We're talking Jimmy Dean Show

and sausage here...

Back in 2014, I knew my friend and associate Chuck Banner was working on a project with Donna Dean, who was the wife and heir

to the Jimmie Dean Sausage empire, and Mr. Dean's music and television work he produced over the years.  Dean was one of Country Music's big stars.   Chuck asked me if I thought maybe Merle would film a infomercial for a new series that he was going

to produce on the Jimmy Dean television show. His dad Bob Banner had produced the show back in the early 60tys on ABC, which as a side note was the first country show on TV and where

the national exposure for puppeteer Jim Henson began.

 

After a number of years working with Merle and Frank Mull, and

having a number of people want me to take projects to Haggard

I had always refused, however knowing the history of this great

TV show and that Haggard had been on one of the early shows,

and look like the financial offer would be good I asked Frank what he thought, then and we took the idea to Merle.

Merle and Donna Dean talking backstage in New Jersey

 

Chuck Banner, Donna Dean, Frank Mull and Fuzzy Owens talking about the early

days when Fuzzy signed Haggard to his first record deal.  Fuzzy has been touring

with Merle all these years, with a million stories to tell from the millions of miles...

Chuck and I flew to New Jersey from California and Mrs. Dean flew by private jet into New Jersey to a small airport where we picked her up and drove to the concert that Merle was playing  at that night.  Was a great meeting of the minds.  Got ole Fuzzy telling great stories and Merle and Donna had a fun time talking and we all had dinner in the green room with some interesting folks visiting backstage including the neo-vaudeville crooner Leon Redbone.

 

Redbone and Haggard were friends and worked together on

a1994 album Whistling in the Wind, where there was a duet with fellers spend time together talking.  I got to spend some time with Leon talking about  his love of Jimmie Rodgers,

and wish had time to do an interview with him, but too much going on that night and was just happy to see all these folks coming together on an idea that would then evolve to the

reality out at Haggard's ranch a few months later.

 

Just below is me and Leon Redbone, thanks Chuck for

taking the picture with my camera.

 

My part in this deal coming together regarding Jimmy Dean and the Jimmie Dean show that my friend had produced made for an exciting blend and with all the parties excited about the project.  There was the JIMMIE RODGERS part of the filming that would be when Merle, Bobby Bare and I would have the film team to do a day with us on Jimmie Rodgers...That was part of the deal for Merle and I do talk about Jimmie with a camera shoot... I love how we talked and dreamed up things that would happen... and we did some horse trading on the deal to make it all happen.

I was witness to  many experiences back stage, in the green rooms

and dining rooms where he seldom would wonder.  Of course it was

fun when he was out and about visiting with folks, but just was not

his nature.  He preferred his aloneness where he could just be. He

did not like people just walking up to him and start talking if he

didn't know you.  Merle like to talk one on one, so he can look into

your eyes.

 

I know he loved seeing old friends, family and other stars, he had

been in the scene so long ever city there were a list of people that

wanted to see him, but by the time he was on the bus it was more

likely there were some disappointed folks.

Merle loved to plan things to film, and when he was involved with the production and being a director he was in hog heaven.  Looking

back we talked often about filming.  He sometimes would just call me when I was in Central California and say, "Hey, can you come on

up, I have some ideas that I would like to film.  I would drive the 400 miles to his ranch.  In this I saw his desire to tell his story and make

sure I was around to get it on film when we talked about Jimmie Rodgers, Lefty Frizzell, Bob Wills, or his career.  If it was about music

history Merle was a green light.  The plan was, as I will more about, to get the story down and make a trailer so that then we can go to

his short list of friends and folks that he admired to direct the film.  Folks like Rance Howard, Ron Howard's dad, Robert Duvall and we

talked of my connection to Clint Eastwood.

shot in Hag's studio at his ranch

Merle and Bobby Bare were great friends, when working with Merle on the Jimmy

Dean project with Chuck Banner and Frank Mull, it was decided that we should get

one of Merle's pals on the shoot...great time on Hag's ranch with his fishing pal Bare.

Frank, Merle, Bare and Chuck are talking over plans for the interview

about Jimmy Dean, and the Jimmie Dean show, of which they had both

appeared years ago.  It was the first ever country oriented show on TV,

and one of the first television shows that a young Merle appeared on tv.

 

 

some of us fly...

 

Detention Centers, where this antagonists force inside Haggard

would grow with each escape, and the cells of aloneness and high

fences in these detention centers would only feed the loneliness and

the desire to escape and keep running...after he became the "running kind..."

 

The pictures here were from work that Merle and I began to do for a Treatment that he wanted to have to present to some movie folks that

would lay out of the story he wanted to give to some people he wanted

to talk to about a movie on his life, and at the same time keep anyone else from coming into his life and telling what they wrote or presented

to be a movie about him.

 

During this work he and I connected on helping runaway kids in the

U.S. The story here will tie in not only Merle and his life as a runaway,

and the fact that Jimmie Rodgers was a runaway, but about what

Merle and I working on to help the tens of thousands runaway children

in the USA. We had a plan, he wanted to tell his story most to help

other kids learn from his mistakes.

 

MERLE AND I CREATED SOME OF US FLY

I told Merle that I had worked for many years to help runaway kids

and about the work I'd done with John Walsh of FBI Most Wanted,

the Governor of Texas, and written books on the subject, he got right

up in my face with those steel blue eyes and said,

"This is why we met."

 

While we were working on this idea of his, he told me to go out to San Quentin and get some pictures.  After 9/11 that was to me a scary thing to do, but I did it and then after told him I had the pictures, he asked if I filmed any at night.  I took a gulp and said "no"... Hag said, "Go back and get some night shots."  I said, "ok boss."

Sara, Ben Haggard and I went out on the

ranch and began to stage some runaway

scenes with Ben as the young Merle.

 

 

Merle always talked about Ben playing the part of Merle as a young boy when we was starting his life on the run at 16 from these

detention centers and jails.  I had Sara Ivicevich, a girl who was studying film in Los Angeles, and was herself from Redding, Ca

near Haggard's ranch to work with us doing some filming and editing of this very important story to the life and person that Haggard

wanted me to film as he dreamed it up... you might say...He wanted to do this, not Hollywood.

 

RUNAWAY TRAINS...

 

Merle's life, as was Jimmie's life, as was the history of the Iron

Horse and the railroad...I worked for the Santa Fe Railroad

myself as did Jimmie and Merle's dad, which became another bond

between the Hag and myself...I rode the rail as a brakeman and a

switchman and knew the talk and he and I could go on and on talking

about that relationship between Jimmie and his dad, Merle and his

dad and the railroad.  From Merle growing up in a boxcar that his

dad converted into a house not far from a track, and his own story

of being a runaway and hoping freight trains to leave home...

 

We were at his ranch one time and he thought of the time he and a

buddy of his ran away and while telling me the experience he all of

a sudden said...hey let's get Bennie and we can film it, so he picked

up his phone and called a buddy of his at the Santa Fe Railroad,

by 3 p.m. the next afternoon we were at a side track with a train

brought just for Merle to use for the rest of the afternoon.

_____________________________________

I have a powerful story to tell here about a desire that burned in Merle from the pain that he suffered in the detention centers and

jails that led him to being locked up in San Quinton Prison.  His sister Lillian, told me one morning after breakfast at her home.

 

"...The Summer passed, and it was time for Merle to go to school.  He was getting more and more restless, and school

opened, but Merle didn't go.  He chose to "ditch" school, cut class."  The weekend came and they put him in "juvie" (she

was talking about "Juvenile Hall" , which was part of the California Youth Authority).   Lillian went on to tell me, "Merle said,

'I haven't done anything worthy of  Juvenile Hall.'  So he climbed out of window, or walked out the door, I forget how he

escaped.  That very small, if you could call it small incident, started his life of running away."

 

Because of my decades of work since 1967, in the name of abused, autistic, homeless, runaway, and throwaway kids in these

United States Merle's story as a runaway hit me like a rock.  As he went back with me into his childhood I met that antagonist

that haunted Merle is life thereafter that first of what would become 17, escapes from jails and youth dentition centers, leading

him to a life of petty crime ending up in San Quinten.

 

Years ago I had helped write the first legislation in Texas to help runaway kids, helped set up a nation wide runaway hotline with

the Texas Governor's office, worked with the Texas Rangers, FBI and Legislators to help these kids, met with the United Nations

High Commissioner on Refugees in New York,  I was written about in the book "Weeping In The Playtime of Children, and wrote

two books on kids and worked in a number of mental institutions and helped write the grant and worked on the first project

funded by the National Institute on Mental Health to study "Autism" in children.  I"ve held hand in a prayer circle with John Walsh

of "FBI Most Wanted" and who is responsible for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the office of the

President of Baptist University in Dallas with Reverend Billy Graham praying for the work we were doing to help children.  What

my grandmother would tell me at times.  "You are doing the work of the Lord."  I think to myself, "Or a albatross around my neck

and a million tears, as I would see Merle tear up when we would talk about this time in his life."

 

Enter the "antagonists" that Merle and I both share.  That ramblin' fever to keep moving...and tell a story.

Painting by Linda Standley Anderson

HAGGARD'S HAPPY FISH RANCH

Merle Haggard with my sister and

the painting she did for him to hang

at the Happy Fish Ranch...

 

 

MERLE AND HIS FISHING HAT

 

Merle loved his fishing hat, hell the Hag loved fishing, and

on his ranch were some beautiful small lakes.  We were

fishing and talking one day out at his ranch and he told

the story of taking the IRS agent out on the lake, because

they were questioning him some about him writing off

some of the expenses to keep the ponds flowing with

water and feeding and maintaining his fish.  Hag said twas

costing him $5 grand a month... so he took the IRS agent

out on the boat and  took his guitar with him, and when

they were out on the lake Merle got the guitar and started

writing a song to show the agent how the Happy Fish Ranch

in many respects was intricate to his work...

 

He said that was the last he heard from them...

 

He said laughing, "Maybe I should call this the Happy Fish

Ranch...with all the money I spend feeding and taking care

of them, they must be the happiest fish in California."

 

 

I have  pictures and memories staying for days

on Merle's Happy Fish Ranch outside of Redding

California, off and on for years.  Hag was down

some dirt roads to the airport and private jets, and when he drove out of his ranch to I-5 he had a Truck Stop to fill up his busses when he hit the road

around America.

 

Had Lulus' his favorite cafe, and could live a small

town Redding life from his ranch, where his son

and daughter had houses and he had several

houses that he lived in over the years. 

 

This is where he could set and do his phone answering, pick up a guitar and pick, be a dad

and rest from the road warrior hat he put on every couple of weeks when he'd get "on the road again" 

The hand just above across the poker table from Merle is a thief, a dead man now, and I could care less if he rests

in peace.  We will call him C.C. and after a couple of years I warned Merle that he is a bad man and a crook that had

been a suspect in blowing up a man with a mail bomb.  The man owed a company that ole CC and his brother had

in Arkansas, and bother C.C. and his brother were suspects.  The journalist that I talked to and who wrote the story

that I found when researching him after I saw him not do Merle right on some deals, and he had pushed to take over

the film work that Merle and I were working on, told me that CC had also been involved in a number of insurance

fraud cases.  Some hard drives were disappearing with the work that Merle and I were doing and I can go on and on

about this hoodlum, but will just touch on it in the book... because I can.

 

HAG AND HIS HATS

"Cowboys and outlaws, right guys and southpaws

Good dogs and all kinds of cats

Dirt roads and white lines and all kinds of stop signs

But I stand right here where I'm at

'Cause I wear my own kind of hat."

From song "My Kind of Hat" by Merle Haggard

 

Merle Haggard had 38 # 1 singles on Billboard,

he told me one time, "Hell, I have had 60 # 2's"

Robert Hilburn of the LA times dubbed Haggard "the

most influential country singer of his generation."

Country Music Television (CMT) in 2015 names

Merle "Artist of a Lifetime" with an award.

 

I plan on having "b" roll on Merle like his history in important

dates, albums, songs, awards, tours, friendships and stories.

 

1946: Merle's dad dies and he is 9 years old

 

1948: Merle hops his first freight train and one of many over the years.

 

1953: Merle meets Lefty Frizzell and sings him some songs back stage

and Lefty sends him out to open a show with his band.  Merle is 16.

 

1957: Merle is sent to San Quentin Prison

 

1958: Johnny Cash concert at San Quentin was in January and Merle is

in the prison audience.

 

1960: Merle walks out of San Quentin.

 

1962: Fuzzy Owen, signed Haggard to his Tally Records.

 

1965: Merle meets Johnny Cash

 

Merle told me he first became a fan of Wills as a boy hearing him on the radio in Bakersfield.

Merles father played the fiddle.  Was always a fun part of his shows when Merle would pull out his fiddle and play,  and walk around the stage using his bow to direct the band just like ole Wills did.  Merle had met Bob and told me they talked a lot about Jimmie Rodgers, and Bob told him he had seen Jimmie play back in the 1930tys.  That was a big deal to Merle for sure.

Merle loved America's soldiers in uniform.  I would always see he took a special time to tip his hat or give them a smile and a nod.  He would stop many times when he would see a Vet in a wheel chair. 

 

Here a classic time when a vet's leg prosthetic was brought on his bus to autograph. 

 

After he signed it he looked at me and said, "Wow what these men and women give for us."  And as

they would do so many times... his eyes got teary.

 

Trust me, Merle was for the solider and the veteran,

but he hated war and was smart enough to know

countries fought over oil.

 

I have so many pictures of the venues, the theaters, halls, arenas,

stages in fields, casinos, saloons, stadiums, across the land... In

many cities and at venues I also took pictures of the busses...

from hotel parking lots, on the road, and at venues.

 

 

Haggard heads my way to cowboy wine country for a show at

Pozo Saloon a dozen or so miles from Paso Robles, California

 

We're hanging out backstage at the Pozo Saloon near Paso Robles, California, where he first played me the new Django and

Jimmie album that he and Willie had just announced.   I'd not see him since Willie Nelson announced the name of the album and

that it was dedicated to Jimmie Rodgers.  Soon as Merle walked up to me back stage he said come on the bus let me play you

the album.  Joined by Judge Mike, past California Superior Court Judge, that helped Merle with a change in the limits of the

Pardon that President Regan had given him, so he could be licensed to carry a gun.  So, the three of us went on a Willie Nelson

Merle Haggard odyssey they had just created in the studio, and with a video where Merle came out of the closet and smoked a

fatty with Willie during the secession and allowed Sony to release the video nationally.

 

Setting there on Haggard's bus after hearing the entire album we talked about how much this was going to help set the stage

for the Jimmie Rodgers Saga, and told me that we need to get Willie in the documentary.  I thought well hell yes we need to do

that...and down the road in October of 2015, we were on tour with Willie Nelson in support of the album and Merle called Willie

and told him that we wanted him to do an interview.  Few hours later I am on Willie's bus and filmed him to add his name to

the great cast that I had been shooting for the past 17 years.

 

I was living in Paso Robles and raising two of my kids as a single dad.  We were setting on a bench talking

and I found a note that I wrote, when he told me that Johnny Cash told him, "Haggard, your the man that people

think I am...Hell, your the outlaw not me, Willie, Kris or Waylon."

 

Haggard's crowd at the Pozo Saloon in Central California where he

enjoyed playing and one of his regular West Coast gigs for a few years.

Early before sound check at the staging for the Pozo Stampede...I have

many pictures of the early set ups of shows, and the load out at well.

 

Merle's bus was the world to him... he worked hard to get his new bus

the last year on the road they tried out pulling a trailer behind the band bus.

 

Merle's band The Strangers are six-time winners of the Academy of Country Music's Touring Band of the Year Awards, as well

as a pair of Music City News awards for the

Band of the Year.

 

Merle told me one time that Willie said,

 

"I went home to my bus."

 

Hag's Country Store owned and operated by Merle's long time

friend Frank Mull, who wore many hats for Merle over the decades.

The buss in the rear, was Frank Mull's bus, and was the on the road office,

and where the merchandise and some of the band equipment were carried.

 

Merle didn't like to have the downtown hotels that many times

the producers of shows would book them, usually they were in

the middle of the cities.

 

He liked to be in hotels out at the edge of the city where the freeways connected.  Not right in the middle of cities where

it was not a easy in and out of town.  They could pull into the

hotel first... circle the wagons, if you will, then send the band

and Frank's bus on in to start setting up the show and make

sure there is good place for Merle's bus when he would pull

on in...

 

Frank Mull and Merle's bus drivers had this down to a smooth

operation moving the band and equipment.  Merle preferred

not pulling a trailer or having trucks and keeping the tour

to the 3 busses.

 

 

 

Merle was a road warrior, logging up many thousands and thousands

of miles across the country.  Merle told me once that Johnny Cash

called him and said, "Where are you?"  Hag said, "I don't know"...

Cash said, "Call room service and ask them."

 

 

After the first year around Merle, we started spending more time on his bus just he and

I talking and then people would come in and out, if he wanted to visit them...One of his

number of bus drivers would come back and sometimes ask if he wanted to see someone,

and/or Frank Mull would set up ahead of time knowing who was attending a show that

they would be wanting to see Merle, and if Merle wanted to see them on the bus.

 

Seems to me most times it was only family or old friends, or someone really famous

would come to the back of the Merle Haggard bus and set with him at his table, from

Tim McGraw, Buck Owens, Ringo Star, and on and on...

 

He very very rarely would go backstage.  The operation was for the band to go into his

theme song after usually "Okie From Muskogee", Merle would take his guitar off and

put it on the stand then wave, tip his hat then start looking for the flashlight that usually Frank Mull had pointing at the ground on the side of the stage that Merle was to exit,

and then make a b-line to his bus, usually before even anyone in the audience or back stage realized Merle had left the building.

For Merle the Bakersfield shows were family and friend reunions.  Of course was big job for Frank

trying to divide up who got tickets to the show, and who got backstage passes, then who gets to get

something signed by Merle, see Merle and most coveted of all... go on Merle bus for a visit.

 

 

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