DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
That is FRESH AIR. I am David Bianculli. This week marks the fortieth anniversary of Farm Support, the nation music live performance based by Willie Nelson as a fundraiser to profit farmers. Held in Champaign, Illinois, this primary gathering featured not solely Willie Nelson, however such different supportive performers as Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Petty, B.B. King, Loretta Lynn and Roy Orbison. Farmers nonetheless want assist, and Farm Support has been staged yearly ever since. Stealing the present at that very first Farm Support live performance in April 1985 was Merle Haggard, singing his then-new track “Pure Excessive.”
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MERLE HAGGARD: (Singing) You stayed with me by way of thick and skinny. You watched me lose; you watched me win. You picked me up off of the bottom. You by no means one time let me down. And you set me on a pure excessive. And I can fly. I can fly. I used to be drowning in a sea…
BIANCULLI: Immediately, we’ll hearken to our 1995 interview with nation music star Merle Haggard. Jon Caramanica, in The New York Occasions, as soon as described him as, quote, “the nation music titan who most resists straightforward categorization. He was a wildly versatile singer, songwriter and performer with an affinity for quite a lot of kinds – outlaw nation, ballads, the Bakersfield sound, Western swing, jazz and extra,” unquote. Haggard was inducted into the nation Corridor of Fame in 1994 and was awarded the Kennedy Middle Honor in 2010. He died in 2016 on his 79th birthday. When Haggard was younger, he hardly appeared destined for achievement. He hung out out and in of reform faculty and jail earlier than he discovered his means again to music. Haggard’s best-known songs embody “Mama Tried,” “Okie From Muskogee,” “Immediately I Began Loving You Once more” and “The Bottle Let Me Down.”
Merle Haggard had a lifelong fascination with trains. After he turned a star, he acquired his personal railway commentary automotive. And that railway automotive, on which you’ll be able to e-book passage, is now a part of the Virginia Scenic Railway. When Terry spoke with Merle Haggard in 1995, he had reissued an album he recorded in 1969 that includes the songs of Jimmie Rodgers. They started with Haggard’s recording of the Jimmie Rodgers basic “Ready For A Prepare.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WAITING FOR A TRAIN”)
HAGGARD: (Singing) Throughout the water tank, ready for a practice – a thousand miles away from residence, sleeping within the rain. I walked as much as a brakeman to provide him a line of speak. He says, in the event you’ve acquired cash, I will see that you do not stroll. I have not acquired a nickel, not a penny can I present. Get off, get off, you railroad bum. And he slammed that boxcar door.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
TERRY GROSS: Did you hop freights once you have been younger?
HAGGARD: Yeah, certain did.
GROSS: We’d you go?
HAGGARD: Properly, I lived in an oil neighborhood known as Oildale, and there was a day by day practice that went into the oil fields. And it was a steam practice again in these days. And I really grew up each night, you understand, sort of trying ahead to seeing that outdated practice pull out of there with about 40 or 50 oil tankers again throughout the warfare, you understand? And so I used to be – it was lower than a stone’s – effectively, possibly 150 ft from my again door to the place the railroad observe ran, and I really grew up proper subsequent to it. My dad labored for the Santa Fe Railroad. And he solely lived – I used to be 9 when he handed away. However railroads have been, you understand, very influential in my life. And there was sufficient of it within the songs that I admired to get me on the freight myself. I assumed, effectively, that is one thing I acquired to do. If they are going to write songs about it, I acquired to go see why. So I did, and I rode freights wherever they took me. I rode them for a block, or I would trip them 200 miles. Or I believe the longest journey I ever took was from San Antonio to El Paso – I believe, was the longest one.
GROSS: Was it exhausting to learn to hop a freight?
HAGGARD: No, I realized that in all probability – I believe, in all probability the primary time I ever jumped on that outdated oil tanker was in all probability – I used to be about about 5 years outdated. My mom would have died if she had recognized I would been up there. We used to place pennies on the observe, you understand, and we might hop that outdated practice, trip a block or two and leap off. So it was one thing we realized to do younger, and we might watch the brakemen and the trainmen do it. , it wasn’t actually all that arduous.
GROSS: What is the worst or probably the most shocking expertise that you simply had on a freight practice?
HAGGARD: The worst? There was lots of dangerous experiences. I acquired on a freight in Oregon one time, and it was leaving out of Eugene, and it went up into the into the Cascades right into a snowstorm. And I used to be in – touring within the ice compartment. And it – me and two different hoboes was in there, and it acquired actually chilly in that metallic. And I bear in mind they stopped up within the mountains, after which climbed up out of that ice compartment, and I am shaking so dangerous that I dropped my suitcase off the highest of the freight, and I needed to get off for some time and collect up my garments.
GROSS: Gee, it sounds terrible. Did you might have frostbite?
HAGGARD: By some means or one other, someone watched out for me. I did not get something like that.
GROSS: Had been there ever touring musicians on the trains, and did you’re feeling you realized something a few musician’s life?
HAGGARD: I did not run into any gamers on the freight, simply individuals touring and, you understand, and also you – for various causes, I am certain. I do not know. Most of them in all probability for a similar causes. I believe they have been in all probability hoboes, you understand. And I bear in mind one time, I stole a can of beans out of a fridge automotive and threw it up in into this flat – into this field automotive the place all the remainder of the hoboes have been driving, and boy, they acquired actually upset. They mentioned, oh, we’ll get 50 years into penitentiary, you understand? You should be actually inexperienced, man, you understand, and there was no person would share that field of inexperienced beans besides one outdated man. And he was about 80 years outdated. And he threw a spoon and a can opener throughout the boxcar to me. He mentioned, I will aid you eat them, son (laughter).
Merle Haggard talking to Terry Gross in 1995. Extra after a break. That is FRESH AIR.
That is FRESH AIR. Let’s get again to Terry’s 1995 interview with nation star Merle Haggard. We’ll dive again in with a style of considered one of his largest hits, “Mama Tried.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MAMA TRIED”)
HAGGARD: (Singing) The very first thing I bear in mind realizing was a lonesome whistle blowing and a younger’un’s dream of rising as much as trip on a freight practice leaving city, not realizing the place I am certain. And nobody can change my thoughts, however Mama tried. One and solely insurgent youngster from a household meek and gentle. My mama appeared to know what lay in retailer. Regardless of of all my Sunday studying, in direction of the dangerous I stored on turning until Mama could not maintain me anymore. I turned 21 in jail doing life with out parole. Nobody might steer me proper, however Mama tried. Mama tried. Mama tried to boost me higher, however her pleading I denied. That leaves solely me accountable ‘trigger Mama tried.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: Merle Haggard, is that this track autobiographical?
HAGGARD: Properly, it actually could be very shut, no less than. There’s some issues we fudged on barely to make it rhyme, however majority of it – I would say 97% of it is fairly correct, I suppose.
GROSS: Your father died once you have been 9. Is that proper?
HAGGARD: 9, proper.
GROSS: So your mom needed to increase you alone after that.
HAGGARD: She – yeah. And I used to be, to say the least, in all probability probably the most incorrigible youngster you could possibly consider. I used to be simply – I used to be already on the best way to jail earlier than I spotted it, really. I used to be simply – I used to be actually a – sort of a screwup. However – and I actually do not know why. I believe it was largely simply out of boredom and lack of a father’s consideration, I believe.
GROSS: I believe you have been 14 when your mom put you in a juvenile residence.
HAGGARD: No, she did not put me in a juvenile residence. They – the authorities put me in there for truancy, for not going to highschool. And that – they gave me six months in, like, a highway camp state of affairs, and I ran off from there and stole a automotive. And so then the subsequent time I went again, it was for one thing severe. After which I spent the subsequent seven years working off from locations. I believe I escaped 17 instances from completely different establishments in California. And all it was was only a matter of the authorities working me off, and, you understand – and so they – and drumming up enterprise for themselves. I actually really feel sorry for the best way they do among the children, you understand? And I used to be a kind of children. I’ll snitch on them if I get an opportunity.
GROSS: (Laughter) How would you escape from reform faculty and youth establishments?
HAGGARD: Properly, there was completely different establishments and completely different strategies. There was – a few of them have been minimal safety. Some have been most safety, and a few of them have been child joints, and a few of them have been grownup jailhouses. And I simply did not keep nowhere. I used to be simply – I believe Willie Sutton was my idol, if you do not know – you understand him. On the time, I used to be in the midst of turning into an outlaw. And escaping from jail and escaping from locations that they’d me locked up in was a part of the factor that I wished to do.
GROSS: No – was there an outlaw mystique that you simply wished to have?
HAGGARD: I suppose. I do not know. I used to be – you understand, I admired individuals like Jesse James, you understand, together with lots of different children. However I suppose I took it too far, you understand?
GROSS: So what was your most ingenious escape?
HAGGARD: Most likely the one which was probably the most ingenious is – was one which I did not really go on. I used to be – San Quentin. I used to be all set to go together with the one utterly profitable escape out of San Quentin, I believe, in 21 years. However the folks that gave me the possibility to go have been the identical folks that talked me out of it as a result of they felt like that I used to be simply doing it for the game of it, after which it was a really severe factor to the opposite fellow that was going. They usually had a giant choose’s chambers form of desk that they have been constructing on the furnishings manufacturing facility in San Quentin.
And I had a pal who was constructing a spot for 2 guys to be transported out. That was earlier than they’d X-rays and issues of that nature. They usually simply – and I might’ve gone, and I did not go. And the man that I went with wound up being executed within the gasoline chamber. He went out and held courtroom on the street, killed a freeway patrolman. And so it was actually good that I did not go.
GROSS: Was that an actual sobering expertise for you?
HAGGARD: Yeah. I’ve had lots of these issues in my life. And, you understand, these are the form of issues {that a} man, unknowingly, like myself – I suppose I used to be gathering up meat for songs, you understand? I do not know what I used to be doing. I actually sort of was loopy as a child. After which hastily, you understand, whereas I used to be in San Quentin, I simply – I sooner or later understood that – I noticed the sunshine, and I simply did not need to do this no extra. And I spotted what a large number I would made out of my life, and I acquired out of there and stayed out of there – by no means did return. And went and apologized to all of the individuals I would wronged and tried to pay again the folks that I would taken cash from, borrowed cash from or no matter. I believe once I was 31 years outdated, I would paid all people again that I would ever taken something from, together with my mom.
GROSS: What did you say to your mom once you modified your life round?
HAGGARD: It was simply apparent. I imply, there was no – I do not assume there was ever any time that anyone in my household was frightened about me staying with this. It was simply the best way that – you understand, some individuals develop up within the Military, and, you understand, it is exhausting to be 18 years outdated. And, you understand, they ship 18-year-old boys to warfare as a result of they do not know what to do with them. And I used to be one which – I wound up going to jail quite than warfare. And as a substitute of rising up in the midst of a battlefield with bullets flying round me, I grew up on the isolation ward on demise row. And that is the place the track “Mama Tried” will get near being autobiographical.
GROSS: You have been on demise row?
HAGGARD: Yeah. I used to be – I acquired caught for making beer (laughter). I used to be making some beer up there, and I acquired an excessive amount of of my very own beer and acquired drunk within the yard and acquired arrested. It is exhausting to get arrested in San Quentin, however I did. They usually despatched me to what was generally known as the shelf. And the shelf is a part of the north block, which share – you share with the inmates on demise row. And it is sort of just like the – there’s not too many extra stops for you, really, you understand? And that was the, as you set it, sobering expertise for me. I wound up with nothing to put on besides a Bible and an outdated concrete slab and awakened from that drunk that I would been on that day. And I might hear some prisoners speaking within the space subsequent to me. In different phrases, there was a alleyway between the again of the cells, and I might hear individuals speaking over there, and I acknowledged the man as being Caryl Chessman, the man that they have been fixing to execute. And I do not know. It was simply one thing about the entire state of affairs that I knew that if I ever acquired out of there, if I used to be fortunate sufficient to get out – I made up my thoughts whereas I nonetheless had that hangover – that I used to be all completed.
GROSS: How have been you fortunate sufficient to get out?
HAGGARD: Properly, I went again down on the yard and went down and requested for the roughest job within the penitentiary, which was a textile mill. And went down and simply began constructing my popularity, you understand? Simply began working in reverse from what I would been doing and began making an attempt to construct up an extended line of fine issues to be happy with. And that is what I have been doing since then.
GROSS: Again within the days once you have been in jail, was music a giant a part of your life then? Had been you singing, enjoying, writing songs?
HAGGARD: Yeah. Yeah. I used to be already into doing that. I actually did not – I do not assume – consider that I sincerely had a future in it. I believe I used to be simply sort of like doing what I assumed was in all probability a waste of time or a passion, on the very most, and possibly some more money on the weekend form of factor. However that is – you understand, that is once I was in San Quentin. I nonetheless did not actually completely understand that I had to do that the remainder of my life and that it was going to be this profitable for me and I used to be going to, you understand, have all of the issues occur which have occurred. I had no concept that – you could possibly by no means have satisfied me of a minute quantity of the success I’ve had. I’d by no means have believed it.
GROSS: Did your musical means have something to do with individuals noticing you in jail and considering that you could possibly make it once you acquired out? I imply, did that aid you in any respect within the warfare in your eyes?
HAGGARD: Yeah. That was the fundamental purpose I believe that these buddies of mine talked me out of happening that escape. I imply, they felt that I had expertise, and so they felt that I used to be only a ornery child and will in all probability make one thing out of my life. And, you understand, consider it or not, within the penitentiary, just a few fairly good individuals – and really unlucky individuals. They usually like to let someone, so to talk, stand up on their shoulders. , they like to spice up someone over the wall, if they will. If they cannot make it themselves, they, I believe, sincerely like to see another person make it. I lastly made a profitable escape, you would possibly say.
BIANCULLI: Merle Haggard talking to Terry Gross in 1995. After a break, we’ll proceed their dialog. And Lloyd Schwartz opinions two collections of music by Paul Robeson. And Justin Chang opinions “The Shrouds,” the latest film by David Cronenberg. I am David Bianculli, and that is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “SING ME BACK HOME”)
MERLE HAGGARD AND THE STRANGERS: (Singing) The warden led a prisoner down the hallway to his doom. And I stood as much as say goodbye like all the remainder. And I heard him inform the warden simply earlier than he reached my cell, let my guitar-playing pal do my request. Let him sing me again residence with a track I used to listen to. Make my outdated reminiscences come alive. And take me away and switch again the years. Sing me again residence earlier than I die. I recall final Sunday morning a choir from off the road got here in to sing…
BIANCULLI: That is FRESH AIR. I am David Bianculli, professor of tv research at Rowan College. Let’s proceed with Terry’s 1995 interview with nation music singer, songwriter and guitarist Merle Haggard. He spent years out and in of jail as a younger man earlier than discovering his means again to music.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
GROSS: Inform us a narrative – how you bought your first guitar.
HAGGARD: My first guitar.
GROSS: Yeah, or the way you began to play guitar.
HAGGARD: Properly…
GROSS: Whose ever’s it was (laughter).
HAGGARD: I’ve an older brother named Lowell, and Lowell had a service station on the time. And there was a man who got here in and wished a few {dollars}’ value of gasoline and did not don’t have any cash, and he left a bit of Bronson, form of a Stella Sears & Roebuck-type guitar and – as collateral, and he by no means did come again after it. And that outdated guitar is sitting within the closet there for a few years. And at last, I believe my mom confirmed me a few chords. My brother did not know tips on how to play, and my dad had handed away. He was the musician within the household. So Mama confirmed me C chord that daddy had confirmed her, and she or he did not know tips on how to make C chord excellent. However I went – took it from that, and I beat round on that outdated Bronson. I believe it was a Bronson guitar.
GROSS: I think about once you first acquired the guitar, you have been enjoying songs that you simply heard on the radio. How did you begin writing songs your self?
HAGGARD: Properly, I – about the identical time that I found Jimmie Rodgers – I used to be about 12 years outdated – I found Hank Williams. And I bear in mind seeing on the yellow MGM data there was a – the artist’s title. After which there was one other title beneath that artist. It was a small – very small letters, and it mentioned composer. And I did not know what a composer was. My – I requested my mom. I mentioned, what does this imply? She mentioned, I do not know. And she or he known as the document retailer and so they informed her. That is the author. That is the man that writes the songs.
And it appeared to me that it was crucial to have your title in each locations there. I seen that Hank Williams had a bit of further clout as a result of he wrote his personal songs. Jimmie Rodgers, the identical factor, you understand? And so I felt it was simply as essential to turn into a songwriter because it was to attempt to study to play the guitar or – you understand, it was definitely a instrument that most individuals, I believe, within the enterprise want to be a singer-songwriter, in the event that they might be, as a result of it’s not directly your retirement. , you possibly can have an incredible profession. And in the event you do not write songs, or have a publishing firm or one thing to lean again on when it is throughout, it is a fairly exhausting drop again to actuality, you understand? And as soon as you have realized to reside and below the situations I’ve realized to reside on, you higher have your self a publishing firm, or I will have to return to being an outlaw.
GROSS: (Laughter) Once you began writing songs, did you understand that you could possibly write autobiographical songs from your personal life, or did you assume you needed to copy different individuals’s songs?
HAGGARD: Properly, I actually did not understand what methodology to take at first. I will need to have wrote possibly 1,500 songs that weren’t any good. Or no less than I – you understand, I by no means stored them. And at last, with lots of assist and lots of people who had written hit songs who I would turn into buddies with, reminiscent of Fuzzy Owen, who turned my private supervisor, it – was a songwriter. And he helped me – he taught me tips on how to write songs, and at last, I wrote one which was value maintaining. And I believe I’ve written about 300 keepers or so, possibly 400.
GROSS: Do you bear in mind the primary one that you simply felt, that is value maintaining?
HAGGARD: Yeah. It was form of a rock and roll track, a Elvis-type rock and roll factor. It known as “If You Need To Be My Lady.” And Glen Campbell opened his exhibits with it for years, and I nonetheless do the track. And I wrote it once I was about 14. However I did not hold very many. That was in all probability one out of that 1,500 that acquired stored.
GROSS: May you sing a few bars of it?
HAGGARD: (Singing) You want driving within the nation in my Cadillac. And you retain – I hold pushing – you retain pushing me again. One thing about, (vocalizing) all the cash that I earned, however you refused to provide me one thing equal in return. Do not have a look at me like possibly you do not perceive. If you wish to be my lady, you understand, you bought to let me be your man.
GROSS: Now, throughout all of the years that you simply have been out and in of prisons and reform colleges, did you ever assume I could make a dwelling with music?
HAGGARD: No. I – perfect I counted on more money, as I used to be saying – you understand, like – you understand, possibly a passion. , I figured I used to be going to need to have among the technique of employment, you understand, or help.
GROSS: So what made you assume, effectively, I could make a dwelling out of this?
HAGGARD: Properly, I – once I got here out of the penitentiary, I went to work for my brother digging ditches and wiring homes. We had – he had electrical firm – Hagg Electrical (ph) – and he was paying me $80 per week. This was 1960. And I used to be working eight hours a day there. And, I acquired me a bit of gig enjoying guitar 4 nights per week for 10 bucks an evening. And there was a bit of radio present that we needed to broadcast from this little nightclub known as Excessive Pockets (ph). And it simply all began from that.
Some folks that had – that was native stars round heard me on this radio program and got here down and provided me a greater job on the town. And it was in only a matter of weeks until I used to be a part of the principle click on in Bakersfield. And it was exhausting to get in that click on. There was lots of people like Buck Owens. And there was folks that have been actually good and proved how good they have been in a while with their success. And Bakersfield was some form of a – I do not know. It was like nation music artists discovered their technique to Bakersfield after which had their success out of there. I do not perceive why, really – possibly due to the migration that happened within the ’30s or no matter. There was lots of people that got here on the market from Oklahoma and Arkansas and Texas that had lots of soul. And this factor we name nation music sort of got here out of these honky-tonks, you understand, and among the identical space that lots of different issues got here out of.
GROSS: Was it exhausting so that you can regulate to success and stardom, having come from poverty and, you understand, having lived in jail on and off for therefore a few years? I believe it is exhausting for lots of people to regulate to that.
HAGGARD: Properly, you understand, lots of people could or could not perceive how exhausting it’s for an individual popping out of an establishment, you understand, whether or not it’s a jail or whether or not it’s some form of a psychological establishment, whether or not it’s the Military or no matter. There is a factor that occurs. Like, once you depart the penitentiary and you’ve got been there for 3 years, you might have buddies and you’ve got a lifestyle. And you’ve got a routine and an entire lifestyle that you simply simply surrender hastily. Someday, you are there and also you’re – subsequent day, you are not there. And you do not have anymore buddies from the surface ‘trigger issues went on once you left and you’ll’t discover anyone there. And the individuals you left behind in jail are your actually – are actually your solely buddies and there is a interval of adjustment that took me about 120 days. I do not know, about 4 months. A pair instances I actually wished to return and it is actually a bizarre sensation. It is the loneliest feeling on the planet in regards to the second night time out of the penitentiary.
BIANCULLI: Merle Haggard talking to Terry Gross in 1995. He died in 2016. Developing, classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz opinions two albums that includes Paul Robeson. That is FRESH AIR.
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