Need inspiration writing a hit rockabilly song? Use this guide to find yourself some country solace. The Bakersfield Sound Tour lets fearless music history lovers find stomping grounds of the artists that made it happen
By ROBERT PRICE
Originally published Oct. 9, 2005
There's something about physical proximity to history. Whether it's the poignant calm of the battlefield at Gettysburg or the bustle of the Manhattan sidewalk outside John Lennon's Dakota building, there's something curiously magnetic about places where fame (or infamy) once passed.
Many people are willing to spend time and money to walk where celebrities, variously defined, have walked. Even, in some cases, if the celebrity only walked there in his bathrobe to pick up the morning newspaper.
Got your camera? You can tour movie stars' homes in and around Hollywood, Malibu, Beverly Hills, Newport Beach and Palm Springs. You can take Chicago's Untouchables Tour and visit scenes of assorted mob hits. You can even touch the hallowed Harlem asphalt where hip-hop music was born. Just wash your hands afterward.
Very soon you'll also be able to visit the spots where the Bakersfield Sound, that trebly, concrete-floored strain of distinctly American music, was born half a century ago.
Don Yaeger, president of the Bakersfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, is making plans to market a self-guided tour of Bakersfield-area spots of note: the converted boxcar in Oildale where Merle Haggard grew up, tough and wild; the broom closet-sized building near Baker Street where a third-tier country star named Buck Owens recorded rockabilly records under a pseudonym; even the long-defunct dance club where performers like Lefty Frizzell inspired a generation of young, poor Oklahoma transplants -- including some who played guitar.
It's all part of The Bakersfield Sound Tour, a self-guided, distinctly unglamorous excursion through central Kern County.
Yeager wants to put together a CD of Bakersfield music from those days that coordinates with the driving tour. After five years on the job, fielding phone calls from country-music fans, he believes there'd be considerable demand.
"If you look at how many times our phone rings and people are asking 'What nights does Buck perform?' -- that's something," Yaeger says.
"When you look at how Buck got his start in these local clubs and the fact that Merle Haggard grew up here, and that fact that so many others lived and performed all through this city, I think there is a tourism component there. Most major markets have embraced their history and culture in some way and we ought to, too.
"Is everybody going to want to come and see the little studio where Buck Owens recorded? No. But it's a large enough group that it deserves some attention."
The idea is to give fans of the music a reason to visit this city. While they're here, they'll presumably want to stay in our hotels, dine in our restaurants and bring home the T-shirts to prove it.
You don't need the visitors bureau or its CD to take the tour, of course. A copy of Gerald Haslam's outstanding "Workin' Man Blues" or The Californian's 1997 series on the Bakersfield Sound (still accessible online), along with a 1959 Bakersfield telephone book, works just as well.
Another option, since 1959 telephone books are generally hard to come by: Buddy up to Mitch Stiles.
He doesn't give speeches or presentations, but Stiles, who works in the music business, is an amateur Bakersfield Sound historian with few peers. How serious is he about local music landmarks? He bought Buck Owens' house on Panorama Drive in 1996 and lived in it for four years.
And he's been giving tours of Bakersfield Sound locales -- occasionally chauffeuring country-music stars on return-to-Mecca pilgrimages -- for nine years.
He is working with Yeager and music-biz acquaintances to procure rights to songs with actual relationships to stops on the tour. For example, the iconic, Max Fidler/Joe and Rose Lee Maphis-penned "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)," which tourists would hear when they pull up alongside the famed Bakersfield honky-tonk that inspired it, the Blackboard.
That is, if the Blackboard hadn't been torn down four years ago by its owners -- the management of the Kern County Museum, of all people.
More on that later.
Here, in no particular order, are some of the tour highlights, along with Stiles' suggestions for matching musical accompaniment.
* The Bakersfield sign, 2800 Buck Owens Blvd. The original sign, actually a footbridge, spanned Union Avenue just south of California Avenue from the late '40s. It was torn down several years ago, but Buck Owens preserved the blue porcelain letters and had them attached to his own re-creation outside his Crystal Palace dinner club.
While you're here, go inside the Crystal Palace for a plate of Okie fries. The place is a full-scale museum of Buck Owens memorabilia, complete with a stunning collection of larger-than-life bronze statues of country museums giants, including Owens, Haggard and Johnny Cash. Owens still performs here live most Friday and Saturday nights.
In its original location, the Bakersfield sign was the unofficial entrance to the city. Ask any of the Dust Bowl folk what that sign meant to them and you'll get the picture.
Song: "Streets of Bakersfield" -- but Owens' original, 1972 album track, not the overplayed (and more successful) remake with Dwight Yoakam.
* Tommy Collins' house, a white-with-green-trim two-story at the northwest corner of 21st and Pine streets. Don't bother the occupants -- just park across the street and imagine Collins, the great tragic figure of the Bakersfield Sound era, strumming on the veranda.
Collins, whose real name was Leonard Sipes, had a solid run as a recording artist and a great career as a songwriter. Merle Haggard recorded more than 30 of his songs and Owens another dozen. His most noteworthy songwriting credit, "If You Ain't Lovin', You Ain't Livin'," recorded by George Strait and dozens of others, made him a small fortune.
But Collins was tortured by the fact that he never hit it as big as his proteges, Owens and Haggard -- his lovely Westchester neighborhood mini-estate notwithstanding.
Song: "You Better Not Do That" by Tommy Collins.
* Bakersfield Civic Auditorium, 1001 Truxtun Ave. It's now called Rabobank Theater, but this is the same place where in September 1963 Capitol Records recorded the "Country Music Hootenanny" live album featuring Collins, Owens, Haggard, Cousin Herb Henson, Glen Campbell and many other popular Bakersfield Sound artists. It was here, at that show, that Capitol A&R man Ken Nelson "discovered" Haggard.
On the recording, Tommy Collins has a couple of great lines: "It's great being here with you tonight. ... Of course, I only live over yonder a couple of blocks. I'm from Maine. The main part of Oklahoma."
Song: "I Got Mine" by Tommy Collins (live version from the "Country Music Hootenanny" album).
* Tally Records, 601 E. 18th St., at the corner of Truxtun Avenue and Kern Street. When Lewis Talley and Charles "Fuzzy" Owen launched their own record label, Tally Records, in 1954, this was their first recording studio. They only stayed here about three months, but that was long enough to get Buck Owens on vinyl singing a couple of rockabilly songs. Nashville was touchy about rock 'n' roll's potential to steal its fans, and it frowned on country singers adopting rock styles. Owens, fearing he'd be blackballed, used a pseudonym: Corky Jones. The old studio, vacant for at least eight years, was most recently an upholstery shop. A very small upholstery shop.
Song: Buck Owens/Corky Jones: "Rhythm and Booze."
* Tally Records, versions two and three. Talley and Owen moved their recording studio to Baker Street, next door to Saba's Men Store, in 1955. It was there in early 1956 that Owen and Talley recorded a Bakersfield rock 'n' roller named Wally Lewis. His song "Kathleen," leased for production and distribution to another company, was issued as a 78 rpm record for Dot. We can find no evidence it actually charted, as has been claimed, but it was one of Tally's first modest successes.
A few months later Tally Records moved to the garage of Talley's house at 419 Hazel St. That would have been convenient for both Talley and Owen, since they lived next door to each other. Whether the other neighbors found it convenient is a matter lost to history. (Again, don't bother the present occupants. In fact, you'd better not even get out of the car.)
Merle Haggard, Tally Records' first and biggest signing, recorded "Skid Row" for them in 1962. It was his first recording. (Update: Conflicting records about "Skid Row": It may have been recorded as Dave Bell's studio, presumably with the Tally Records boys on hand.)
Song: "Skid Row" by Merle Haggard.
* Rainbow Gardens, 2301 S. Union Ave. It's now the Basque Club, but back in the early 1950s, the Rainbow Gardens was an all-ages dance hall. It's where Buck Owens and Merle Haggard first saw their idols, Bob Wills and Lefty Frizzell, the two spiritual grandfathers of the Bakersfield Sound. That legendary hillbilly outfit from Alabama (by way of Modesto), the Maddox Brothers and Rose, played here too, as did Ferlin Husky, who in many ways got the whole scene started.
Haggard, still just a teen, had an impromptu audition with Frizzell here prior to a show. Frizzell was so impressed he allowed Haggard to go on stage first as his opening act.
Songs: "San Antonio Rose" by Bob Wills and "If You've Got The Money" by Lefty Frizzell.
* The Lucky Spot, 2303 Edison Highway. Now they call it the Empty Spot. Well, they ought to. The old honky-honk where Bonnie Owens (former wife of both Buck Owens and Merle Haggard) sang lustily has been torn down to make way for a parking lot. It's the only building on the block that's gone.
The Lucky Spot, Stiles says, is "one of the two spots, along with the Blackboard, where the Bakersfield Sound was forged. When the Blackboard and the Lucky Spot were torn down within a few years of each other, I gave up agitating that Bakersfield Sound sites be preserved. It was clear that no one gave a (hoot)."
Song: "A Bar in Bakersfield" by Merle Haggard .
* The Weedpatch Labor Camp, 8301 Sunset Blvd., just south of Lamont's Sunset School. Also called the Sunset Labor Camp, just three of the original buildings remain. Parts of the labor camp were used in filming for the 1940 movie "The Grapes of Wrath."
It's not much to look at today but it still brings out powerful emotions in many of the people who grew up here. Homely or not, it is the scene of an annual Dust Bowl Festival every fall (see inset).
"I have taken several film industry people out there and they practically have a religious experience when they see those buildings," Stiles says.
Song: "They're Tearin' the Labor Camps Down" by Merle Haggard.
* Hillcrest Cemetery, 9101 Kern Canyon Road. Don Rich, who sang high harmony on so many of Buck Owens' hits, died in a 1974 motorcycle accident, marking the end of the Buckaroos' most productive years. Rich is buried here in a modest grave. "Buck will tell you this: Don was as seminal a part of Buck's sound as Buck," Stiles says. "Don was extraordinary."
Bill Woods, a musician, DJ and entrepreneur who gave Owens one of his first jobs at the Blackboard playing guitar, is buried nearby.
Song: "Soft Rain" by Don Rich (from a live recording on KUZZ).
* Merle Haggard's mansion, 18200 Highway 178. Hag's old mansion near the mouth of the Kern Canyon is now the Anne Sippi Clinic, a private medical facility. Tours are decidedly discouraged, but you can get a feel for the surroundings where Haggard lived throughout most of the 1970s. This is the place he called home during his heyday.
Song: "Kern River" by Merle Haggard.
* China Grade Loop. The top of the China Grade Loop coming east from Oildale was a point of inspiration for Tommy Collins, who sat in a car parked alongside the road here and wrote "High On A Hilltop," which became a hit for his friend Haggard.
Song: "High On A Hilltop" by Merle Haggard.
* The Lucky Spot, 2303 Edison Highway. Now they call it the Empty Spot. Well, they ought to. The old honky-honk where Bonnie Owens (former wife of both Buck Owens and Merle Haggard) sang lustily has been torn down to make way for a parking lot. It's the only building on the block that's gone.
The Lucky Spot, Stiles says, is "one of the two spots, along with the Blackboard, where the Bakersfield Sound was forged. When the Blackboard and the Lucky Spot were torn down within a few years of each other, I gave up agitating that Bakersfield Sound sites be preserved. It was clear that no one gave a (hoot)."
Song: "A Bar in Bakersfield" by Merle Haggard .
* Buck's house, 309 Panorama Drive. Buck Owens lived in this large, ranch-style house overlooking the Panorama Bluffs during his "Hee-Haw" years, 1968-1974. It was also where Owens was living when he had his final No. 1 hit, "Made in Japan," prior to his comeback hit with Dwight Yoakam in 1989 on "Streets of Bakersfield." Don't bother the occupants.
Song: "Made in Japan" by Buck Owens.
* Beer Can Hill, 5001 N. Chester Ave. Actually, that's the address of Bakersfield Speedway, the dirt racing track north in Oildale. Beer Can Hill, a cultural touchstone for many Bakersfield Sound-era participants (translation: a good place to loll about and drink beer), is just north. The hangout was the inspiration for the only recording to ever feature Haggard and Owens together.
Song: "Beer Can Hill" by Merle Haggard, Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam.
* Buck's North Chester studio, 1213 North Chester Ave. This was Buck's headquarters back in the heyday, a place where Buck and Hag laid down many of their recordings in the late 1970s.
It's now Fat Tracks, a recording studio with an odd link to Bakersfield music: It's run by Rick Davis, father of Korn lead singer Jonathan Davis.
Song: "If We Make It Through December" by Merle Haggard, who recorded the song in that studio.
* Hag's boxcar, 1303 Yosemite Drive. This small, exceedingly modest house in Oildale is the Holy Grail of any Bakersfield Sound tour. It's the place all songwriters want to visit. Hag mentions it as the influence for many of his classic songs. His long-suffering mother Flossie lived here for years after he left home for trouble and fame.
Song: "Mama Tried" by Merle Haggard.
* Trout's, 805 N. Chester. This is perhaps the last authentic Bakersfield Sound-era bar. It was originally a bar/cafe, but Vern Hoover, who bought Trout's in 1956, says that fiddler player/guitarist/TV host Jelly Sanders, one of the great sidemen of the Bakersfield Sound era, started playing here regularly around 1970.
Keyboardist-songwriter Red Simpson still plays here every Monday night. Ask and he'll probably play some of the greatest Bakersfield Sound songs of the period -- Simpson-penned tunes like "You Don't Have Very Far To Go," recorded by Haggard, and "Close Up the Honky Tonks," recorded by Owens. Simpson had a dozen hits of his own too, many in the truck-driving sub-genre popular in the early- to mid-'60s.
Song: "I'm A Truck" by Red Simpson (also known informally as "Hello, I'm a Truck").
* The Blackboard, 3801 Chester Ave.. At least that would be the address if the most famous honky-tonk in Bakersfield history were still standing. It was knocked down the week of Sept. 7, 2001, to make way for expansion of the Kern Country Museum.
Let's run that by one more time: The Blackboard, a museum piece in and of itself, was knocked down by its landlord -- the Kern County Museum -- which also happens to run a country-music museum with considerably less street visibility.
Whatever.
The empty lot where the Blackboard stood, about 200 yards south of 3801 Chester Ave., is still an empty lot.
As long as you're here, though, park and check out the museum, which has a number of intriguing rarities, including one of Merle Haggard's more tastefully sequined stage jackets and Joe Maphis' double-necked, built-in-Bakersfield Mosrite guitar. Stiles' song selection for this tour stop was written and recorded by Maphis, who was inspired by a gig at the low-ceilinged, poorly ventilated Blackboard.
Song: "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)" by Joe and Rose Lee Maphis and Max Fidler.
* Wait! There's more. We could go on but we won't. But if we could, we'd suggest tour stops such as:
The Clover Club, 2611 Edison Highway, just down the street from the Lucky Spot. Bonnie Owens was among the local stars who worked here. For the cast of Cousin Herb's "Trading Post" TV show, this was home base.
Louie Talley Cafe, 2111 Edison Highway. The music entrepreneur was also in the coffee-shop business, and he made a go of it at several locations, including this spot just down the street from those two Edison highway honky-tonks. A few years later he ran a cafe in the Padre Hotel.
Tex's Barrel House, 1524 Golden State Highway. It's now the Deju Vu strip club but in the 1950s and '60s it was a lively country juke joint.
Buck's old houses. Back when Owens was sufficiently unknown to list his home address in the phone book, he listed 206 Harding Ave. and 204 Jones St. at various times.
KUZZ Studios, 910 Chester Ave. In 1960, Valley Radio Corp. bought KIKK radio, switched its format to country music and hired Cousin Herb as president and general manager. The station's call letters were changed to KUZZ to play on Henson's celebrity, and Cousin Herb, whose TV show continued to make him a fixture in living rooms throughout the Central Valley, became "Kuzzin Herb."
Freddy G's Cafe, 3331 State Road. This is the cafe that rowdy teen Merle Haggard tried to burglarize at 3 a.m., stone drunk, one night in December 1957 -- despite the fact it was still open for business. His arrest, along with his previous record of incorrigibility, led to his incarceration at San Quentin Prison. Today the cafe is an insurance office.
There. Feel the giddy chill of proximity to greatness? Try rolling up the windows. If that doesn't work, buy yourself another Bakersfield Sound T-shirt.
18 ESSENTIAL SONGS
Bakersfield Sound historian Mitch Stiles lists 18 songs that aptly tell the story of a defining era in local music:
1. "Streets of Bakersfield" - Buck Owens (original 1972 version)
2. "Close Up The Honky Tonks" - Buck Owens [written by Red
Simpson]
3. "Kern River" - Merle Haggard
4. "They're Tearin' The Labor Camps Down" - Merle Haggard [refer-
ences the present Sunset Labor Camp near Arvin]
5. "If We Make It Through December" - Merle Haggard [recorded
in Buck's North Chester studio]
6. "I'm A Truck" - Red Simpson [Red's biggest hit as a
recording artist]
7. "LA International Airport" - Susan Raye
8. "You Better Not Do That" - Tommy Collins
9. "Absence of You" - Billy Mize
10. "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)" - Joe and
Rose Lee Maphis
11. "Apartment #9" - Bobby Austin
12. "Hi-Fi To Cry By" - Bonnie Owens
13. "Don't Throw Me No Roses" - Lewis Talley & The Whackers
14. "Lookin' Back to See" - Fuzzy Owen with Bonnie Owens
15. "Y'All Come" - Cousin Herb
16. "Truck Drivin' Man" - Bill Woods
17. "Bakersfield Bound" - Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen
18. "Greetings From Bakersfield" - The Wichitas
There aren't many places left in Bakersfield to partake of Bakersfield Sound culture, but here are two:
* Dust Bowl Festival, every October: Sunset School, 8301 Sunset Blvd., Weedpatch, typically 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Music, food, artifacts and authors. Back in 2005, the guest authors were Jerry Stanley, Gerald Haslam and Elizabeth Strickland. Corner one of them, or any of several former Sunset Labor Camp residents expected to be on hand, and learn more about the connections between the Dust Bowl migration and the music that made Bakersfield famous. Free.
* Trout's Cocktail Lounge, 805 N. Chester Ave., Oildale. Ever wonder what a Saturday night at the Blackboard or the Lucky Spot might have been like? These are the people who can tell you, because most of them were there, either on stage or out on the dance floor. Trout's occasionally hosts benefits for old-time performers from the day, because honky-tonks generally don't have 401 (k) plans.
* Crystal Palace. The late Buck Owens used to play most weekends at the Crystal Palace. These days you can catch his son Buddy Owens twice a week, in between local and national acts.
(Update: The Chamber of Commerce tour described in the story never came off as planned -- the marketing of it, I mean. But be not discouraged! Who needs 'em? You can still take this tour. All you need is a navigator who can read a Kern County street map, a couple of hours or so, and a box ' o CDs. Have at it, and let me know how it goes.)
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