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Nothing Personal
Hackman's prose, models pose, King of Pop now King of Poe?
Gene hacks out novel without a ghost; photos you don't want to see of the organ you're sick of hearing about; Cindy, Rebecca and Daisy on the trials and tribulations of being paid to stand. Plus: Michael Jackson IS Poe!
By Amy Reiter
[11/13/99]

People Feature
Party pooper
Tom Winkler ditched his dream job on "The Simpsons" to focus on feces full-time.
By Jason Turbow
[11/13/99]

People Feature
The evil that dogs doo
The more dogs I meet, the more dogs I hate.
By Steve Burgess
[11/13/99]

My Lunch With
Nick Tosches, the man in the leopard-skin loafers
The author of "Dino," "Hellfire" and the forthcoming "The Devil and Sonny Liston" talks about the Mysterious Pig Iron Man, Hollywood and snake wrangling in Florida.
By Rex Doane
[11/12/99]

People Feature
I want to be a millionaire!
In which our hero aces the telephone test, hears an actual voice recording of Regis, qualifies as a contestant and prepares to make his fortune.
By Steven Scott Smith
[11/12/99]

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Not that Haggard is concerned. He's been in this business for 35 years and has 41 No. 1 country songs on his résumé, including the classics "Mama Tried," "Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink" and the notorious "Okie From Muskogee." He specializes in writing deceptively upbeat songs of longing -- for a woman, for the bottle, for the past, for the road -- that are inspired by his rough-and-tumble life and the struggles of the rural working class. His singular mahogany voice and synthesis of elements of the work of artists from Bing Crosby to Lefty Frizell continue to thrill listeners and influence musicians of every persuasion. He's a living legend of country music; he don't need no stinkin' sound check.

Merle Haggard's My House of Memories : For the Record By Merle Haggard with Tom Carter Harpercollins, 288 pages Nonfiction Buy this book at B&N.com

Dressed in jeans, sweat shirt and pork-pie hat, Haggard sinks back into the bus's beige leather banquette as he talks about his many projects this fall: HarperCollins published his memoir "My House of Memories" last month; he has a new two-CD set, "For the Record: 43 Legendary Hits" out from BNA; and he's winding up a cross-country tour. At 62, Haggard shows no signs of slowing down. Of course, his bankruptcy in 1992, due to a combination of reckless living and careless money management, gives him little choice. "It's not really what I had in mind for this point in my life. But we seem to be getting hotter," he says over the goofy banter of the members of his entourage who are along for the ride. ("Maybe we should ask Clinton to play with us tonight. He could play the whore-Monica.")

Recording the CD, a collection of new versions of many of his greatest songs, was a humbling experience. "An analogy might be if Babe Ruth had lived as long as I have and then tried to repeat a great moment at the plate," he explains. "It's hard to recapture." It's a mixed bag, Haggard admits: "Some of the songs are better, some not as good, some just different." Tracks such as "Misery and Gin" seem richer coming from an older, wiser man; others, including "Sing a Sad Song," don't seem to suit the depths of his mature voice.

There are also duets with Willie Nelson and Brooks & Dunn, and, despite his vocal aversion to most contemporary singers, he teams up with Jewel for "That's the Way Love Goes." "I was on tour when she recorded at my studio, so I didn't even meet her until we performed together at the Country Music Awards" in September, Haggard recalls. "It was a pleasant surprise. She's a real nice girl. I think we'll be doing more together."

Suddenly, Haggard is craning his neck, scanning the lanes of stationary cars. "Is that Kris' limo up there?" he asks. (Kris Kristofferson is the opening act tonight.) "Let's go see if he wants to come back here."

"I already asked the driver," one of the gang pipes up. "He said he didn't want to."

"Not the driver, Kris!" exclaims Abe Manuel, an all-around musician and longtime member of Haggard's band, the Strangers.

"He didn't seem to speak English."

"Who, Kris? He writes in English," Manuel says of the songwriter, with mock bewilderment.

Haggard is much amused by the exchange. He rocks back slightly as his creased face stretches into a huge grin. Then he turns to me: "You see what it's like around here?" he deadpans, his eyes a heart-stopping cobalt blue. "The only way we can keep from going crazy is to try to totally confuse one another."

His wrinkles are not all of the "laugh line" sort, to be sure. A mix of "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Rebel Without a Cause," with some Elvis Presley-style brilliance and excess mixed in, Haggard's life has been a series of dramatic highs and lows. "My House of Memories" more or less picks up in the 1970s, where "Sing Me Back Home," his first memoir, left off. "I've had a monstrous 20 years since that first book, just career-wise," he marvels.

Haggard grew up in a converted boxcar outside Bakersfield, Calif. His parents were transplants from Oklahoma, like many who moved West during the Depression, but Merle was born in California. (He has lived there almost all of his life, shunning the Nashville scene.) After his father died when he was 9 years old, Haggard was constantly in trouble: running away, hopping trains, skipping school, joyriding and committing other minor crimes. The stories of his many escapes from the authorities might be the best parts of "My House of Memories." He finally landed in San Quentin for a botched restaurant robbery when he was 20.

Prison shocked him into living on the straight and narrow. "Going to prison has one of a few effects," he explains. "It can make you worse, or it can make you understand and appreciate freedom. I learned to appreciate freedom when I didn't have any."

When he was paroled in 1960, he became a regular on the stages of Bakersfield, where the local oil- and cotton-field workers were enthusiastic country-music listeners. "Sing a Sad Song" hit the charts in 1963, and he signed with Capitol soon after. He had five No. 1 country songs by the end of 1968, including "The Fugitive," "Sing Me Back Home" and "Branded Man." Then in 1969 came the controversial song that secured his stardom: "Okie From Muskogee," an anthem defending traditional values in the age of hippies and free love. "The song confused everybody," Haggard remembers. People assumed the song reflected his views, but "that was just the way the song went together. It wasn't necessarily me in that song."

"Okie" struck a powerful chord with many Americans. The first time Haggard played it was at an Army base. "People came up on the stage, grabbed the mike and said, 'We don't want to hear anything else until we hear that song again.' We thought an Army base wasn't a fair trial, so the next night we played it in a concert hall. People came over the orchestra pit and onto the stage. It was kind of scary -- Beatlemania was going on at the time and we didn't know how to handle that kind of response." "Okie" went double platinum in 120 days, and Haggard went on to record more hit songs than any other country performer except Conway Twitty.

Next page | Smooth success, four divorces and burning through $100 million