Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Born in 1937, Merle Haggard—nicknamed "The Hag"—was a man made for country music. Growing up in California during the Great ...

At 73, two years removed from lung surgery, and two months from a related chest infection, Merle Haggard should be at home recuperating on his idyllic 189-acre ranch near California’s ...

On the morning of April 6, 2016, Haggard died of complications from pneumonia at his California home. He had just turned 79 ...

Merle Haggard is a country music icon. He wrote, recorded, and released some of the most memorable songs in the genre’s history. Songs like “Mama Tried,” “If We Make It Through December,” “Sliver ...

Hailed as "the Poet of the Common Man," there's no question that the late Merle Haggard's reputation as one of the most important singer-songwriters in country music was well-deserved. Now, nearly ten ...

BIANCULLI: Today, we're going to listen to our 1995 interview with country music star Merle Haggard. Jon Caramanica, in The New York Times, once described him as, quote, "the country music titan who ...

The title of Ethan Hawke’s new documentary about Merle Haggard is “Highway 99 a double album” — so for those too young to remember life before streaming playlists, it’s worth noting a double album is ...

The late great Merle Haggard and George Strait are both country music icons in their own right. Today, many consider Strait to be the King of County. And it sure makes sense why. He’s still producing ...

Born in 1937, Merle Haggard—nicknamed "The Hag"—was a man made for country music. Growing up in California during the Great Depression had Haggard, who passed in 2016 at the age of 79, living in a ...

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. This week marks the 40th anniversary of Farm Aid, the country music concert founded by Willie Nelson as a fundraiser to benefit farmers. Held in Champaign, ...