Merle Haggard was in his early twenties, serving a possible 20 years in prison when San Quentin guards found him, drunk off his own beer, after hed fallen into a latrine. They handcuffed my ass and took me to where they gas people, he said. Its one of many heartbreaking stories in Merle Haggard: Learning to Live With Myself, a new PBS documentary about the country legend. The film features interviews with Keith Richards, Kris Kristofferson, John Fogerty, and Robert Duvall, and examines the hardships of Haggards Bakersfield, California upbringing. He lost his father at age nine, spent his teenage years escaping from youth institutions and later penned 38 Number One country classics.
Look back at Merle Haggards career in photos.
Its about how this guy is trying to accept himself and deal with everything that happened to him in his life when he was young, says director Gandulf Hennig, who also directed 2004s Gram Parsons: Fallen Angel (Learning to Live With Myself debuts tonight at 9 p.m. on PBS as part of the American Masters series). Hennig followed Haggard on the road over three years, and filled the doc with fascinating archival footage of Haggards earliest performances in the Sixties. Rolling Stone spoke with Haggard about the documentary, his upcoming album with Willie Nelson and why he wants to retire.
Rolling Stone profiled you extensively last year, and now youre the subject of a documentary about your life. What has it been like to discuss your past outside of your songs?
Well, I was pretty impressed with all Ive been through, actually. You know it may help somebody in some way. Its the source of my songs and it has to be talked about. Thats the way I approach it. Ive gotten more tender, easier with age. My emotions are brought about easier now than they used to be. Im not as tough as I used to be.
Youre a private person you didnt mind the cameras?
Im an old performer. Ive been around a lot of cameras. I figured thats their job. My job is something else. Im not shy to the camera. I dont pay no attention to them. Ive got a job to do. I see people get mad at camera people in the tabloids and all that. I dont get it. Its not the cameraman, its them. They dont understand.
In the film, you return to the Boxcar, where you lived when you lost your father when you were nine. Was it hard to drive back to go back there?
Yeah, its always hard to do that. Ive been back there several times and its in a state of deterioration. Not just the place where I live, but the whole town. The whole region needs to be bulldozed over, fixed up and sold. Its gone. What I experienced there, there is no resemblance. It was a neat, clean. Even though there was oil, the oil companies cared more about it. It was a community that I think everybody would have been proud to have lived in. Well, now it looks like were trying to copy Los Angeles. You know what Im talking about.
Also, in the south, you drive around and its Walmart, Cracker Barrel and Waffle House in every town.
Yeah. Its not really that theres a lack of pride in the backyard. The backyard is a disaster. Thats the way it is at the Boxcar. My mother would have puked. She wouldnt have allowed it. It was a Boxcar, but it was real clean. You didnt have to look to see that it was clean. Now, it is what it is. And its horrible. And its beside a whole bunch of other ones that are just like it. If you rose up above in a helicopter, as far as you could see itd be the same deal. Im glad its about time for me to retire or I cant whip nobodys ass. Im too old for that, man. It makes me want to jerk somebody up and say Why dont you clean this motherfucker up? Dont you have any pride? Why dont you brush your teeth?
Your albums still sound great and youre still performing to big crowds. Why do you want to retire?
Well, I dont. Ill go as long as I can go because there are so many things that could edge me off. I could have a stroke in a minute. Im at that age. I could have a massive heart attack and nobody would do an autopsy. But I feel pretty good, so Im going to do it as long as I can.
In recent years, youve recorded in-the-moment material about the state of the country like What Happened and America First. Do you read the news a lot?
News is really interesting to me. I stay pretty much up with it. I watch a lot of television. I try to separate the different approaches in giving the news. Its quite different on each channel. I dont know how much truth you can get out of it. I know, for example, that the oil spill is 10 miles from where they are showing it on television. Theyve got some special video effects theyre showing us, and the real disaster is 10 miles away and they cant even get close to it. Did you know that?
I didnt know that, but I know they are trying to keep the media away from the oil spill.
On Coast-to-Coast AM they said that the benzene in the air from that spill is like 1,200 times what theyre admitting it to be. Its absolutely terminal for the people that breathe it. Theyll die with cancer. If that be so, we are really setting back and taking a whole lot of horseshit from BP.
Do you think Obama has done all he can?
Lets move on to another subject.
Keith Richards is a big character in the documentary. Are you a Stones fan?
Oh yeah. Im a rock & roller. Im a country guy because of my raisin, but Im a Chuck Berry man. I love Fats Domino just as much as I like Hank Williams and Lefty Frizell.
I read you and Willie might be working on an album together.
It hasnt gotten very far, but Willie called me about six months ago and said hed like to do an album and I said I would too. So were trying to get our trains to cross somewhere and get that material. We both agree that we need to do an album, but it needs to be first class with new material. Not something with old songs in it.
You guys will put out an album of all new songs?
I think it needs to be. Otherwise its just another album. We need to have something in the category of Pancho and Lefty. It needs to be that good.
Do you plan to reprise 2007s Last of the Breed tour with Willie and Ray Price?
I sure hope so. The thing thats bad about it is the kind of buildings we play dont produce enough money for the three of us. Either two of us could go in and make a little money. The three of us just kind of screws the deal.
Did you have a favorite part of the documentary?
Well, you know, there were some things that Gandulf left on the editing floor that I had seen periodically over the time he was filming the documentary. A couple of things that I guess for time reasons didnt make it. I was kind of disappointed those particular things were not there.
Like what?
Certain people he interviewed. I know there was more time with Duvall and there was more time with my manager, Fuzzy. If I have a chance Im gonna talk to him about it. I think Gandulf did real good. Hes really a sincere fellow. I got to give him an A-.
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