Merle Haggard: Reagan "gave me a second chance at life"

Reagan statue in Dixon, IL

Country music legend Merle Haggard died this morning on the day of his 79th birthday.

And he had a great fondness for Ronald Reagan.

"He was a wonderful man in my life. He gave me a second chance at life in the form of the pardon he gave me," the Daily Signal reported today.

A longtime petty thief, Haggard turned his life around after his release from San Quentin prison. Reagan pardoned Haggard in 1972 while he was governor of California.

Haggard, who was one of the originators of the Bakersfield Sound, said that the Gipper was "the epitome of everything we would want a president to be."

"I think they ought to put his face on Mount Rushmore. I think he's done that much. He's the president of the century."