Robert E. Price - The Bakersfield Sound: How a Generation of Displaced Okies Revolutionized American Music

Praise for Robert E. Prices work and The Bakersfield Sound:

This book all but reads itself. Prices sense of history, his command of facts, his sense of humor, his sensitivity to class and race, and a love of the musicits all here.Greil Marcus

I have never seen anything equal to it. The depth to which [Robert Price] took it has not been approached to my knowledge. [Prices] dedication to detail [and] enthusiasm to the task was apparent throughout.Buck Owens

Price weaves a savvy blend of personal anecdotes and broader historical narrative in this work. The books greatest asset is this local flavor; the author excels when describing barkeeps, backing musicians, and the relationships between them.Kirkus Reviews

Its clear that [Price] has a great respect and appreciation for the material. This is some of the finest work on the Bakersfield Sound Ive ever read. Maybe the finest work.Ken Nelson, Country Music Hall of Fame producer for Capitol Records

This is absolutely THE defining book about Bakersfield. Until something else happens there, this is it. Its beautiful. The preface alone was worth the price of admission.Marty Stuart, recording artist and past president, Country Music Association

Seldom does a truly definitive book come along on any subject, but Robert Price has bucked the odds to produce one here. The Bakersfield Sound is original, comprehensive and accurate. It is also crisply written, so it is a pleasure to read. The author provides the why as well as the who and what of Bakersfields unexpected musical prominence in the second half of the twentieth century, offering perspectives that reach beyond the music scene toward deeper cultural roots. Unambiguously recommended.Gerald W. Haslam, author of Workin Man Blues: Country Music in California

A fascinating story well told.Randy Poe, coauthor of Buck Em!: The Autobiography of Buck Owens, Grammy-nominated record producer and president of Leiber & Stoller Music Publishing

Prices writing, though incredibly detailed and painstakingly researched, never bogs down in academic dullness; you can tell hes a passionate fan. If you werent already a fan, Prices encyclopedic scope will have you seeking out the music of Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, Merle Haggard and the Strangers, and other Bakersfield stars. Put them on while you enjoy the book, and youll be transported to a time of pure American music.Blue Ink Review

An entertaining piece of music history, essential for those of us who are fans of outlaw country and its greatest San Joaquin Valley musicians, Merle Haggard and the late Buck Owens. But the book also says something more profoundand troublingabout how places come to be hotbeds of a particular enterprise, and how they can lose that identity.Joe Mathews, Zcalo Public Square

This is an inside look that includes anecdotes about legends like Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, and Johnny Cash. In addition to musicians, the book honors the venues, instruments, and promoters who empowered them. But more than merely recounting facts, the book captures the vitality of the era, and shows how it shaped music in later decades. The Bakersfield Sound, like music itself, has the power to move people in surprising ways.Foreword Reviews

The book is not just your average run of the mill information on the usual suspectsBuck and Merlebut digs deeply into the tangled web that is the Bakersfield Sound. [It includes] the many characters, locations, and aspects that make up that West Coast California sound that is hard to not love.Amanda Eichstaedt, executive director of KWMR, West Marin Community Radio

[The Bakersfield Sound] just got moved to the top of my reading list!

Chris Shiflett, Foo Fighters

You sure covered it pretty good.Red Simpson

Copyright 2015 by Robert E. Price

First Heyday edition, 2018

First published by iUniverse in 2015

All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from Heyday.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017958676

Cover photo courtesy of Bill Ray/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Cover Design: Ashley Ingram

Interior Design/Typesetting: Glenn Hammett

Orders, inquiries, and correspondence should be addressed to:

Heyday

P.O. Box 9145, Berkeley, CA 94709

(510) 549-3564, Fax (510) 549-1889

www.heydaybooks.com

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Marty Stuart

I formed my first band when I was nine years old. The group was founded on a three-chord song with catchy words and a simple melody. Tiger by the Tail was the song.

It was the first piece that I learned to play on my Teisco Del Rey electric guitar. My best friend Butch Hodgins and his brother Ricky were my bandmates. Their mother, Jane, was the one who showed me where to put my fingers on the fretboard in order to bring forth the song from inside of that little hollow-body Japanese guitar.

A set list of the songs played by this neighborhood band of kids is on display at Buck Owenss Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. The Buckaroos Band Hall seemed a fitting home for the document. They were the band that inspired our group to get into show business, eventually leading us to become the biggest country music stars on Route 8, Kosciusko Road, in Neshoba County, Mississippi.

After a show or two, I knew that I needed a Fender guitar. I wanted to get that California sound that Roy Nichols had going with Merle Haggard and the Strangers. Luther Perkins had a similar sound that gave Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three a unique identity. The twangy solos played by Don Rich on Buck Owens records lit me up and made me feel like doing the happy dance all the way to the Pacific Ocean and back. Those three musiciansNichols, Perkins, and Richinspired me to play my guitar every day.

My heart and mind were on fire for music. My fingers seemed to always want to play, and I liked the feeling. I woke up every day hoping that the mystery gift was still there, and as each day passed I wanted more and more of its magic.

I have such fond recollections of those warm southern days of 1967. That was the summer that a musical explosion of seismic proportions occurred inside of me and rained down enough music to last a lifetime.

In reading the profiles and biographies of my country music heroes from that era, I learned that most of them shared common backgrounds as country folks: rags-to-rhinestone stories that began in cotton field after cotton field with hard work the common rite of passage to the spotlight.

That was the story at our house. Hard work was a fact of life. My dad was a factory worker and my mother worked as a bank teller. When the subject of me getting a new guitar crossed the dinner table, the answer was earn it. It took some work, but by late summer I had earned enough yard-cutting money to purchase a used Dakota Red Fender Mustang along with a Fender Prince-ton amplifier.

From the moment I brought them home, I believed myself to be a member of the club. When I put that guitar around my neck and sang Tiger by the Tail, Folsom Prison Blues, or Branded Man, I felt empowered. Special. Set apart. In my mind I was Merle, Johnny, and Bucks representative, their ambassador way down in the backwoods of Central Mississippi.