Ben Haggard was about six when he found a Fender Telecaster Deluxe in a closet at his family home. He carried it to his father, Merle Haggard, and asked if he could keep it. Merle said yes. The young boy didn’t know the instrument had once belonged to Roy Nichols, the guitarist whose playing helped define Merle’s sound.
Nichols joined Merle’s band, the Strangers, in 1965. His guitar work became part of the music heard on songs including “Mama Tried,” “Working Man Blues” and “The Bottle Let Me Down.” Merle regarded him as a vital musician in his career. The guitar Ben had found was more than a family keepsake, though its history only became clear to him over time.
From the garage to the band
Ben taught himself to play, working things out largely on his own. As a teenager, he spent time practicing in the garage. His mother, Theresa Lane Haggard, heard him and urged Merle to listen. By then, Ben’s playing had begun to attract attention at home—not because he was Merle’s son, but because of what he could do with the instrument.
Merle brought Ben into the Strangers when he was fifteen. He said his son was already playing better than some professional musicians. Ben had finished high school early and continued doing schoolwork while traveling with the band. At seventeen, he was playing on Merle’s album I Am What I Am.
Merle compared Ben’s instincts with those of accomplished guitarists including Nichols, Grady Martin, Reggie Young and James Burton. He described his own reaction to watching his son play as “knockin’ his old daddy plum out.”
A late chapter of fatherhood
Merle was 55 when Ben was born in 1992. At a Smithsonian event in 2003, he called his younger children, Jenessa and Ben, a second chance at being a father. The guitar from the closet became part of that later family life, eventually accompanying Ben into the world of the Strangers.
As Merle’s health declined, Ben’s familiarity with the songs and the band helped him stay close to his father onstage. He was not a replacement for Nichols; rather, the old Telecaster connected the musician Merle had revered with the son who helped him carry the music forward.
After Merle died in 2016, Ben continued performing with members of the Strangers. The guitar’s journey—from Nichols, to a closet, to a six-year-old who simply wanted to play—had taken on a meaning that neither father nor son needed to explain at the time.
