To support the family, Haggard's mother took a job as a bookkeeper. Nine year-old Haggard was deeply affected by the loss, and it remained a pivotal event to him for the rest of his life. In 1946 Haggard's father died of a brain hemorrhage. The property was eventually expanded by building a bathroom, a second bedroom, a kitchen, and a breakfast nook in the adjacent lot. He remodeled the boxcar, and soon after moved in, also purchasing the lot, where Merle Ronald Haggard was born on April 6, 1937. A woman who owned a boxcar placed in Oildale, a nearby town, asked Haggard's father about the possibility of converting it into a house. They settled with their two elder children, James 'Lowell' (1922–1996) and Lillian, in an apartment in Bakersfield, while James started working for the Santa Fe Railroad. The family moved to California from their home in Checotah, Oklahoma, during the Great Depression, after their barn burned in 1934. Haggard's parents were Flossie Mae ( née Harp 1902–1984) and James Francis Haggard (1899–1946). country chartsĬountry Music Legend Merle Haggard, interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air, 42:14, August 14, 1995. 3 "Okie from Muskogee" and "The Fightin' Side of Me".He died on April 6, 2016-his 79th birthday-at his ranch in Shasta County, California, having recently suffered from double pneumonia. He received many honors and awards for his music, including a Kennedy Center Honor (2010), a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2006), a BMI Icon Award (2006), and induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1977), Country Music Hall of Fame (1994) and Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame (1997). Haggard continued to release successful albums into the 2000s. Between the 1960s and the 1980s, he had 38 number-one hits on the US country charts, several of which also made the Billboard all-genre singles chart. He gained popularity with his songs about the working class that occasionally contained themes contrary to anti- Vietnam War sentiment of some popular music of the time. After being released from San Quentin State Prison in 1960, he managed to turn his life around and launch a successful country music career. His childhood was troubled after the death of his father, and he was incarcerated several times in his youth.
Haggard was born in Oildale, California, toward the end of the Great Depression. Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) was an American country singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler.