Only Merle Haggard. Never one who was shy or too scared to speak his mind, Merle was good friends with Ray Benson, frontman of Western swing band Asleep at the Wheel, who recalled a great story about ...

Take a pinch of every song Merle Haggard has written, put it in a huge black pot, and simmer over an open fire until well blended. The result: the embryonic stage of the persona of Merle Haggard. The ...

Merle Haggard, the working man’s poet, an architect of the Bakersfield Sound and a fiercely independent artist who influenced country music like few others, died Wednesday in California, surrounded by ...

NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Haggard's biographer Marc Eliot about his book: The Hag. Haggard spent his early years going from family tragedy to odd jobs to broken marriages to petty crime to prison.

Twenty years ago, the country legend talked with Variety's chief music critic about what drove him to write the anti-Bush/anti-Iraq-war song, now being revived as the Republican VP candidate's walk-up ...

Enjoy a piece of music history while exploring everything the Kern County Museum has to offer at the annual Haggard Boxcar Music Festival May 11. The festival honors Merle Haggard’s childhood home and ...

LOS ANGELES - Country legend Merle Haggard, often called "the Poet of the Common Man," whose music reflected his hardscrabble roots and hard-living ways as well as a tenderness that made him a revered ...

Only 7% of LAist readers currently donate to fund our journalism. Help raise that number, so our nonprofit newsroom stays strong in the face of federal cuts. Donate now. HAGGARD: (Singing) Well, hey, ...