Rock-tober 05, 2016

Merle Haggard was born on 06 April 1937 into a very hard life during the Great Depression. In Grapes of Wrath fashion, his family left their home in Oklahoma and followed the sun west, settling in Bakersfield, California. His father found work with the railroad, but died when Merle was just 8. By his own account, Merle was incorrigible as a boy. His mother tried to rein him in, but he ran afoul of the law with a laundry list of petty crimes that landed him in and out of correctional centers. His song, "Mama Tried", is an autobiographical account of his mother's failed attempt to instill in him the conservative values of her faith.

In spite of his Outlaw persona and to his credit, he claimed full responsibility for the actions that landed him in jail. It turns out incarceration actually had a reformative effect on Merle. He earned his GED and started playing in the prison's Country Western band. Inspiration for the latter turned out to be none other than the Man in Black himself, Johnny Cash. Merle was an inmate in the audience during one of Cash's prison concerts, and the experience was a lifelong inspiration to him.

After his release, he steered clear of trouble, working a steady job and performing where and when he could. His unique sound grew his fame and eventually won him nearly 40 number 1 country hits, 19 ACA awards, 6 CMA awards, 4 Grammys, induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Kennedy Center Honors. Not bad at all for a former juvenile delinquent.

Still, his Outlaw mystique stuck, and he liked to play the contrarian card. During the Vietnam War, he fervently protested the war protesters. In interviews he shared how prison taught him what it was like to have your freedom taken away. The young boys going off to fight in a foreign land to defend freedom deserved nothing but respect and support. Decades later, when the Dixie Chicks encountered considerable backlash from fans and the Country Music community in their spat with the George W. Bush White House, he came to their defense.

Merle Haggard was one of the Four Kings of Outlaw Country that I listened to as a kid. Dad's collection of 8-tracks in the car were an assortment of cassettes from Waylon, Willie, Johnny, and Merle. My favorite Haggard album, co-released with Willie Nelson, Pancho and Lefty, dropped in 1983. The title track launched later that same year, and hit number 1 on the Billboard Country chart, jumped genres, and climbed to 21 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.

Continuing to ride the inspiration and influence of that Johnny Cash prison concert so long ago, Merle was still writing music when he was seriously ill early this year. His final recording session was on 09 February with "Kern River Blues" as the result. The song was released posthumously with 10 percent of all proceeds directed to homeless charities.

Merle Haggard died on his birthday, 06 April 2016. Thank you, sir, for your music and your principled stances. For a self affirmed Outlaw, you were a hell of a class act.