Haggard, poet of common man, dies on his birthday

Merle Haggard composed the soundtrack of a generation of displaced Okies, Arkies and Texans — the rootlessness, the poverty, the field work — but he did it with such towering artistry that the Oildale native, the son of a railroad man and God-fearing mother, belonged not just to Bakersfield but the world.

The poet of the common man died at 9:20 a.m. Wednesday — his 79th birthday — on his tour bus at his home near Redding surrounded by family, according to Fuzzy Owen, his manager of 54 years, who was with the singer when he died. The cause was pneumonia, which he’d been battling since December.