Merle Ronald Haggard was an American country music singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler.
Upon his release from San Quentin in 1960, Haggard started digging ditches for his brother’s electrical contracting company. Soon, he was performing again and later began recording with Tally Records. The Bakersfield sound was developing in the area as a reaction against the overproduced Nashville sound.
Who is Merle Haggard’s family?
Haggard’s parents were Flossie Ma and James Francis Haggard (1899–1946). The family moved to California from their home in Checotah, Oklahoma, during the Great Depression, after their barn burned in 1934.
They settled with their two elder children, James ‘Lowell’ (1922–1996) and Lillian, in an apartment in Bakersfield, while James started working for the Santa Fe Railroad. A woman who owned a boxcar placed in Oildale, a nearby town, asked Haggard’s father about the possibility of converting it into a house. He remodeled the boxcar, and soon after moved in, also purchasing the lot, where Merle Ronald Haggard was born on April 6, 1937.
Haggard was married five times, first to Leona Hobbs from 1956 to 1964. They had four children: Dana, Marty, Kelli, and Noel. Shortly after divorcing Hobbs, in 1965, he married singer Bonnie Owens, the former wife of Buck Owens. Haggard credited her with helping him make his big break as a country artist.
