Merle Haggard coming to Napa's Uptown Theatre

Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash were reminiscing years ago when Cash mentioned playing at San Quentin prison.

“I said I was there,” Haggard said, “and he said, ‘I don't recall you being on the bill'.”

“I wasn't,” Haggard told Cash. “I was in the audience.”

It's been a long journey for one of country music's authentic superstars, a life that started in Bakersfield, where his family moved to seek work in the 1930s, as Oklahoma became a dust bowl.

His father died when Merle was 9. After a string of truancies and robberies in his youth, Haggard found himself alongside Death Row inmates in one of California's toughest prisons. He began to study the bible and vowed to turn his life around.

“They locked me up with just a bible and a blanket,” Haggard, 73, recalled in an interview last week. “That sounds like a song title, don't it, ‘A Bible and a Blanket.' ”

With his natural musical talent, Haggard abandoned his outlaw life and began writing songs. “I'm really interested in my craft,” he said.

Starting in 1966, he churned out a series of chart-topping hits including “Sing Me Back Home,” “Mama Tried” and “Okie from Muskogee.”

Haggard helped define what became known as the Bakersfield Sound, a spare, unadorned brand of country music that some saw as a reaction to the slick Nashville songs of that era.

But Haggard doesn't worry about categories. Asked to name some people who influenced him, Haggard cites Bing Crosby and Muhammad Ali.

He writes from the heart and tours with musicians who have been by his side for decades. Though he could sell out shows by playing just his old hits — he says he's had more than 100 songs in Billboard's country top 10 — he continues to write new material.

Asked to describe his new disc, released this spring and titled “I Am What I Am” Haggard said, “It is what it is.”

The album has everything his fans expect: soul-searching lyrics, Haggard's down-home and reassuring voice, and just enough instrumentation to carry the song.

“I'm just a seeker, and I'm just a sinner,” he sings in the title song. “And I am what I am.”

Haggard says he's comfortable with his life these days, and the songs are perhaps more revealing than those of his early years.

“I could be recording with the Philharmonic if I wanted to, but this is me, just an up-to-date report on my life.”

Haggard said he sometimes recorded tunes early in his career with an eye toward commercial success but now sings only songs that are meaningful to him.

“It's my feeling that if you intend to perform for people,” he said, “be careful what you record because you will have to sing it for the rest of your life.”

Though years of hard living, traveling and health issues have taken their toll — Haggard had surgery for lung cancer in 2008 — he continues to tour.

He played a gig less then two months after his cancer surgery and appears at Napa's recently renovated art deco palace, the Uptown Theatre, tomorrow night.

Asked why he continues to endure the rigors of touring, Haggard simply said, “Well, it's what I do. If I quit doing it, the next big event will be my funeral. I need to sing, I need to perform.”

Unlike most bands, Haggard and his crew don't use a set list. They know how they'll start and end a show; most of the rest is spontaneous.

Haggard has become an icon revered well beyond the realm of country music fans. The Grateful Dead covered “Mama Tried” and it became a staple of their live shows. Joan Baez and the Everly Brothers also performed his songs.

When Haggard opened for the Rolling Stones in Little Rock, the headliners came up to the stage to watch him perform.

“Mick Jagger and Keith Richards standin' out there watchin' me,” Haggard recalled with a chuckle. “That's about as good as it gets.”

What's left for Haggard?

“I got a yearnin' to cut a hit album with my wife,” Theresa, who's been a backup singer in his band.

“I'm writing songs for the album,” Haggard said as his wife, Theresa, laughed in the background. “I believe we can have a 2011 hit record.”

Haggard and Theresa have two children, a 20-year-old daughter and a son who graduated high school this month. Haggard had four children, now grown, with his late first wife, Bonnie, who was married to Buck Owens before she wed Haggard.

“I'm a grandfather, and the Lord has blessed me late in my life with a young woman,” Haggard said of his 50-year-old wife.

“That's another reason why I have to stay active — I have to light a fire under this young lady.”

Michael Shapiro writes about music and theater for The Press Democrat. You can contact him through www.michaelshapiro.net.