Even more arresting than the band was Haggard's phrasing, which contradicted almost every precedent. Clear-toned, sinuous and shockingly free of twang and vocal affectation, Haggard sang with a sensitivity that bordered on tenderness. He retained Frizzell's vocal artistry but dropped the imitative note-bending melisma, and in his breaking of the line there appeared the unmistakable sound of jazz.

Haggard has long referred to his music as "country jazz," and is the only country musician to have appeared on the cover of Down Beat, the definitive jazz publication. Over the years, he has developed a definition of the term that reflects his nostalgia for a moment in history that preceded genres, when figures like Emmett Miller, Milton Brown and Django Reinhardt seemed to draw out of the air a music that defied classification. "I realized that jazz meant that you could play anything," says Haggard. "It meant that you were a full-fledged musician, that you could play with Louis Armstrong or Johnny Cash."

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"We knew we hit a nerve," says steel guitar player Norm Hamlett, describing the first time Haggard performed "Okie From Muskogee" in public. "A bunch of GIs surrounded Merle and demanded that he sing it again." Haggard claims that he wrote the anthem of Middle American conservatism -- "We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee/We don't take our trips on LSD" go the famous opening lines -- as a spoof, and these days he performs it as good-natured camp. In 1970, however, the song made him into a superstar and the inadvertent spokesman for the pro-Vietnam War hard hats and President Richard Nixon's Silent Majority.

As a follow-up, Haggard wrote "Irma Jackson," a story of interracial love, but Capitol Records refused to release it. Instead, it pushed "The Fighting Side of Me," a flag-waving screed that remains one of the few dull moments in the Haggard songbook. His retreat from politics, however, was not long in coming, and Haggard next turned to an album of Bob Wills' music, "A Tribute to the Greatest Damn Fiddle Player in the World." For the project, Haggard augmented the Strangers with six members of the Texas Playboys and recorded a set that conveyed the excitement of Wills' music in a way that historical recordings never could. The record renewed interest in Western swing, and Haggard even toured with the expanded ensemble. Jerry Wexler, producer of seminal records by Ray Charles, Joe Turner and Aretha Franklin, recalls one of the band's West Coast engagements as one of the great concert experiences of his life.

By the early 1970s, Haggard's music had shed whatever imitative traces still lingered on the early records. Songs like "Here in Frisco," with its Asian melody, remained true to the spirit of country music while borrowing almost nothing from its musical language. "If We Make It Through December," the story of a man who has lost his job and is thinking about his family at Christmas, became perhaps the most effective distillation of Haggard's new style. Its emotions connected with listeners far beyond the confines of country music in the winter of 1973; "December" became the biggest hit of Haggard's career -- and the first to cross over to the pop charts.

Of the 17 songs Haggard charted from July 1971 to January 1976, only "The Emptiest Arms in the World" failed to reach No. 1 (It stalled at No. 3.) It was a remarkable tribute to Haggard's radical traditionalism at a time when the easy-listening sounds of MOR radio had begun to flood country stations, and Haggard frequently shared the charts with Olivia Newton-John, Crystal Gayle and John Denver.

In the meantime, Haggard's political views have proved to be far more ambiguous and complex than either his critics or his apologists might have imagined 30 years ago. For one, he proved beyond a doubt that his line about marijuana was disingenuous. ("Muskogee is the only place I don't smoke it," he once said.) He recently toured and performed "Okie" with good friend Kris Kristofferson, a liberal activist, and over the years it has become apparent that at the heart of his conservatism lies an idealization of the American past and a sincere, though occasionally paranoid, concern about the loss of privacy and individual freedom.

"Look at the past 25 years -- we went downhill, and if people don't realize it, they don't have their fucking eyes on," says Haggard. "In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available to an average citizen in America right now. I mean, there was nobody going to throw you down on the side of the road spread-eagled, and look up your butt for a fucking marijuana cigarette. God almighty, what have we done to each other?"

Though Haggard campaigned for Ronald Reagan, who pardoned him while serving as California's governor, he bristles at both candidates in the 2000 presidential election. "Let me say this," he remarks. "I'm friends with George Bush Sr. He calls to wish me happy birthday. But I've got lots of friends that call to wish me happy birthday who I wouldn't want to see become president."

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