6:23 p.m. EDT April 6, 2016
Country music star Merle Haggard passed away at the age of 79.
![[Image: Merle_Haggard.jpg]](http://digitaljournal.com/img/5/3/0/4/9/8/i/1/4/7/o/Merle_Haggard.jpg)
In his 1968 song Mama Tried, Merle Haggard sang of turning 21 in prison. Haggard, who died Wednesday in California on his 79th birthday, had done just that, though not, as he sang in the song, “doing life without parole.â€
Haggard’s youth of petty crime, financial insecurity and freight-car hopping eventually informed songs that spoke plainly but not predictably of social outcasts, blue-collar concerns and persistent restlessness.
Aside, perhaps, from Hank Williams, no other figure in country music affected the way songs would be written and how they would be sung as much as Haggard did.
A 53-year recording career yielded 38 No. 1 country hits, a run exceeded only by Conway Twitty and George Strait.
Haggard was born in Oildale, Calif., in 1937, the son of a pair of Dust Bowl refugees from Oklahoma. He spent his early years living in a house that his father, James Haggard, had fashioned from an abandoned refrigerated train car.
The elder Haggard died when Merle was 9, throwing his world into chaos. Two years later, he hopped his first railroad car, starting a series of encounters with police that culminated in a stretch of hard time.
Having botched a burglary — he and a friend tried to break into a restaurant while it was still open — Haggard spent two and a half years at San Quentin State Prison before being paroled in 1960, at 23. In 1972, then-California governor Ronald Reagan granted him a full pardon.
Haggard had dabbled in music before prison. Inspired by a Johnny Cash concert at San Quentin, he pursued it in earnest upon his release, eventually landing a gig playing bass for California country star Wynn Stewart.
Haggard signed to Tally Records in 1962. His Sing A Sad Song entered the charts the final week of 1963. He moved to Capitol Records in 1965 and had his first chart-topper, The Fugitive, two years later.
Rather than move to Nashville, as many country singers did, Haggard preferred to stay in California, often recording at Capitol’s Hollywood studios. The records he made with his band, The Strangers, sported lean, twangy arrangements that aligned him with the “Bakersfield sound†popularized by singers like Stewart and Buck Owens.
Haggard’s most famous hit, Okie From Muskogee, came in the fall of 1969. It spent four weeks atop the country chart; the following year, both Nashville’s Country Music Association and the Los Angeles-based Academy of Country Music picked it as the genre’s top single.
Read his Full Story Here
Rest in peace.... You will be greatly missed by millions...
Country music star Merle Haggard passed away at the age of 79.
In his 1968 song Mama Tried, Merle Haggard sang of turning 21 in prison. Haggard, who died Wednesday in California on his 79th birthday, had done just that, though not, as he sang in the song, “doing life without parole.â€
Haggard’s youth of petty crime, financial insecurity and freight-car hopping eventually informed songs that spoke plainly but not predictably of social outcasts, blue-collar concerns and persistent restlessness.
Aside, perhaps, from Hank Williams, no other figure in country music affected the way songs would be written and how they would be sung as much as Haggard did.
A 53-year recording career yielded 38 No. 1 country hits, a run exceeded only by Conway Twitty and George Strait.
Haggard was born in Oildale, Calif., in 1937, the son of a pair of Dust Bowl refugees from Oklahoma. He spent his early years living in a house that his father, James Haggard, had fashioned from an abandoned refrigerated train car.
The elder Haggard died when Merle was 9, throwing his world into chaos. Two years later, he hopped his first railroad car, starting a series of encounters with police that culminated in a stretch of hard time.
Having botched a burglary — he and a friend tried to break into a restaurant while it was still open — Haggard spent two and a half years at San Quentin State Prison before being paroled in 1960, at 23. In 1972, then-California governor Ronald Reagan granted him a full pardon.
Haggard had dabbled in music before prison. Inspired by a Johnny Cash concert at San Quentin, he pursued it in earnest upon his release, eventually landing a gig playing bass for California country star Wynn Stewart.
Haggard signed to Tally Records in 1962. His Sing A Sad Song entered the charts the final week of 1963. He moved to Capitol Records in 1965 and had his first chart-topper, The Fugitive, two years later.
Rather than move to Nashville, as many country singers did, Haggard preferred to stay in California, often recording at Capitol’s Hollywood studios. The records he made with his band, The Strangers, sported lean, twangy arrangements that aligned him with the “Bakersfield sound†popularized by singers like Stewart and Buck Owens.
Haggard’s most famous hit, Okie From Muskogee, came in the fall of 1969. It spent four weeks atop the country chart; the following year, both Nashville’s Country Music Association and the Los Angeles-based Academy of Country Music picked it as the genre’s top single.
Read his Full Story Here
Rest in peace.... You will be greatly missed by millions...
Semper Fidelis
![[Image: SyAa0qj.png]](https://i.imgur.com/SyAa0qj.png)
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Nemo me impune lacessit
