Merle Haggard

USA, 1962–2016

American singer-songwriter (1937-2016). He heard Johnny Cash play San Quentin while serving time there, and came out to write the hard, unsentimental country of 'Mama Tried' and 'Sing Me Back Home' - the Bakersfield answer to Nashville's polish.

MusicRoots documents 3 artists who influenced Merle Haggard and 1 artist Merle Haggard influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Merle Haggard?

• Lefty Frizzell — Haggard spent years learning to sing the way Frizzell slurred across a vowel, and has always been emphatic about it.
• Jimmie Rodgers — Rodgers is one of the three Haggard named as his own line, and he devoted a whole album, Same Train, a Different Time, to him.
• Bob Wills — Western swing is the other half of the Bakersfield sound Haggard made, and he recorded a tribute album with Wills's own Texas Playboys.

Which artists did Merle Haggard influence?

• Gram Parsons — Parsons found country at Harvard by hearing Merle Haggard, and the conversational delivery he built from there is Haggard's.