Merle Haggard had agreed to be part of a series on Country’s Family Reunion, the long-running show where country legends sit together, swap stories and sing. He never made it. Haggard died of pneumonia on April 6, 2016, his 79th birthday, and the series became a four-part special called A Tribute to Merle Haggard. Three of his sons came in his place, and his youngest, Ben Haggard, sang “It’s All in the Movies,” a song Merle wrote and took to No. 1.
The song Ben chose to sing
Merle Haggard and The Strangers released “It’s All in the Movies” in September 1975 as the first single and title track of the album that followed in February 1976. It became his eighth straight No. 1 single, and the album went to the top of the country albums chart in May 1976. More than four decades later, his son stood in front of the cameras and sang it on the show his father had planned to be on.
Ben’s performance aired in the series’ final episode on RFD-TV on December 2, 2016, alongside Jim Lauderdale, T. Graham Brown, Mo Pitney, Jeannie Seely and Daryle Singletary, each singing a Haggard song of their own.
Who Ben Haggard was to his father
Ben Haggard is Merle’s youngest son, and he was not a newcomer borrowing a famous name. He joined his father’s band, The Strangers, as lead guitarist at 15, after finishing high school early. In a 2015 interview with Spin, Merle said his son was already “playing better than the professionals” in the band when he brought him on the road, and added that he had probably learned more from Ben than Ben had learned from him.
Ben spent roughly eight years on stage beside his father. He was also there at the very end of Merle’s recording life. On February 9, 2016, with doctors urging him to rest after a bout of double pneumonia, Merle walked across the road from his home to his studio and recorded “Kern River Blues,” a song he had written while in the hospital. Ben played electric guitar on it. It turned out to be Merle Haggard’s final recording, and it was released that May. Less than two months after that session, Merle was gone.
That is the weight behind a son singing his father’s song on a show his father never reached.
Three sons, one tribute
Ben was not the only Haggard on that stage. Host Bill Anderson guided the series, and Merle’s three sons, Marty, Noel and Ben, each had a part in it.
All three brothers performed “Workin’ Man Blues” together. Marty, the oldest, sang “Mama’s Hungry Eyes.” Noel and Ben teamed up on “The Runnin’ Kind” and “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive.” Friends of the Hag filled out the rest of the series, including Vince Gill, Bobby Bare, John Conlee, Gene Watson, Moe Bandy, Rhonda Vincent, Mac Wiseman and The Isaacs.
When the show later looked back on the taping, the message was simple: Merle had been scheduled to come, and his sons surely made their daddy proud.
What came after
The tribute was part of a longer road for Ben. After his father’s death, he and his brother Noel kept going with The Strangers and played out their father’s booked dates. In April 2017, on what would have been Merle’s 80th birthday, Ben served as one of the music directors, alongside Don Was and Buddy Cannon, for the all-star Sing Me Back Home: The Music of Merle Haggard concert in Nashville.
Ten years after that tribute was taped, Ben Haggard is still touring and still playing his father’s songs. If you grew up with Merle on the radio, which Haggard song would you want to hear his son sing next?