MERLE HAGGARD
(1937 - 2016)
MUSIC ::: COUNTRY ::: GRAM
Few artists changed American music more profoundly than Merle Haggard. Emerging from California's Bakersfield Sound, Haggard combined the grit of working-class life with extraordinary songwriting, creating classics such as Sing Me Back Home, Mama Tried, Today I Started Loving You Again and Working Man Blues. While Nashville polished country music for the mainstream, Merle sang with the hard-earned wisdom of a man who had lived the stories he told. His songs of prison, love, labor, family and redemption transformed him into one of the greatest singer-songwriters of the twentieth century.
For Gram Parsons, Merle Haggard was the revelation. Arriving at Harvard immersed in the folk revival, Gram discovered Haggard through Hillbilly at Harvard, a late-night radio program that forever altered his musical direction. Merle became the doorway through which Parsons entered the deeper traditions of American country music, leading him to Buck Owens, the Louvin Brothers, George Jones, Lefty Frizzell and generations of artists whose music he had previously overlooked. Gram didn't abandon folk music—he realized that folk, country, gospel and rock were all chapters of the same American story.Parsons spent the rest of his life repaying that gift. He championed Haggard's songs, introduced fellow rock musicians to country music and inspired listeners to follow the same path he had taken. Writers, musicians and fans have repeated that journey ever since, discovering Merle through Gram just as Gram had once discovered country through Merle. That may be Haggard's greatest legacy: not simply the songs he wrote, but the doors he opened. Through Merle Haggard, Gram Parsons found Cosmic American Music. Through Gram Parsons, countless others found Merle Haggard.
