On This Day in 1971, a Song About a Blind Dad and His Homeless Family Band Took Merle Haggard to the Top of the Country Charts for a 10th Time

At age 12, Merle Haggard received his first-ever guitar from older brother Lowell. Teaching himself to play, the “Okie From Muskogee” hitmaker hoped to earn a living as a session guitarist. Unfortunately (or fortunately), in his own words, he wasn’t good enough. So he turned to singing, where Haggard enjoyed a five-decade career that yielded 38 No. 1 hits on the U.S. country charts. On this day in 1971, the Hag scored his 10th No. 1 song on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart with “Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man.)”

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The lead single from Merle Haggard’s 1972 album with the Strangers, Let Me Tell You About a Song, “Daddy Frank” introduces us to a family of working musicians. “Let me tell you about a song that I feel explains itself,” Haggard says in the album’s spoken intro.

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“Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)” is a song written and recorded by American country music artist Merle Haggard and The Strangers. It was released in September 1971 as the first single from the album Let Me Tell You About a Song. This live performance was recorded by TROS Television on 15 June 1978 during the Internationaal Country Festival from the Ahoy Hall in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. #MerleHaggard #MerleMondays #ClassicCountry #DaddyFrankTheGuitarMan #OutlawCountry

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Born blind, “Daddy Frank” plays the guitar and “French harp,” while the unnamed narrator’s sister plays the “ringing tambourine.” Meanwhile, Mama taught herself to read lips after a fever took away her hearing, so that she could “help the family sing.”

With making music as their “only means of living at the time,” the family travels from coast to coast, living out of their pickup truck and camping along the highway. Frank and Mama counted on each other / Their one and only weakness made them strong, Haggard sings. Mama did the driving for the family / And Frank made a living with his song.

[RELATED: On This Day in 1987, This Iconic Outlaw Country Legend Released His Last Ever No. 1—Titled After a Famous Lullaby]

This Merle Haggard Hit Was Not a True Story

“Daddy Frank” spent two weeks atop Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart, remaining in the top 40 for a whopping 13 weeks. While many thought Merle Haggard spun the yarn from his own life, that wasn’t the case. The 19-time ACM Award winner explained the song’s origin in the liner notes to his 1994 box set Down Every Road.

According to Haggard, “Mama” was based on his then-wife Bonnie Owens’ own mother, who had a hearing problem. Meanwhile, Owens’ father wasn’t blind, but he did love to play the harmonica.

Haggard took those details and wed them to the story of the Maddox Brothers and Rose, who formed their famous hillbilly boogie band after moving to California from Alabama during the Depression.

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