Marc Eliot - The Hag: The Life, Times, and Music of Merle Haggard

Copyright 2022 by Rebel Road, Inc.

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Jacket photograph Merle Haggard, circa 1990s/Everett Collection

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First trade paperback edition: January 2023

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2021947537

ISBNs: 978-0-306-92321-0 (hardcover); 978-0-306-92319-7 (ebook); 978-0-306-92320-3 (trade paperback)

E3-20221031-JV-PC-REV

Merle Haggard has always been as deep as deep gets. Totally himself. Herculean. Even too big for Mount Rushmore. No superficiality about him whatsoever hes probably our greatest living songwriter and hes one of my favorite writers. And you know, the truth is, neither of us are the kind of guys who do a lot of rice-throwing.

BOB DYLAN

My music came from a need to have something to sing, and something to say, through music, to let people know who I was.

MERLE HAGGARD

I would put Merle Haggards artistic genius up against anybody in history, in terms of pop culture and chronicling human experience, love and loss, the gamut of human emotion, and his ability to transcend all the tragedy of his personal life. When I first heard Emmylou Harriss recordings of Merle, it made me want to go to California and pursue my career there.

DWIGHT YOAKAM

The difference between country music in Nashville and country music in [Bakersfield] is that country music in Nashville came out of the church. Country music in California came out of the honky-tonks and bars and from the soil it was more about pleasing a bunch of drunks than it was singing for a choir.

MERLE HAGGARD

A lot of people would say Hank Williams Sr. [is the greatest country music artist of all time]. A lot of people would say Jimmie Rodgers. Or the Carter Family. Or Roy Acuff. But for me its Merle Haggard. He epitomized everything I wanted to try to be. He was a great singer, an amazing guitar player and a songwriter of the greatest order. He had sixty years of an impact; Hank Williams had four. Thats how many years each had to be great. Merles always been at the top of my list.

VINCE GILL

I dont think it was any intelligent thing that I developed in my life. I think its a gift. Somebody said to me, Merle, singers come and go, but writers live forever without writing you have nothing.

MERLE HAGGARD

Haggard, youre everything people think I am.

JOHNNY CASH

Theres the guy Id love to be and the guy I am. Im somewhere in between, in deep water, swimming to the other shore.

MERLE HAGGARD

Merle Haggard is the guy that hauls the timber of Jimmie Rodgerss ghost on the blue train to anywhere he wants to take it he was cantankerous, opinionated, he was Merle fuckin Haggard, and he knew it. At the same time, at the drop of a hat he could be loving, kind, in front of the right person with the right story his heart would melt like butter, he was one of the worst and best of businessmen, and he was a gifted genius.

MARTY STUART

I think what Ive always looked for in life is my fathers approval. I think that was the biggest thing I was robbed of, and it took me down many paths who knows, it may have inspired everything.

MERLE HAGGARD

You want to know what country music is? Take any Merle Haggard record, it doesnt matter. Put the needle on any track. That will be the beginning of your education. He is country music in its purest, rawest form.

EMMYLOU HARRIS

Ive shot myself in the foot plenty. I dont even have to look back at my career to see thatI can look down at my foot.

MERLE HAGGARD

When you said, Whos the great California songwriter? people would say, Brian Wilson, and he is, for a particular California. But Merle Haggard is the voice of another California.

DAVE ALVIN

I find a lot of hypocrisy and double standards in America, a lot of misleading goin on, havin to do with oil, marijuana, timber, cotton, and on and on. Im a red-white-and-blue American, theres no doubt about that, but I think weve lost a lot of our arrogance. We need to walk tall and be free, but they want to keep us under the porch. If we come out, they run that terror thing a little higher up the pole I think we have to take this country back.

MERLE HAGGARD

Now they sound tired but they dont sound Haggard

They got money but they dont have Cash

FROM THE LYRICS OF THE DIXIE CHICKS RECORDING OF DARRELL SCOTTS LONG TIME GONE

From San Quentin prison to the Hall of Fame, nobodys come so far.

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON

The appeal of Donald Trump is his wanting to make this country like it used to be, and I dont think it can be done. You cant build a goddamn wall along the Mexican border. And if you could, the Canadians would get jealous. Theyd want their wall I think hes dealing from a strange deck.

MERLE HAGGARD

The right wing usually does without artists, but theyve come up with one who is a genuine songwriter, as good as anyone around. His name is Merle Haggard.

PHIL OCHS

Who the hell is Phil Ochs?

MERLE HAGGARD