Diane’s Country Music Newsletter – 20 April 2016
Wednesday, April 20th, 2016NEWS
Merle Haggard (1937-2016)
Merle Haggard died at his Palo Cedro ranch in California on his 79th birthday, April 6. His youngest son, Ben Haggard, 23, posted on Facebook at 1:07 pm: “A week ago dad told us he was gonna pass on his birthday, and he wasn’t wrong. An hour ago he took his last breath surrounded by family and friends.” This newsletter has been keeping you posted on the Hag’s pneumonia and show cancelations, and we all hoped he would recover and perform those shows he expected to do in May. Born on April 6, 1937, in Oildale, California, to parents who migrated from Oklahoma during the Great Depression, Merle lived with his family in the abandoned boxcar his father converted into a home. He was nine when his dad died of a stroke. A youthful troublemaker, Merle was sent to San Quentin in 1957 on a burglary conviction, after he’d gained a reputation as an escape artist in his previous arrests. He was paroled in 1960, and Governor Ronald Reagan granted him a full pardon in 1972–because, by that time, he was a major star. He went into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1977 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1994. He wrote two autobiographies, Sing Me Back Home and Merle Haggard’s House of Memories, which I profiled in my 11/4/14 newsletter. (more…)