Merle haggard autobiography

Merle Haggard's My House of Memories: For the Record

May 29, 2018
I have enjoyed Haggard’s songs for years. And I’ve read a number of Johnny Cash bios recently, so thought I would learn a bit about Haggard. I guess those Johnny Cash biographies led me to imagine Haggard’s life in the same way – overcoming a difficult early life, overcoming weaknesses like pills and women, and learning and becoming successful. At the end of the Cash books I’ve read, he stands larger than life, noble, wise. Haggard also overcame, somehow, early difficulties, but in the end the picture that remains is him nude and plastered on a houseboat, as he often describes. Haggard isn’t out to make himself a saint. In that he is quite successful in this book.

The stories here jump around quite a bit. There are a number of stories about his troubled youth and incarceration – that’s more than half the book. There’s a lot on his personal life, including some sordid bits which he writes about with relish. Given he writes story songs, you’d expect he’d tell a good story, and he does. I was hoping to learn mor

Sing Me Back Home

May 9, 2023
I wanted to learn more about Merle's childhood and family life and see that he did indeed come from a stable and loving home. His father died when Merle was nine years old, so that likely had much to do with his search for adventure. His mother was working full time to provide for the family and he was left to his own devices much of the time.
This autobiography covers his life through 1981, his years in juvenile detention centers, San Quentin when Johnny Cash played for the inmates, his four marriages up to that point, and his rise to stardom.
Talent is the foundation, but he was in the right place at the right time to make it happen.

"... the absolute magic of the music. How many times have I been washed clean by that sound- taken away by the feeling brought on by an old flat-top guitar and a country song?"

"It's been song after song, strung together from the sum total of all I am, all the places I've been, and all the people I've known and loved."

"The music begins to fill all the cracks in my tired mind- touching and healing old wounds and new

MY HOUSE OF MEMORIES: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Regular price$16.99

In this riveting personal story, award-winning, bestselling country music recording artist Merle Haggard takes you on a tour through his house of memories, offering a fascinating look inside his turbulent yet successful life. Merle reveals the true stories about his birth and troubled upbringing in a converted railroad boxcar. He recalls the loss of his father when he was nine, after which his childhood disobedience transformed into full-blown delinquency that eventually landed him behind the cold walls of San Quentin. He gives tribute to his mother and relives the painful memory of her death. He shares the lessons he learned from a life shaped by violence, gambling, and drugs, never shying away from the fact that he continues to pay for decades of reckless living. And he talks about the music he loves—how, ultimately ,it has defined the man he is.

Paperback, 288 pages.

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