Branded Man is the fourth studio album by American country music singer Merle Haggard and The Strangers.

Understandably, Haggard was concerned about the effect his time in prison might have on his career but, as Daniel Cooper writes in the liner notes to the 1994 box set Down Every Road, it had little effect at all: "It's unclear when or where Merle first acknowledged to the public that his prison songs were rooted in personal history, for to his credit, he doesn't seem to have made some big splash announcement.

Branded Man kicked off an incredible artistic run for Haggard; in 2013 Haggard biographer David Cantwell states, "The immediate successors to I'm a Lonesome Fugitive - Branded Man in 1967 and, in '68, Sing Me Back Home and The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde - were among the finest albums of their respective years.

In the episode of American Masters dedicated to him, Haggard remembers: "The producer I had at that time, Ken Nelson, was an exception to the rule.

"[citation needed] In the documentary Beyond Nashville, Nelson recalls, "When I first started recording Merle, I became so enamored with his singing that I would forget what else was going on, and I suddenly realized, 'Wait a minute, there's musicians here you've got to worry about!'

The next day Jones arrived, kicking the door in and eventually folding up the roll-away bed that Haggard's sleeping manager Fuzzy Owen was on and wheeling it out of the room.

[citation needed] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote "Like Swinging Doors before it, Branded Man... is merely a collection of songs pieced together to cash in on a couple of hit singles.