Bakersfield Sound - History

History

The Bakersfield sound was developed at honky-tonk bars such as The Blackboard, and on local television stations in Bakersfield and throughout California in the 1950s and 1960s. The town, known mainly for agriculture and oil production, was the destination for many Dust Bowl migrants and others from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and other parts of the South. The mass migration of "Okies" to California also meant that their music would follow and thrive, finding an audience in California's Central Valley. One of the first groups to make it big on the west coast was the Maddox Brothers and Rose, who were the first to wear outlandish costumes and make a "show" out of their performances.

Bakersfield country was a reaction against the slickly-produced, string orchestra-laden Nashville Sound, which was becoming popular in the late 1950s. Artists like Wynn Stewart used electric instruments and added a backbeat, as well as other stylistic elements borrowed from rock and roll. Important influences were Depression-era country music superstar Jimmie Rodgers and 1940s Hollywood swing musician Bob Wills. In 1954 MGM recording artist Bud Hobbs recorded "Louisiana Swing" with Buck Owens on lead guitar, Bill Woods on piano, and the dual fiddles of Oscar Whittington and Jelly Sanders. "Louisiana Swing" was the first song recorded in the style known today as the legendary "Bakersfield Sound". In the early 1960s, Merle Haggard and Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, among others, brought the Bakersfield sound to mainstream audiences, and it soon became one of the most popular kinds of country music, also influencing later country stars such as Dwight Yoakam, Marty Stuart, The Mavericks, and The Derailers.

Two important British Invasion-era rock bands also displayed some Bakersfield influences. The Beatles recorded a popular version of Owens' "Act Naturally". Years later, The Rolling Stones made their connection explicit in the lyrics of the very Bakersfield-sounding Far Away Eyes, which begins: "I was driving home early Sunday morning, through Bakersfield ...".

The Bakersfield Sound has such a large influence on the West Coast music scene that many small guitar companies set up shop in Bakersfield in the 1960s. The biggest of significance was the Mosrite guitar company that still influences rock, country, and jazz music to this day. The famed Mosrite company was stationed in Bakersfield until the death of the company's founder, Oildale resident Semie Moseley, in 1992.