Merle Haggard's 'self-created turmoil' explored in new biography

Author Marc Eliot knew the subject of his latest released biography, "The Hag: The Life, Times, and Music of Merle Haggard," for 25 years before his death in 2016.

The writer's exposure to music, however, is deeper than the "Okie From Muskogee," though. He is a self-described baby boomer who was a friend of Phil Ochs and others in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s. He recalls listening to Haggard in his youth, a time when music "wasn't just background noise, but instead was a way of life."

"I've always been attracted to underdogs," he said. "So it's compelling to write about people who overcame living both the American dream and the American nightmare to succeed."

Eliot has written about Bruce Springsteen and The Eagles, as well as film stars like Clint Eastwood. But Haggard perhaps fits Eliot's description of the ideal subject.

It was Ochs who introduced Eliot to the 1968-released country anthem, which gave Haggard his nickname. "[Phil told me], 'listen, 'Okie From Muskogee' [represents] great songwriting, and I'm going to start playing the song in my shows.' Once he did, it created so much excitement."

While penning the over 400-page work, the author had nearly 100 conversations with artists about Haggard. His subjects included Country Music Hall of Famers Marty Stuart and Dwight Yoakam, several members of Merle's band "The Strangers," as well as Merle's best friend and legendary steel guitarist Fuzzy Owen, who discovered Merle and was the first to record him.

Via this rare level of access, Haggard's depth and influence is unearthed. For instance, Dwight Yoakam — a fellow Bakersfield sound devotee and friend of the legend, sheds light on Haggard's creative and personal motivations.

"The best part of Merle's story was his struggle to escape, not just from prisons, which he was good at, but from the emotional prison over which he had no control," Yoakam said. "The rest of his story is a somewhat trite show-biz saga — he wrote this, he sang that, he did this show, he won that award, and so on. The real drama took place offstage, apart from the physical world, where a battle for self-reconciliation was fought."

Such insight affords Eliot the ability to dig more profoundly into Haggard's roots to discern how the singer of 38 No. 1 country chart singles' life impacted his style and sound. Haggard grew up the son of a religious mother. His father was a musician who died of a stroke at the age of 39, when Haggard was nine. For Haggard, the death created a tension that inspired much of his career.

"Because he thought his father's death was his fault, it haunted him," Eliot says. "He acted out his frustrations by becoming a delinquent and ending up in [California's] San Quentin [State Prison] by the age of 19. Moreover, he took up the guitar because it connected him with his father. However, the anger, rage, and fear related to his father's death remained with him for the rest of his life."

"Merle wrote his life's story in his songs, and those songs, though specific to him, are also universal to everyone," continues Eliot about the genius that separated Haggard from other singer-songwriters of his and other generations.

Like Buck Owens, another California-to-Nashville transplant, Haggard took inspiration from those that preceded him -- but his sound was all his own. Together, Haggard and Owens succeeded as progenitors of a style later called the "Bakersfield sound."

Haggard, Eliot notes, believed Nashville's take on country music was inspired by the church. The Bakersfield sound, Haggard said, "came out of the bars."

Haggard's works like 1966's "The Bottle Let Me Down," and 1968's "Mama Tried" spoke to the relatability of blue-collar laborers wanting to blow off some steam.

"That atmosphere worked its way into the music," Eliot said. "The songs had upbeat and rhythmic pop-crossover styling with electric guitars, but lyrics that appeal to tough, drunk guys. It's not romance and love with girls; it's womanizing with women. It's not Coca-Cola [they're drinking]; it's hard whiskey. They're not driving around in Cadillacs; they're driving around in Volkswagen buses. It created a formula that artists still use today."

"Haggard reminds me of a poet like Robert Frost or John Donne," Eliot continued. "Take a song like [1974-released] 'If We Make It Through December.' They were all obsessed with balancing humanity against the frankness of doom-oriented or fatalistic imagery. The uneasiness of the meter of their poetry as writers mirrors turning the honesty of our everyday conversations into art."

Ultimately, Eliot regards the subject of his book at a higher standard as a man and a creative after writing his latest read. Plus, he's discovered the secret to Haggard's lasting legacy.

"Merle was singular. He did a thing that nobody had ever done before. Haggard made anti-romantic country music that was as pragmatic as it was autobiographical. In his writing, he was both timely and timeless. Every generation comes back to [Merle's] roots."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Merle Haggard's life, legacy, explored in "The Hag" biography