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ByJimHarrington BayAreaNewsGroup Merle Haggard, one of the most successful and influential artists in coun- try music history, died Wednesday, on his 79th birthday. The longtime Northern California resident, who grew up in the Bakersfield area and lived for years on a houseboat in Lake Shasta, died in a hospital outside Redding. The cause of death was pneumonia, according to Haggard's manager, Frank Mull. The platinum-selling country vocalist had been battling pneumonia for months, forcing him to cancel or postpone sev- eral tour dates, including one slated for December at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland. He played a makeup show there in Feb- ruary, marking the icon's final performance in the Bay Area. Haggard will be widely remembered as one of country music's best singer-songwriters, re- sponsible for such classic cuts as "Today I Started Loving You Again," "The Fightin' Side of Me" and "Sing Me Back Home." He was a first-tier coun- try icon — one of the last of a dying breed — and de- served to be ranked in the hallowed company of Way- lon Jennings, Johnny Cash, and even Hank Williams. He was also in many ways the embodiment of a tra- ditional country singer — someone whose life was as hard-bitten as the songs he wrote. "Merle was an American hero," says Randall Kline, executive director of SF- Jazz, which presented Hag- gard's final Bay Area show. "He overcame a tough start in life and became a star by digging deep into the mu- sic that transformed his life — from a San Quentin prisoner to a Kennedy Cen- ter honoree." Haggard's legacy is straightforward in many regards: He wrote amaz- ing songs and possessed a voice for the ages. Yet, he was also a com- plex character. He was cheered by conservatives for his patriotic anthem "Okie From Muskogee," released at the height of the Vietnam War in 1969, and was admired by iconic counterculture band The Grateful Dead, which often covered Haggard's "Mama Tried." "Merle Haggard was that impossibly rare artist who appealed to just about ev- ery walk of life — much like Johnny Cash or Wil- lie Nelson," says Amie Bai- ley-Knobler, general man- ager for the Fillmore in San Francisco. "His footprint was that big." He was also one of coun- try music's all-time most successful artists, having notched some 40 No. 1 sin- gles and released dozens of albums during a career that covered more than half a century. Alongside Buck Owens, Haggard helped change the direction of country music in the 1960s, offer- ing up the harder-edged "Bakersfield Sound" as a twangy alternative to the heavily produced and pol- ished Nashville recordings of the day. Haggard didn't make his name by crafting frivolous radio-friendly ditties, but rather with lyrical — of- ten poetic — snapshots of drinking, hard times and lost loves. The songs ached with re- alism, which was a direct result of a musician writ- ing about what he knows. Haggard had already lived quite a life by the time he had his first country hit (1963's "Sing a Sad Song") in his mid-20s, having spent time in San Quentin Prison after a robbery at- tempt in the late 1950s. That commitment to re- alism, no matter how pain- ful the topic, has had an impact on many of today's country artists. "His influence is he taught every (country singer) how to tell a story and not be afraid of the truth — no matter how un- varnished," says Julie Ste- vens, program director and on-air personality for Bay Area country music sta- tion KRTY-FM 95.3. She referenced Haggard's clas- sic "Mama Tried" as an ex- ample. "The line 'I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole' absolutely paved the way for Eric Church to sing ' ... I could keep you pretty busy with a hammer and nails, it ain't a glam- orous life but it'll keep you out of jail' (lyrics from 'Home Boy'). "He had a way of say- ing things that was a blow to the solar plexus every time." Haggard was born April 6, 1937, in Oildale to Flossie and James Haggard, who had migrated to the Ba- kersfield suburb from Okla- homa at the height of the Great Depression. His fam- ily's experiences as Dust Bowl refugees would color Haggard's music, which championed the working class in sometimes Woody Guthrie-like fashion. "The great thing about Merle Haggard was how he gave a voice to a whole group of people who felt like they didn't have a voice," Stevens says. "All those people that settled the Central Valley in Cali- fornia came from the Dust Bowl of the '30s. They had nothing and life was really hard as they tried to feed their children and make a go of it in California. "Merle Haggard told their story in songs like 'Mama Tried,' 'Okie From Muskogee,' 'Workin' Man' Blues,' 'Sing Me Back Home,' etc. Merle Haggard not only told the truth in his music, he told the dif- ficult truth that none of us want to think about." Haggard continued to tour and record into his 70s. He lived his last years outside Redding with his fifth wife, Theresa Lane. Haggard previously was married to singer Leona Williams, and to country crooner Bonnie Owens, the former wife of Buck Ow- ens, with whom he toured for nearly a decade. Associated Press contributed to this article. OBITUARY Country icon Merle Haggard dies PHOTOBYMATTSAYLES—INVISION—AP,FILE Country singer Merle Haggard sings during a rehearsal for the 56th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. By Lisa Lerer and Ken Thomas The Associated Press PHILADELPHIA Armed with a blistering tabloid cover, Hillary Clinton is pitting Bernie Sanders against the parents of chil- dren murdered in Sandy Hook, part of an effort to punch her way into the crit- ical New York primary. The inflammatory rheto- ric underscores the impor- tance of the April 19 New York contest to her cam- paign and the mounting frustration of Clinton and her husband, former Presi- dent Bill Clinton, with the lingering primary battle. That irritation spilled out into the public arena Wednesday, when Clinton released a flurry of attacks on Sanders, questioning his truthfulness, preparedness for the presidency and loy- alty to Democratic party principles. During an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday morning, Clinton pointed to a New York Daily News cover criticizing Sanders for saying he did not think vic- tims of a gun crime should be able to sue the manufac- turer. His comments came when the newspaper's ed- itorial board asked him about a wrongful death lawsuit against a rifle maker over the 2012 mas- sacre at Sandy Hook Ele- mentary School in New- town, Connecticut. "That he would place gun manufacturers' rights and immunity from liabil- ity against the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook is just unimaginable to me," said Clinton, who has long sought to high- light the candidates' differ- ences on guns. In the interview with the Daily News editorial board, Sanders said he did not think gun crime victims should be able to sue gun manufacturers. But he did say people should be able to sue dealers and manufac- turers who sell when they know "guns are going to the hands of wrong people." He also said he supported a ban on assault weapons. Clinton's campaign — which seized on a number of statements in the inter- view — organized a phone call for reporters with elected officials and gun control advocates, includ- ing Jillian Soto, whose sis- ter was a teacher killed at Sandy Hook, called Sand- ers' comments "offensive." "He doesn't know the pain my family has been go- ing through since Decem- ber 14, 2012," she said. Sanders responded Wednesday by criticizing Clinton's 2002 Senate vote in favor of the Iraq war. "Maybe Secretary Clinton might want to apologize to the families who lost their loved ones in Iraq," he told CBS News. Clinton also jumped on the limited details Sand- ers offered in the edito- rial board meeting about how he would break up the country's big financial insti- tutions, saying he "hadn't done his homework." And in a separate interview with Politico published Wednes- day, Clinton said she tries to explain things in a more "open and truthful way than my opponent." Later, at a Philadelphia job training center, Clinton said people should know what she would do if she's elected president, "not just lots of arm-waving and hot rhetoric." Despite a sizable dele- gate lead, the stakes are high for Clinton in New York, the state she repre- sented for eight years in the Senate. A loss there would be a major politi- cal blow that would high- light her weaknesses within her own party, particularly with younger voters who have powered Sanders' pri- mary bid and will be a cru- cial part of any Democratic candidate's general election campaign. Clinton aides say there's little they can do to directly push Sanders out of the race. They fear any such ef- fort could compromise her ability to win over the sup- port she'll need in the gen- eral election. Instead, her campaign is escalating its attacks in hopes of a decisive win in New York and assembling an "all but insurmountable" delegate lead by the end of the month. Sanders notched his sixth win out of seven pri- maries in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, a streak his campaign is casting as a sign of fresh momentum. If Sanders can win a big share of delegates in New York and the five northeast- ern contests that follow, his aides believe they can make even larger gains in May and June contests in Ore- gon and California. "She's getting a little ner- vous," Sanders told support- ers at a rally in Wyoming on Tuesday night. "I believe we have an excellent chance to win New York." Still, Sanders' path to the nomination remains narrow. His big victory netted him 10 delegates — but Clinton still holds a big lead in all-important dele- gate math. Sanders must win 68 per- cent of the remaining dele- gates and uncommitted su- perdelegates if he hopes to clinch the Democratic nom- ination. That would require blowout victories by Sand- ers in upcoming states big and small. ELECTION 2016 Clinton hits Sanders on gun control, sharpens attacks By Michael Graczyk The Associated Press HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS A South Texas man was ex- ecuted Wednesday for the 1998 slaying of a 12-year- old boy whose blood the convicted killer said he drank after beating the seventh-grader with a pipe and slitting his throat. Pablo Lucio Vasquez told police he was drunk and high when voices con- vinced him to kill Da- vid Cardenas in Donna, a Texas border town about 225 miles south of San An- tonio. He also told detec- tives in a videotaped state- ment that he drank some of the boy's blood. Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Vasquez, 38, told relatives watching through a win- dow that he loved them and thanked them for be- ing there, then turned his head to look through an ad- jacent window where four of his victim's relatives stood. "I'm sorry to David's family," he said. "This is the only way that I can be for- given. You got your justice right here." As the lethal dose of pen- tobarbital began taking ef- fect, he said he was a little dizzy. "See you on the other side," he said, raising his head off the gurney pillow and looking toward two of his sisters, a brother-in-law and a cousin. He snorted loudly once, then dropped his head back to the pillow and took a few quiet breaths before all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 24 minutes later at 6:35 p.m. Cardenas' relatives declined to speak with re- porters following the exe- cution, the 11th this year in the U.S., six of them in Texas. The punishment was car- ried out about four hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Vasquez' lawyer, James Keegan, who sought a reprieve so the justices could review whether sev- eral potential jurors were improperly excused from Vasquez' capital murder trial because they either were opposed to the death penalty or not comfortable making such a judgment. 1998 SLAYING Texas executes man for killing 12-year-old boy | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2016 8 A