Merle Haggard Gets Tumor Removed From Lung, Remains An Outlaw

Country music rebel Merle Haggard is recovering in California after having a malignant tumor removed from his lung. The 71-year-old Haggard remains in stable condition following the successful surgery. A "spot" was found in Haggard's lung back in May. Even though doctors recommended Haggard get it removed immediately, Haggard's pretty badass and instead opted for no surgery. In fact, Haggard even toured from June until August with the tumor lodged in his chest. Friends and family finally convinced the Hag to undergo the surgery, and the tumor was removed Monday in his hometown of Bakersfield. Among achievements like 38 #1 country hits and plenty of Academy of Country Music awards, Haggard was also given the Grammy's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.

Related Stories:
• In The Studio (And Exclusive Tracks): Merle Haggard
• A Whole Lotta Country: Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard & Ray Price Play NYC
• Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Shows Getting Deluxe Box Set Treatment

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter