Merle Ronald Haggard ( April 6, 1937 in Bakersfield, California) is an American country music singer, guitarist, and songwriter. Also known as "The Hag."
Emerging from prison in the 1960s, Haggard was one of the early innovators of the Bakersfield Sound. With his hard biting electric guitar, he almost single-handedly introduced country to the electric sound. By the 1970s, he was aligned with the growing outlaw country movement, and has continued to release successful albums through the 1990s and into the 2000s. Haggard has been one of the best and most influential songwriters in country music since Hank Williams. His work in familiar country themes – jail, betrayal, drinking and wandering include a directness that reflects his own life experience. His deep, grumbling, voice and dazzling guitar work gives his country a blues-like quality in many cuts.
Haggard's parents moved from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression; at that time, much of the population of Bakersfield was made up of economic refugees from Oklahoma and surrounding states. Haggard's father died when Merle was 9, and Merle began to rebel against his mother. Authorities put him in a juvenile detention center . Haggard's older brother gave him a guitar when Merle was 12, and he taught himself to play. In 1951, Haggard ran away to Texas with a friend but returned that same year and was arrested for truancy and petty larceny. He ran away from the next juvenile detention center to which he was sent and went to Modesto, California. He worked odd jobs - legal and not - and made his performing debut at a bar. Once he was found again, he was sent to the Preston School of Industry, a high-security installation. Shortly after he was released, 15 months later, Haggard was sent back after beating a local boy during a robbery attempt.
