Merle Haggard says he found inspiration while in Macon hospital

If Merle Haggard had his way, he would have rallied all the strength he could muster to take the stage at the Macon City Auditorium on Jan. 17.

But as he heads back to Georgia for a make-up show Wednesday in Macon, he knows canceling that concert likely saved his life.

Haggard was already a sick man when his tour bus first cruised into town three months ago. The country music legend was sick enough to call a doctor.

“He said I was really, really full of pneumonia and needed to go to the hospital,” Haggard said last week during a phone interview.

The double-pneumonia was serious enough, but there were underlying problems that could have killed him.

Haggard, who just celebrated his 75th birthday, now realizes Dr. Carmine Oddis, a Macon cardiologist, made the milestone possible -- even if the singer was reluctant to take his advice.

“Much to (Haggard’s) credit, his concern was for his people, the staff and the fans,” Oddis said. “You don’t meet too many people like him.”

Oddis said he made a “bus call” to the auditorium after getting a call from a nurse friend who was calling on the singer’s behalf.

After a quick stethoscope check of Haggard’s lungs, he urged Haggard to cancel.

Although Oddis said the star entertainer was cordial and warm to patients and staff, he wasn’t exactly a model patient.

An antsy Haggard, eager to resume his tour, checked himself out of the hospital Jan. 20, only to think better of it and return a few hours later.

“It was a good thing I did,” he said. “They also found some bleeding ulcers, so I was slowly bleeding to death and didn’t know that, either.”

Several polyps, discovered during a colonoscopy, also were removed.

While lying in a hospital bed for 10 days, Haggard found inspiration in a city blessed with fostering the talents of Otis Redding, Little Richard and the Allman Brothers.

The Medical Center of Central Georgia is about as far east as you can get from the West Coast beaches of his home state, but the “Poet of the Common Man” was doing some California dreaming.

He wrote a couple of songs, including “Magic Mama from Malibu,” that he says John Anderson will record.

“She’s running on the beach out there, don’t you see,” Haggard said of the title. “You know, when you’re in the hospital with nothing to do, you can think a little bit.”

During his recovery, his thoughts turned to one of his early mentors, Macon native Emmett Miller.

The minstrel, who was born in 1900 and died 62 years later, is buried in Fort Hill Cemetery in east Macon.

When Haggard mistakenly heard Miller’s grave was unmarked, he told a couple of his “fellas” to go check it out and he’d pay for a headstone.

He still might buy a monument to enhance Miller’s resting place under a crude cement slab.

Haggard is campaigning for Miller to be inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, but the home state of the leader of the old “Georgia Crackers” has yet to include Miller in the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, even when the museum was open 13 years in his hometown.

“He influenced everybody from Hank Williams to Bob Wills and Merle Haggard and lots of other people in the business, and he’d been overlooked,” Haggard said.

Old film footage of Miller performing in blackface is posted on YouTube, but the Internet is lacking much more about his career. Other biographies admit his unrecognized musical influence and blame it on the degrading genre that made him famous.

While Haggard was too ill to visit Miller’s grave on his last trip, he may pay his respects this week, he said.

One place he wants to avoid is the hospital.

“The people in the hospital are going to come out to the show, I hope,” he said. “So we’re going to try to come through there and not get sick.”

He appreciates the prayers across the globe for his recovery.

“I was just overwhelmed with the treatment at that hospital. You guys are fortunate to have that kind of facility there. Who would have thought it, you know?” Haggard said. “It’s absolutely the best hospital I’ve ever seen.”

Oddis said he was amazed how easily Haggard bounced back.

“By the end of it, he looked fantastic, actually,” Oddis said.

Now that the singer-songwriter says he has recovered, fans will see a less-haggard “Hag” and more of a “Mighty Merle.”

“Let me give everybody a personal invitation to come out,” Haggard said. “I think there are still some seats available, so we’ll be there and we’ll be in good shape.”

To contact writer Liz Fabian, call 744-4303.

This story was originally published April 22, 2012 at 10:05 PM with the headline "Merle Haggard says he found inspiration while in Macon hospital."