Bakersfield Life

Hard drivin' country

By: Jeff Nickell, Director, Kern County Museum

          Everybody knows a little something about the Bakersfield Sound, whether you grew up listening to tunes of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens or you moved here and learned a thing or two about your new hometown. But who knew that one of those kids listening to KUZZ in the back seat of his parents’ Ford Galaxy would one day write a book about some of the very artists he was hearing through the speakers?Fans of the heavy-beat country sound — or even fans of Kern County history — are sure to enjoy “Hard Drivin’ Country: The Honky Tonks, Musicians, and Legends of the Bakersfield Sound,” which celebrates the people and places that had a part in creating the Central Valley’s unique brand of music. The likes of Cousin Herb Henson, Bill Woods, Billy Mize, Oscar Whittington, Tommy Hays, Jimmy Phillips and many more are featured. This book gives long overdue credit to the musicians and singers who played in the honky-tonks, ballrooms and wherever they could play and sing but never achieved national stardom. One such person is Gene Moles. Moles was such a talent that Nashville guitar pickers starting copying his style. Having turned down a multiyear contract with Capitol Records, he never achieved the level of success of other pickers because he was unwilling to tour and leave his family behind. Another Bakersfield Sound star was Billy Mize, who began playing on KBAK’s “The Chuck Wagon Gang” in the 1950s with Cliff Crofford. He had already begun performing on the “Trading Post Gang”when Cousin Herb had his fatal heart attack, and he took over as the show’s host. He also hosted “Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch” for a time and, for two years, hosted both shows, racking up more than 3,000 miles per week driving between Bakersfield and Los Angeles. Mize won the Academy of Country Music’sTV Personality of Year from 1965-1967. Along with recording for Columbia, Decca, United Artists, Zodiac and other record labels, he, like many of the Bakersfield Sound crowd, was also an excellent songwriter. Vern Gosdin reached No. 1 on the country music charts with “Just Enough to Keep Me Hangin’ On,” a song credited to Mize. Dean Martin also recorded three of his songs, including “Terrible Tangled Web.”  “Hard Drivin’ Country” also highlights some of the famous hangouts where these musicians perfected their craft, including the well-known Blackboard Cafe as well as others that have not received the national recognition they probably deserved, such as the Beardsley Ballroom, the Pumpkin Center Barn Dance and Rainbow Gardens. The television shows that also put these musicians on the map — including “The Trading Post,” “The Jimmy Thomason Show” and “The Dave Stogner Show” — are also given their due. The best part of putting the book together was that it gave me the opportunity to sit down with Jimmy Phillips and Tommy Hays to hear them tell their stories about the Bakersfield Sound and people they met throughout their careers. Jimmy Phillips, who played drums on several records and performed on KERO-TV’s “The Jimmy Thomason Show,” said “the Bakersfield Sound really got its start in 1949 or 1950. He added that Bill Woods was at the forefront of the movement and that Woods is known as the “Father of the Bakersfield Sound.”  The book is also packed with historic photos, some of which I did not even realize we had in our collection. (That’s not surprising since the collection includes more than 400,000 images.) A couple of the photos are of Merle Haggard and Bonnie Owens taken in January 1965 by Dorman Photography during a photo shoot for Tally Records. These images were unearthed some time back while locating photos for a Time Life compilation on Haggard. With thousands of Bakersfield Sound images in the archives, co-author (and Kern County Museum public program manager) Sarah Woodman shined, not only hunting down images in other sections of the collection, but also researching people in the photographs, providing names where we had not known them before. Then she, along with collections curator Lori Wear, proofed the book. Both Sarah and I were excited when Buddy Alan Owens agreed to write the foreword and Robert Price from The Bakersfield Californian agreed to pen the afterword. The book, published by the museum, was sponsored in part by the Bakersfield Country Music Museum and KUZZ. If it were not for their generosity this book may not have been published.