[charlene]

That didn't stop him from accepting a White House invitation to sing at first lady Pat Nixon's birthday party on March 17, 1973.

"The next day was when Watergate broke," he says. (On March 18, Nixon's aides were warned that they would be arrested for refusing to testify before a Senate committee on Watergate.)

Then, in a moment of blissful political ignorance, straight-faced mischievousness or senior fog, Haggard asks, "Nixon - was he a Republican?"

His memories of Ronald Reagan, though, are crystal clear. "He had that charisma," Haggard says, his smile arching above his goatee, "and was really nice to me." As governor of California, Reagan pardoned Haggard in 1972, a gesture Haggard calls the greatest award he's ever received.

The 'big void'

If the '60s and '70s brought Haggard great success, the following decade brought great chaos. Ask Haggard about the '80s and he turns his head toward the windshield of his tour bus as if literally trying to see the sunny side. He spent many of those years on a Lake Shasta houseboat, and his misadventures there are briefly chronicled in the opening chapter of his 1999 autobiography - years of hard drugs and wild women that he recounts with a let's-get-this-out-of-the-way brevity.

During that blurry time, he did manage to meet Theresa, his fifth wife, with whom he would eventually have a daughter, Jenessa, and a son, Ben. The trio would rally by his bedside in 2008 when cancer required a portion of Haggard's right lung to be removed. Since then, singing has been difficult for Haggard, if not painful.

"There's a big void there," he says, poking himself in the chest. "You gotta reach for it to breathe all the way through it, and there's nothing there. It's really hard to explain."

He coughs.

Theresa remembers the operation and shudders.

"When he first got out of surgery and I saw him in intensive care, it was terrible," she says. "He looked at me and said, 'I should have died.' Then he yodeled! I thought, 'Okay, he yodeled!' "

Within two months, Haggard forced himself back on stage.

"I wanted to know whether or not I could [sing]," he says. "It takes about two years, they think, for this to heal, and we're right about on that [now]. . . . I haven't bounced all the way back yet."

His family watches him closely, including his 17-year-old son, Ben, who plays guitar in his band.

"I get some concerns sometimes," Ben says. "But when he gets out here [on tour], after the first few days . . . he's fine. It just keeps him going."

So he keeps going, even if it means neglecting the family that has brought him as close he's as he's ever been to peace. This month, Ben turns 18. Jenessa turns 21. Haggard will miss both birthdays as he travels to accept awards in Washington and Sacramento.

"Never once really gave a lot of great thought to raising children," Haggard says. "I had a family of four that came and slipped away. Before I realized I was even in the middle of it, it was gone. So when I had a second chance, well, I vowed to not make the same mistakes.

"But damned if I didn't make the same mistakes again. I went off down the road, chasing something, and let these children get away. And now they're grown. And I'm still going to the award shows and their birthdays are gonna be second. Somehow it's . . . wrong."

Eight hours later, Haggard is flanked by his son and his wife on the casino auditorium stage, apologizing to his mother for the 10,000th time: "I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole/No one could steer me right, but Mama tried, Mama tried/Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading, I denied/That leaves only me to blame, 'cause Mama tried."

The refrain is sodden with remorse, but Haggard makes it sound delicate, singing those ascending notes with a clarity that belies the pain that surely burns in his lungs. He serves up a twinkling riff on his Fender Telecaster, one of the heaviest electric guitars you can buy, swinging the instrument around like a six-stringed metaphor. In Haggard's hands, the heavy stuff feels light.

He's not too chatty with the crowd, but after a few songs he finally greets them with a yodel that takes all of his breath. For an instant, he seems happy. And you can bet it hurts like hell.