All those things went away when Ronald Reagan was kind enough to look at my case and give me a pardon.”. Sitting at round tables decorated with red-and-blue tablecloths and pots of red geraniums, guests were served boneless New York strip loin, chili, pitchers of beer, tossed green salad, ice cream bars on sticks and Danish cookies from the nearby Danish community of Solvang. '', For an encore, Mr. Haggard sang ''Rainbow Stew,'' which contains the line, ''When a President goes through a White House door and does what he says he'll do, we'll all be drinkin' that free bubble up and eatin' that rainbow stew.'' TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. We’re about the same age, pushing 80. The country-western singer Merle Haggard, who spent nearly three years in San Quentin Prison for attempted burglary and who was later pardoned by … Commenting through his deputy press secretary, Larry Speakes, the President said that although ''Merle Haggard's music is now the heart and soul of America,'' the pardon was ''routine'' and had simply ''come up through the system.''. While behind bars, Merle earned his high school equivalency diploma and decided that it was time to turn his life around for good thanks to his encounters with other inmates. Learn the story about his life-changing pardon here. President Ronald Reagan 'pardoned' Haggard in 1972. Merle often spoke about his respect for Reagan and how grateful he was for his pardon. All their predictable patterns are gone. She added, ''So get your boots ready to stomp and your heart ready to romp and enjoy the music.''. He was in the Ventura County jail for auto theft in 1957 when his first child was born, and he was in San Quentin for attempting to break into a tavern while drunk in 1958 when his second child was born. False, Governor Ronald Reagan pardoned Haggard “Might start off with a story about Bob Eubanks,” said Merle, “the host of The Newlyweds. By then, both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association had named Mr. Haggard their entertainer of the year, and ''Okie From Muskogee'' had won nearly every possible country-music award. If that’s what a facelift looks like, I don’t want no part of it.”, “Wrote a tune not long called 'I Am What I Am,’” he said, “that sums me up pretty damn good. Born of nature, return to nature. Learn the story about his life-changing pardon here.

The music today was accompanied by a barbecue for California friends and supporters of the President.

As we talked for hours, afternoon turned to evening. “It’s just wonderful not to have to walk up and say, ‘Pardon me, before I do this, I want to tell you that I’m an ex-convict.’ You have to do that with any sort of legal transaction, with leaving the country, with anything of that nature. Merle would later state that he was caught by surprise because he had no idea that the pardon was actually going to go through after a series of appeals. And most devilishly complicated of all, the Merle of four marriages.”, Merle Haggard Dead at 79: Artists React to Loss of the Outlaw Country Icon. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Merle Haggard died on April 6, 2016, the day of his 79th birthday. “Sure as I’m sitting here, we’re burning up this planet,” he said. Years after he received his pardon, the country star ended up getting a chance to meet Ronald and Nancy Reagan and played his music the famous couple. Before the concert, Mr. Gildred, a member of the executive board of the National Quarter Horse Cutting Association, arranged a demonstration of horses specially bred in cutting a single steer out of a herd of cattle.

''I hope the President will be as pleased with my performance today as I was with his pardon 10 years ago,'' Mr. Haggard said before the concert. He's seen here backstage in …

The future star was in his mid-30s when he was pardoned for an attempted robbery that resulted in a 15-year sentence. “They found that I was improperly convicted and had no representation because I was poor and things of that nature,” Haggard told CMT shortly after the president’s death in 2004. REAGAN ENTERTAINED BY SINGER HE ONCE PARDONED, Aljean Harmetz, Special To the New York Times. All Rights Reserved. At the first ''In Performance at the White House,'' last Nov. 22, Rudolf Serkin, the 78-year-old pianist, played a Schubert duet with Ida Levin, his 18-year-old violin protegee. A Varied Menu. Like me, they’re thirsty for the old ways.”.

During his youth and into early adulthood Merle Haggard had wracked up quite the rap sheet.

Almost 10 years ago, on March 21, 1972, Governor Reagan granted Merle Ronald Haggard, convict No. '', For a number of years, the 44-year-old Mr. Haggard's own freedom was limited by a series of homes for delinquent boys, county jails and, eventually, San Quentin. The recital was taped by the Public Broadcasting Service for television on April 25. “He could have just snubbed his nose and went on to lunch.”. Invited to perform at Pat Nixon's birthday party in 1973, Mr. Haggard reported in his autobiography that the President and Mrs. Nixon sat as impassively as ''department store mannequins.'' “They found that I was improperly convicted and had no representation because I was poor and things of that nature,” Haggard shared with CMT shortly after Reagan’s death in 2004. The future country star was released on parole in 1960 and started performing music a local venues while also holding down a job digging ditches for his brother’s electrical contracting company. This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. As country fans well remember, Haggard passed away on April 6, 2016, leaving his music and remarkable stories behind for all of us to continue to enjoy.

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