Frizzell’s smooth voice and rocking band were a precursor to Haggard’s own work. In 1951, Haggard attended a concert by country star Lefty Frizzell, an experience that left a lasting impression. As he often demonstrated in his popular imitations of other performers, Haggard knew every last idiosyncrasy of singers like Johnny Cash, Hank Snow and Marty Robbins. He developed a passion for country music early in life. If his first love was trains, music can’t have been far behind. The opening lines of his 1968 hit “Mama Tried” may not have been an exaggeration: “The first thing I remember knowin’ was a lonesome whistle blowin’ and a youngin’s dream of growing up to ride.” Growing up near the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroad line, Haggard fell in love with the sight and sound of tanker cars hauling oil up and down the tracks. His family had migrated from Oklahoma two years previously, joining the wave of “dustbowl refugees” who fled the drought conditions and economic ruin inflicted on the plains states during the Great Depression.Īs improbable as it may sound, Haggard was raised in a boxcar, actually a former refrigerated train car, which his father converted into a home, a fact that all but obligated Haggard to become a country music singer! He was born April 6, 1937, in Bakersfield, California, near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. Haggard’s early life was extraordinarily difficult. To his considerable discredit, the singer also lined up at times with reactionary American patriotism and social backwardness. He also sang with compassion for those locked away in America’s prisons, a fate he himself had suffered. To his credit, Haggard often used his voice, one of the best in country music, to address the concerns of working people. His career spanned more than half a century, during which time he landed no fewer than 38 number-one hits on the US country music charts. Country music legend Merle Haggard died April 6 at the age of 79.
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