Most holiday songs celebrate joy, family and festive cheer. In 1973, Merle Haggard took a very different approach.

Before there was the outlaw country movement, there was Merle Haggard, a California transplant via Oklahoma who spent his teen years in and out of juvenile detention centers for forging checks, ...

Rocker Sammy Hagar picked a Merle Haggard song to ponder life after the death of Charlie Kirk. The Red Rocker took to social media to sing a slightly adjusted version of the chorus of Haggard's "Are ...

Merle Haggard was an escape artist. The future country music legend broke out of juvenile hall and prison 17 times by his own count as a teenager and young man. But his greatest escape was getting out ...

Get to know Merle Haggard’s kids: Dana, Marty, Kelli, Noel, Jenessa and Ben Emy LaCroix is a contributing writer at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2022. She previously worked as the ...

Before he became a musician, Merle Haggard lived the kind of life that's often mythologized in song: Hopping freights and doing prison time. When he became a star, he acquired his own observation car.

Bakersfield and Muskogee, Okla. are not officially sister cities, but next week, they might as well be as there's going to be a lot of Bakersfield in Muskogee on Thursday. Exactly 55 years to the day ...

Merle Haggard was a man who wore many hats. Most notably a singer/songwriter, but also a husband, father, reformed criminal, and mentor to some of country music’s greatest stars. Being the class act ...

A statue of the late country music legend Merle Haggard will be unveiled on October 10 followed by a tribute concert to the "Okie from Muskogee" The Merle Haggard Statue Committee has been working on ...

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 ...

Nearly eight years after his death, the legacy of country superstar Merle Haggard, who did time in San Quentin Prison before going on to become the face of a music genre and be inducted into the ...