Tomorrow, country music legend and Texas icon Willie Nelson turns 90. At this stage, he’s outlived most of his friends and contemporaries including Waylon Jennings, Johnny Paycheck, Ray Price, Buck Owens, Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard (though Kris Kristofferson and David Allan Coe are still around).
That longevity is not exactly a surprise to Merle’s son, Marty Haggard, who’s known the Red Headed Stranger for decades, and reveals one truth about the nonagenarian’s constitution.
“Willie’s been a friend of my dad’s since 1963 or ’64. They were literally like brothers. And we spent a lot of time with Willie during the Pancho and Lefty era. But he made it to 90. He’s going to close the show!” Haggard says. Merle and Willie, of course, had a big hit with that Townes Van Zandt-penned title song and album.
“But Willie takes better care of himself than people realize. I’ve actually jogged with him a few times, so did my dad. When he was at the top of his game, he’d get out there and play golf or run three, four, five miles a day. He was in good shape, and I guess it’s paying off for him!”
Haggard the son will be in Tomball at Main Street Crossing on May 11 with a show that pays tribute to the music, life, and songs of Merle Haggard. He’ll be interspersing dad’s big hits and deep cuts with stories of him and their relationship, bringing along lead guitarist Dwayne Barrilleaux and bassist Nick Woodley.
“Main Street Crossing is probably my favorite place to play in America. I love that room!” he adds. “People really listen there and it’s quite intimate. I actually have a conversation back and forth with the people. It’s like a living room.”
The format for this show is not uncommon. After Hank Williams died, wife Audrey famously put their young son, Hank, Jr., onstage singing his daddy’s songs. And Matthew and Gunnar Nelson of the long blond hair and ‘90s rock fame currently play a tribute show to their father Ricky.
“I had my own career for a while and doing pretty well focusing on my own music with one or two of dad’s songs. But since I left Nashville, country music has passed me by with what they’re doing right now.” Haggard says. “You need a young man with a pretty butt, and if those are the requirements, I ain’t got ‘em!”
Marty Haggard began life in 1958 apart from his famous father—though not by the latter’s choice. At the time of Marty’s birth, Merle Haggard was serving a prison sentence in San Quentin after a long history of petty crimes and escape attempts.
It was also where Haggard saw a show by Johnny Cash—recorded and later released as a live record—where he decided his future, non-incarcerated path lay in music. Marty’s father and mother Leona Hobbs had a tempestuous relationship that ended in divorce in 1964 but produced Marty and three siblings.
Marty Haggard did some acting in his teens before transitioning to music with 1981 debut single “Charleston Cotton Mill.” After spending a couple of years in his father’s band playing guitar and singing, his solo career began in earnest with singles like “Trains Make Me Lonesome” and a nomination for Top New Male Vocalist from the Academy of Country Music.
But a serious car accident in which he had a head injury and suffered memory loss brought all that to a halt, and it took four years for him to recover. He finally released his first full length solo record, Borders & Boundaries, in 1996, followed by three more. His last efforts were two cover song volumes titled A Tribute to Merle Haggard, My Dad.
“I was there when he wrote and recorded everything, so I know the stories of those songs. So, it hit me. I loved my dad, he passed away, and I wanted to start doing tribute shows to keep his music alive,” Haggard says.
He also went into ministry and is a devout Christian. He sees no issue with loving the Lord and country music at the same time.
“I’m a Jesus Freak, but I’m not religious. I played primarily in churches to spread the Gospel for 10 or 15 years. But I still loved country music and my dad’s music,” Haggard says. “There are those who say ‘Well, you sing country music and that’s a sin.’ That’s just plain stupid! My dad wrote about his life. He had his ups and downs, and some of it wasn’t pretty. I’m not afraid that God’s gonna get mad at me for singing these songs. The Bible teaches that music is a gift from heaven, and it’s one of the great joys in this world.”
In essence, there are Two Fathers who guide Marty Haggard’s life and career at this point. And if he can help people “get away from the hardships of life” for a couple of hours playing country music, that’s the best thing he can do with his time and talent.
That talent comes through in that while Haggard’s voice can absolutely be reminiscent of his father’s at times, he’s not doing an impression. “I am not my dad. And when I started playing music, he told me ‘Son, always just be yourself. Don’t be someone you’re not.’ I’ve followed that advice the whole time. Even when I’m doing his songs. I can’t help but color it the way I would sing it, and I’ll change up some of the arrangements,” he says.
Even when those tunes include Haggard’s most familiar material like “Mama Tried,” “The Bottle Let Me Down,” “Sing Me Back Home,” “Silver Wings,” “Workin’ Man Blues,” “Fightin’ Side of Me,” “Branded Man,” “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive” and “Okie from Muskogee.”
In his lifetime, Merle Haggard produced two autobiographies: 1981’s Sing Me Back Home (with Peggy Russell) and 1999’s My House of Memories: For the Record (with Tom Carter). More recently, celebrity biographer Marc Eliot’s The Hag: The Life, Times, and Music of Merle Haggard came out last year.
Marty Haggard says he prefers Sing Me Back Home because his dad’s memory was “a lot closer” to the time he was writing about. Both good and bad.
“It was from his perspective. In some of those stories, I had a different perspective. It’s like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They all told stories of their encounters with Jesus, but they were all from different perspectives about the same events. If you get four people watching a car accident, you’ll get four different stories,” Haggard says.
“The ones he told related to my mom, it wasn’t malicious or a purposeful lie. But when him and my mom went into it and fought—which they did a lot—he wasn’t thinking with a clear head. And his versions were different from my mom’s, and hers were different from mine and my older sister’s.”
And Eliot’s book? He’s not so hot on it.
“Not a big fan. A lot of those people [interviewed] were on the extreme back row of the relationship or not even around,” he says. “They never called me one time. And I was there every minute. You would think they’d want to ask me questions, but they never asked me nothing.”
Finally, Haggard says he’s “amazed” that no one has made a biopic about his dad yet. For years, Robert Duvall had the rights to make a film, but never did. Though he did admittedly shadow Haggard on tour and according to Marty, based his Best Actor Oscar-winning performance as a hardscrabble country musician in 1983’s Tender Mercies on Haggard.
One biopic project was announced three years ago with actor Sam Rockwell attached. Haggard says don’t hold your breath for a premiere date. “He was dealing with my dad’s last wife, and she’s scattered, to put it in really kind terms. She’s a mess,” Haggard says. “I don’t see that movie ever getting made.” But he still holds out hope.
“I wish somebody would make an effort to do a really good movie about dad because it’s a great life, a great example,” he sums up. “And it’s not even about his music. A man that started out on the wrong foot like he did and end up where he did, what a testament to America!”
Marty Haggard performs at 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 11, at Main Street Crossing in Tomball, 111 W. Main. For information, call 281-290-0431 or visit MainStreetCrossing.com. $32-$58.
For more on Marty Haggard, visit MartyHaggard.com
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
