Just three days after his performance in San Antonio at the Majestic Theater, country music legend Merle Haggard was hospitalized, released, and is now on his tour bus traveling home to be evaluated by his doctors in California.
A Ft. Worth concert at Billy Bobs was cancelled when Haggard was taken to a nearby hospital.
After doctors evaluated the singer, they “ordered him to postpone his upcoming shows until he can be evaluated by his doctors at home in California,” the Inn of the Gods website announced.
Just last Wednesday, the 74-year-old Haggard stood before a sold out crowd in the Majestic Theater playing guitar, fiddling and singing songs like “Mama Tried,” “The Fighting Side of Me,” and “Okie From Muskogee.”
Last December, Merle Haggard stood with Paul McCartney and Oprah Winfrey to receive American artist awards at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.
Haggard performed in Stafford, Texas on Thursday, and traveled to Grant, Oklahoma for a concert at the Choctaw Resort Casino. He cancelled shows in Fort Worth Saturday and Mescalero, New Mexico Sunday. Fort Worth’s show has been rescheduled for Oct. 24, and Macalero, Oct. 23.
Haggard was born in 1937, near Bakersfield, California. His father, Jim, died of a stroke when Merle was nine years old. At his San Antonio show last week he said he wrote “Okie From Muskogee,” for his dad, who was from Oklahoma. The Haggard’s home burned down in Oklahoma which prompted them to move to California before their son’s birth.
Last night Haggard was traveling on his tour bus to his home in Redding, Calif., so his personal doctors can take a look at him spokesperson Tresa Redburn said.
The singer had angioplasty in 1995 for clogged arteries. In 2008, Haggard was diagnosed with non-small cell cancer and underwent surgery to have part of his lung removed.
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