"That's what I'm for, that's what I do," Merle Haggard, "poet of the common man," said about the music that has catapulted him to stardom.
"The Hag" met with Today show correspondent Jenna Bush Hager to discuss why retirement is "not in the picture" as he continues to tour at age 75. The two also talked about the Johnny Cash concert in San Quentin prison that inspired Haggard to turn his life around, and the battle with lung cancer that nearly ended his career a few short years ago.
The country music legend has continued his prolific music career with his 2010 album, "I Am What I Am," and received a lifetime achievement award from the Kennedy Center in the same year for his work.
Check out the video above for more from Haggard.
"The Hag" met with Today show correspondent Jenna Bush Hager to discuss why retirement is "not in the picture" as he continues to tour at age 75. The two also talked about the Johnny Cash concert in San Quentin prison that inspired Haggard to turn his life around, and the battle with lung cancer that nearly ended his career a few short years ago.
The country music legend has continued his prolific music career with his 2010 album, "I Am What I Am," and received a lifetime achievement award from the Kennedy Center in the same year for his work.
Check out the video above for more from Haggard.
- 5/29/2012
- by Mary Turner
- Huffington Post
Photo byTravis Huggett. You don’t have to like country music to think Merle Haggard is a badass. Sure, he wrote and recorded some of the most timeless classics in American music, from “Okie From Muskogee” to “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink." But just as relevant to his legend, he’s rubbed elbows with train hobos, gone through wives like tic tacs, and served time in more prisons than even the most committed career criminals, including a stay in the infamous San Quentin (where he first saw Johnny Cash perform in 1958). Over a decade later, he was given a full pardon for his legal indiscretions by then California Governor Ronald Reagan. And more recently, he was inducted by Governor Schwarzenegger into California’s 2010 Hall of Fame, in a roll call that included non-perps like Barbra Streisand and James Cameron. Now 73 years old, Haggard continues to live...
- 7/30/2010
- Vanity Fair
Though the economy was still in dire straits, Broadway carried on during the 2009-10 season, with visits from such high-voltage marquee names as Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig, Christopher Walken, Denzel Washington, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Liev Schreiber, and Scarlett Johansson. A little group called Green Day rocked Broadway's world with the stage adaptation of the band's hit album "American Idiot," Twyla Tharp paid tribute to Frank Sinatra in "Come Fly Away," and Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins formed a "Million Dollar Quartet." "Fela!," Bill T. Jones' combination dance party, concert, and musical biography, transferred to the Main Stem from its Off-Broadway run, as did Geoffrey Nauffts' tender and moving play "Next Fall." "Red" and "Time Stands Still" offered searing portraits of artists coping with crises, while Sarah Ruhl's "In the Next Room or the vibrator play" captured the repressive Victorian era. Broadway fare also...
- 5/27/2010
- backstage.com
Merle Haggard was and is the defining voice of the famous Bakersfield sound, and next to the late Johnny Cash, he is one of the USA's most treasured musician/singers to grace a stage. Haggard returns on April 20 with his new CD I Am What I Am, his first disc for Vanguard Records, and an inspired effort from a rejuvenated legend. The effort was co-produced by Merle with longtime cohort Lou Bradley, and the disc features 12 songs including the candid title track, with typically stellar playing from Merle's band the Strangers. Mr. Haggard turns inward on his new disc, and some of the songs are occasionally tinged with regret, but his new CD is no place...
- 2/25/2010
- by April MacIntyre
- Monsters and Critics
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