Merle Haggard

Merle Haggard

ESCONDIDO–Country Music Hall of Famer, GRAMMY Award-winner and most recently a Kennedy Center Honoree, Merle Haggard will perform at The California Center for the Arts, Escondido as part of the 20th anniversary 2014/2015 season on December 10.

Haggard is a country music icon and living legend whose songs retain the grit, heart and honesty that first won him fans, and the standing as “the poet of the common man.” At his forthcoming San Diego appearance, he’ll be joined by opening act and Southern Rock duo, Jamestown Revival. Interviews and hi-res photos of Merle Haggard are available upon request.

At the age of 73 the veteran singer/songwriter, guitarist, producer, and bandleader is still making some of the most compelling music of his long and storied career. It almost goes without saying that Merle Haggard is widely regarded as country music’s greatest living recording artist. A rugged individualist who simultaneously embodies and transcends the genre, he’s a seminal superstar and an unrepentant outsider. Over the course of a remarkably prolific five-decade career, Haggard’s consistently shown himself to be an uncompromising creative force, far more concerned with pursuing his iconoclastic vision than with meeting the expectations of the music-industry establishment.

Over the decades, Haggard has scored no less than 39 #1 country hits; won various GRAMMY, CMA and ACM awards; become the only California-born artist in the Country Music Hall of Fame; been the only country performer ever featured on the cover of the jazz bible Downbeat; as well as the only man to be invited to perform at the White House and whose served time in San Quentin Penitentiary. His turbulent and ultimately triumphant life has been full of surprises. The son of parents who’d fled the ravages of the Oklahoma dust bowl, he was born in a converted boxcar in Oildale, California on April 6. 1937. At of the age of 12 he was playing guitar and worshipped the likes of Bob Wills, Lefty Frizzell, and Hank Williams. When Haggard was a mere 22 years old, he spent a stretch of time in San Quentin, and it was his prison experience that led him to take stock of his life and pursue a music career.

Upon his 1962 debut release, he became a fixture on Bakersfield, California’s thriving country music scene, working manual labor jobs by day and playing local clubs by night. A string of singles for the local Tally label led to a deal with Capitol Records, and in 1965 Haggard launched an incredible run of classic hits including “Swinging Doors,” “The Bottle Let Me Down,” “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive,” “Branded Man,” “Sing Me Back Home,” “Today I Started Loving You Again,” “Mama Tried,” “Hungry Eyes,” “Silver Wings,” “Workin’ Man Blues,” “The Fightin’ Side of Me,” “If We Make It Through December” and the much-misunderstood, “Okie From Muskogee.”

Those classics found Haggard honoring country-music traditions while drawing upon a broad range of jazz, blues, and folk influences, while his vivid, emotionally nuanced lyrics poignantly chronicled the dreams and heartbreaks of common people, as well as his own challenging life experiences.

At the Center, Haggard will be joined by openers Jamestown Revival. Texas natives Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance merge the music of the South with classic American and Western rock to produce songs that are deeply rooted in harmony. Inspired by the likes of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Willie Nelson, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, the duo’s soulful sound continues to evolve and redefine itself as the young band stays true to their Southern roots. The band’s debut full-length album, UTAH, which they recorded live to tape in the Wasatch Mountains, was recently re-released to feature three brand new arrangements of their signature tracks.

Be sure to catch this once-in-a-lifetime performance from country legend Merle Haggard at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.

The Center is located at 340 N. Escondido Blvd. in Escondido. Tickets can be purchased online at artcenter.org, or call (800) 988-4253.