Haggard, Merle

Merle Haggard was born in April 1937 near Bakersfield, California, to a family of Oklahomans who had just made the westward trek. Haggard's early childhood home was a converted boxcar. When Merle was 9, his father died of a stroke. Many of Haggard's songs recall the troubles of those early years, including “Mamma's Hungry Eyes,” “California Cottonfields,” and “The Way It Was in ‘51.” Haggard quit school in the eighth grade...