Happy birthday, Merle Haggard

It is the birthday of country music song writer and singer Merle Haggard (1937), whose autobiography, Sing Me Back Home (1981), chronicles his early run-ins with the law and his time in San Quentin prison for attempted robbery. While in prison, the troubles of two death row inmates prompted Haggard to turn his life around. He had 38 No. 1 hit songs, beginning with I'm a Lonesome Fugitive (1966). Perhaps the best known song he wrote and recorded was Okie From Muskogee (1969), which became political statement, and for which he was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 1997.