If songs like “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive” painted Merle Haggard as a troubled, steel-nerved poet for the Everyman, then songs like “Okie from Muskogee” and “Fightin’ Side of Me” were songs that added an ...

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 ...

Merle Haggard is one of the most ubiquitous names in country music, thanks to classic cuts like “Okie from Muskogee” and “The Fightin’ Side of Me”. His professional trajectory was remarkable. He ...