An Outlaws Tribute to Bonnie & Clyde
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This cache is placed to honor the Legendary local area outlaws "J.T. Bonnie & Clyde".
Initially this cache contains a Tribute to them by the great Merle Haggard.
Once the "tribute documentation artifact" by Merle has been traded and removed this will become a more traditional ammo can cache containing just lots of other interesting swag.
Emerging from prison in the 1960's Merle Haggard has become one of the true giants of country music, as a singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist. With his hard biting electric guitar, he almost singlehandedly introduced the electric sound to country music. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band "The Strangers" helped create the Bakersfield Sound, characterized by twangy guitars, tight vocal harmonies, and a rough edge not heard on the polished Nashville Sound recordings of that era. By the 1970s, he was aligned with the growing outlaw country movement. He has continued to release successful albums through the 1990s and into the present. His songs display unflinching personal honesty about such universal themes as love, loss, regret and redemption.
Outlaw country is a significant trend in country music, commonly referred to as The Outlaw Movement or simply Outlaw music. The focus of the movement has been on self-declared "outlaws", such as Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, David Allan Coe, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck and Billy Joe Shaver.
Merle Haggard was born in Bakersfield, California in 1937. His parents moved from Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression. At that time, much of the population of Bakersfield was made up of economic refugees from Oklahoma and surrounding states. Haggard's father died when Merle was nine years old, and Merle soon began to rebel through petty crimes and truancy. His older brother gave him a guitar when he turned twelve years old. Authorities put him in a juvenile detention center for shop lifting in 1950.
In 1951, Haggard ran away to Texas with a friend but returned that same year and was arrested for truancy and petty larceny. He ran away from that juvenile detention center to which he was sent and went to Modesto, California. He worked odd jobs - legal and not - and began performing in a bar. Once he was found again, he was sent to the Preston School of Industry, a high-security installation. Shortly after he was released, 15 months later, Haggard was sent back after beating a local boy during a burglary attempt.
After his third release, Haggard saw Lefty Frizzell in concert and sang a couple of songs for him. Lefty was so impressed, he allowed Haggard to sing at the concert. The audience loved Haggard, and he began working on a full-time music career. After earning a local reputation, Haggard's money problems caught up with him, and he was arrested for robbing a Bakersfield tavern in 1957. He was sent to prison in San Quinten for 15 years. Even in prison, Haggard was wild, running a gambling and brewing racket from his cell. As an inmate Merle attended three of Johnny Cash's concerts at San Quentin. Seeing Cash perform inspired Haggard to straighten up and pursue his singing.
Several years later after his release, at another Cash concert, Haggard came up to Johnny Cash and told him "I certainly enjoyed your show at San Quentin." Cash said "Merle, I don't remember you bein' in that show." Merle Haggard said, "Johnny, I wasn't in that show, I was in the audience."
While in solitary confinement, Haggard encountered author and death row inmate Carl Chessman Haggard had the opportunity to escape with a fellow inmate nicknamed "Rabbit", but passed on it. The inmate successfully escaped, only to shoot a police officer and return to San Quentin for execution. Chessman's predicament along with Rabbit's inspired Haggard to turn his life around, and he soon earned his high school equivalency diploma, kept a steady job in the prison's textile plant and played in the prison's band. He was released in 1960.Haggard said it took about four months to get used to being out of the penitentiary and that, at times, he actually wanted to go back in. He said it was the loneliest feeling he'd ever had. Haggard was later pardoned by Governor Ronald Regan.
When Merle was asked about why he considered J.T. Bonnie and Clyde to be outlaws he replied: "It takes one to know one"! That's all he would say on the subject.
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