think that people who want Merle, Willie and Waylon just need to buy Merle, Willie
and Waylon.
I'm not an outlaw country singer.
I don't do cocaine and run around.
So I'm not going to sing outlaw country."
Many fans were upset and attacked Bryan on social media, prompting him to call Haggard's
son Ben to apologize for bringing Merle into it.
Despite the difficulties Haggard faced in the 80's with his addiction, though, he cited
a 1992 bankruptcy as the low point that really forced him to re-evaluate how he was conducting
his life and career.
What really stuck home?
He filed for bankruptcy on the same day that his fifth wife, Theresa, gave birth to their
son Binion.
At the end of his life, Merle Haggard dealt with several health issues that prevented
him from pursuing his passion for music.
Despite that, he played whenever he could and tried to stay active as a musician.
For instance, in early 2016, Haggard told Rolling Stone that he was optimistic and felt
grateful that he was still alive after suffering through a serious bout of pneumonia.
At 78, he was then getting ready for a tour just a few days after being discharged from
the hospital.
Before he was diagnosed, Haggard had experienced frequent coughing fits but didn't realize
that it was a sign of something more severe and persisted with his shows.
"I always felt better after I'd work because of the exercise that it gave to my lungs.
When I play, I feel better when I come off."
Haggard was finally forced to go to the hospital after he felt like he was suffocating before
a performance.
He said the experience was terrible.
Doctors described his pneumonia, which had affected both lungs, as, quote, "about the
size of a grapefruit on each side."
The singer managed to beat it, though, and was ready to get back to touring within weeks.
Merle Haggard wasn't a simple man, and he wasn't a simple icon either.
He once said,
"It never has been fun being Merle Haggard.
I've had lots of peaks and valleys."
From his history of theft incarceration, spousal abuse, and addiction, to his complex political
beliefs, Haggard lived a controversial — and very public — life.
"I'm deeply disturbed with our country.
And deeply in love with it."
But he never shied away from talking about his own faults, and he channeled those complexities
into seemingly simple songs that were deceptively deep - and revealed a great deal about the
universal human struggle.
Haggard passed away on April 6, 2016, his 79th birthday.
Fans and musicians around the world expressed their grief and paid their condolences.
Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Clint Eastwood were among those who paid public tribute,
while Beatles drummer Ringo Starr tweeted,
"God bless Merle Haggard peace and love to all his family.
Merle was a hero of mine peace and love."
Perhaps Haggard himself gave the best eulogy, saying in an old interview,
"There is a restlessness in my soul that I've never conquered, not with motion, marriages
or meaning...
[It's] still there to a degree.
And it will be till the day I die."