Workin' Merle: The Okie from Muskogee headlines Coke Stage tonight

Understanding the foundation of the argument that Merle Haggard is a bona fide country music legend begs a bit of comparative arithmetic.

Since he began recording in the early '60s, the Oklahoman-cum-Californian "poet of the common man" has cranked out songs with an efficiency that borders on superhuman at times. Of the 84 albums he's released, 14 of them were produced in 1969 and 1971 alone.

More than 70 of the hundreds of songs he has recorded have reached the Top 10, including every single he recorded between 1966 and 1985. In all, he is responsible for more country chart-toppers than Dixie Chicks, Johnny Cash and Garth Brooks ... combined.

But to the fans of the outlaw country icon, the appeal of seeing him headline Riverbend tonight is less centered on the flash of his trophy case than the resonance they feel to the narratives he weaves into his music.

"With an artist like Merle Haggard, it really is all about the stories that he tells," says full-time Chattanooga musician Heather "Hippie" Kilgore, 39. "For me, it's not like I'm expecting him to jump around all over the stage and for there to be a crazy light show. That's not it at all. What I'm looking forward to is listening to him talk about the songs and talk about his journey in his personable way."

Haggard, 78, was born in Bakersfield, Calif., and later became one of the artists -- along with Buck Owens -- responsible for popularizing the Bakersfield Sound, a stylistic blend of rockabilly with traditional country that stood in opposition to the increasingly cookie-cutter music coming out of Music Row.

"Nashville [country] came out of the churches ... church music; Bakersfield came out of the bars," Haggard says in a 2012 interview with the Country Music Hall of Fame, where he was inducted in 1994. "Then, the bar music joined up with the church music and gave us what we've got."

In a gruff, gravely baritone, Haggard's rough-edged songs often center on hard working, hard drinking, occasionally lovesick characters who bear the all the careworn calluses of blue-collar living. His understanding of hardscrabble struggle was born out of personal experience.

Following the death of his father due to a stroke when Haggard was 9, he began exhibiting a rebellious streak. As a pre-teen, he hopped a freight train and made it 100 miles before he was apprehended in Fresno, Calif. In his adolescence, his brushes with lawlessness increased until the state of California deemed him officially "incorrigible" and sentenced him to a stint at a school for juvenile offenders. He later escaped and was sent to an even higher-security facility.

As an adult, he had several stints in jail for petty crimes. At 20, a drunken attempted robbery landed him a much-longer bid at San Quentin State Prison. His time at the facility marked a turning point in his life, according to his bio, and when he was released in 1960, he launched a musical career that rendered him one of the defining voices in country music for decades.

"Going to prison has one of a few effects," Haggard told Salon in 2004. "It can make you worse, or it can make you understand and appreciate freedom. I learned to appreciate freedom when I didn't have any."

He's made good use of his freedom, producing scores of hits, including "Okie From Muskogee," "Hard Workin' Man" and "Mama Tried." He also has been involved in numerous acclaimed collaborations that charted well, such as No. 1's he recorded with George Jones ("Yesterday's Wine") and Clint Eastwood ("Bar Room Buddies").

Despite being in his late 70s, Haggard continues to pump out new material. His latest record, "Django and Jimmie," is a reprisal of "Pancho & Lefty," a hit 1983 collaboration with Willie Nelson. The album also serves as a tip of the hat to each artist's respective musical idol, Django Reinhardt and Jimmie Rodgers. According to a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, Haggard reportedly is working on three other albums.

Although she says she'd love to hear "Okie From Muskogee," Kilgore says she'll be happy to listen to anything Haggard chooses to sing, so long as he gets behind the mike and doesn't pull his punches.

"There's just this thing about those old-school country artists," she says. "They're just real; they tell it like it is. There wasn't a lot of fluff or filler; it was real or raw. I think that's probably why I liked him so much growing up. He just has a way of telling a story that I can really relate to."

Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.