Merle Haggard: Violence, heartbreak and the day he tried to break out of prison with the ill-fated ‘Rabbit’
Merle Haggard is known for minting magic with his music, and as A&E pays tribute to the country music star with a special, named 'Merle Haggard: Salute to a Country Legend', it only brings us back to the colorful life he lived with head held high.
Merle was born during the Great Depression in 1937. His father died due to brain hemorrhage when he was eight years old and that incident scarred him for life. His mother worked as a bookkeeper and Merle started strumming songs on the guitar when he was 12. Some of his early influencers were Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell and Hank Williams.
With no one to supervise him, Haggard grew up to be a progressively rebellious child, committing casual thefts and shoplifting. He was even sent to a juvenile detention center, but he didn't mend his ways. At 14, he ran away to Texas with his friend and the same year, he was arrested for robbery. Later, in 1951, he was again charged for truancy and petty larceny for 15 months. Soon, as he was released, he beat up a local boy black-and-blue.
He first came close to his passion for music when Lefty Frizzell was impressed by his singing prowess in concert and pushed him to croon songs in front of an audience. He decided to pursue a career in music but to earn money, he worked in farmhands or oil fields, and also played in nightclubs.
At the age of 19, he got married to Leona Hobbs but was plagued by financial troubles. He was arrested again for a robbery and while in prison, found out that his wife was expecting another man's child. That further marred his mental stability and planned numerous attempts to flee with another inmate nicknamed "Rabbit". He started gambling and saw his friend escape the jail only to shoot a cop and be hurled back in. After the execution of "Rabbit," Haggard decided to chart a new path in life.
The country music icon bared his teenage criminality open in a GQ interview. He said, “You start off with a truancy problem, and they send you to jail with big-time criminals. Pretty soon your idols become Jesse James and Bonnie Parker and John Dillinger, rather than Babe Ruth and Muhammad Ali.”
In a heartfelt confession, he said, “I’ve always been angry,” adding, “I noticed early on that people looked right at you and didn’t see you. If you just walked the right speed, you could almost walk right through them.”
Narrating his difficult times, he said, “I watched one man kill another over a simple insult... sometimes when I lay in my bunk I could hear men crying out in pain from being raped by other inmates... I saw a black man burned to death on a ladder... The five-hundred-gallon vat of starch he was checking boiled over on him, burning his black skin completely white.”
While in prison, he earned a high school equivalency diploma and worked at the textile plant. He also performed along with the prison's country music band and called Johnny Cash his main inspiration. In 1960, he was finally released from San Quentin on parole and soon, he finally established his career in country music with stunning hits like 'Are The Good Times Really Over?', 'Always Late with Your Kisses', 'Hungry Eyes', 'Someday When Things Are Good' and 'The Bottle Let Me Down,' and went on to record a wondrous partnership with his ex-wife, Bonnie Owens.
In the same interview, he reminisced the 1969 song that became his biggest pop hit, 'Okie from Muskogee' and took his career to new heights. “It probably set it back
about 40 years,” he muttered, adding, “There are about 1,700 ways to take that song.” But he also regretted the song immediately as it pushed a part of his audience.
In 1972, then-California governor Ronald Reagan pardoned Merle for all his felonies. He lost his life on April 6, 2016 — his 79th birthday — from double pneumonia.
The description for Haggard's tribute reads, “Captures the most iconic moments from a one-night-only concert event honoring Merle Haggard and his music on what would have been his 80th birthday. Packed with captivating live performances, never-before-seen interviews and exclusive behind-the-scenes footage with some of music’s biggest superstars.”
'Merle Haggard: Salute to a Country Legend', A&E’s tribute documentary to the country music icon, airs on Monday, April 13, at 11 pm ET.