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MERLE HAGGARD
If the question were asked, “Who forged the genre that is known
today as ‘modern country music’?,� only a tiny group of country immortals
could step forward to share the spotlight. One, out of that select
handful, would be Merle Haggard. Merle wasn’t in the delivery room
on the morning country music was born; it simply seems like he was.Â
And you won’t hear anybody refer to him as the father of country
music. But many will swear he’s at least its godfather.
Haggard’s life path has never been easy, nor has much of it been
pretty, as aired in his 1981 book, Sing Me Back Home. His
childhood years were spent in Bakersfield, California, and the death
of his father, when Merle was just nine years old, became the catalyst
that led to a squandered youth. At the same time, his love for the
wandering songs of such as Jimmie Rodgers, lead to an errant passion
for the gleaming, endless railroad tracks and the siren song of slow
freights and hobo jungles. And, along the way, to numerous brushes
with the law.
Unfocused, unruly and unsettled, Merle learned early to walk the
mean streets. As a teenager he took on every unskilled job that
would have him, from oil field roustabout to hay-pitcher to short
order cook. And that was the bright side. He also saw the insides
of various penal institutions for crimes ranging from burglary to
auto theft and even to escape. Before he had reached the age of
21, and not long after he married his first wife, Leona, he was serving
time in the notorious San Quentin Penitentiary, thanks to a bungled
attempt at burglarizing a tavern. But the three year stretch within
those gray and desolate walls, including a stint in solitary confinement
(for making home brew), became the experience that finally changed
his perspective and the spark that turned his head around. He abruptly
assumed the role of a model prisoner and was paroled in 1960. (Over
a decade later, in 1972, California’s governor Ronald Reagan granted
him a full pardon.)
Singer, songwriter, remarkable musician, bandleader and historian,
Haggard may well be the most well-rounded country talent ever to
take the stage in front of a microphone or an audience. Over his
career, he has been the pulse of an ever-lonesome fugitive, in desperate
flight from the prison walls of mediocrity. His has been the voice
of the Okie with an attitude, fueled by a well-stoked fire of unflinching
convictions and bone-deep beliefs. In his music he has hung his
soul out on the line, baring himself in those songs clawed out of
the soil and bonded together with grit and spit. As a result, that
music is not only resounded in such typical entertainment channels
as radio, records and concert dates, but has also been integrated
into the university classroom setting where students examine the
sociological implications of his works.
His accomplishments would lead some to sum him up with a catchall
cliché like “legend,� but legends are about the past, about those
who are about to be swept off into some dusty corner record bin somewhere.Â
Haggard can’t be pinpointed in the past. And he won’t be found rockin’
and whittlin’ with a shoebox full of yesterday’s memories. His music
speaks to country audiences today, while his mind and talents flirt
with a new millennium.
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