The Truth Behind Merle Haggard’s Time In Prison

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MERLE HAGGARD PIONEERED THE “BAKERSFIELD SOUND”

THE TRUTH BEHIND MERLE HAGGARD'S TIME IN PRISON

According to History, Merle Haggard’s mother referred to him as “incorrigible.” It was an apt description. In 1957, he pushed his luck a little too far with a robbery attempt. At the age of eighteen, Haggard soon found himself in California’s San Quentin Prison, a maximum security penal institution not far from San Francisco.

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By this time, Haggard had such a reputation for escape attempts that he wasn’t allowed out of his cell past 4 P.M, according to a 2013 interview with Dan Rather. He planned to escape from San Quentin, too, but he was talked out of it by fellow prisoners, particularly after his cellmate made a break, shot a police officer, and was returned to prison for execution. Haggard met another death row inmate during a stint in solitary confinement, and these two incidents put something like the fear of God in Haggard. He buckled down, stopped thinking of escape, and according to NPR, became a steady worker in the prison’s textile plant.


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