Buck Owens died in 2006. Twenty years later, his beloved Crystal Palace, recently announced its closing. Without attracting a buyer, the 550-seat, highway-side venue and restaurant, a shrine to Owens and his impact on country music and the town he lived in for most of his life, will shut its doors forever.

The Crystal Palace was not an original venue nor an originator of the Bakersfield Sound. True to its name, it was a cleaned-up and much larger version of the honky tonks and bars that Owens, Merle Haggard, Red Simpson, Bonnie Owens, Kay Adams and so many others came up in through the middle of the twentieth century. Today it is more of a country music superstore along the freeway than an authentic, historically accurate example of the venues that shaped this music. Should folks be trying to save it?

Spending time in Bakersfield doesn’t leave room for interpretation. The small city center, speckled with restaurants, bars, and hotels, all run-down and yet seemingly too modern for the Central Valley town, presents well for a place nestled in such an unforgiving landscape. The heat in the summer, the haze in the winter, and the omnipresent lack of opportunity can overwhelm even the most strident seeker of country music history.

Poverty is more prevalent in the region than in other sections of Southern California, with the unemployment rate reaching nearly twice the state average. Looking backward today, observers may be tempted to paint a more bucolic picture of a traditional farming and oil community giving birth to a worldwide phenomenon, but today’s hard-knock existence comes to the city honestly, and even at the peak of the Bakersfield Sound period, these characteristics played a major role in fostering the environment that nurtured the bare-knuckled, aggressive and loud reaction to Nashville.

Bakersfield’s seminal role in country music ended when the establishment adopted the sounds of California’s Central Valley into its acoustic lexicon. So unlike Nashville, Bakersfield didn’t continue to evolve and grow with country music. The revolution was televised, and then it didn’t really matter anymore. Its shrines still stand but bear the wear of the unrelenting Central Valley sun.

Soda Crackers recording Two-Step Solution at the Grange. credit: Felip Adamo

However, modern country music would not exist without Kern County’s reactionary movement. Screaming telecasters, banging drums and amplification of everything had its start in Bakersfield’s honky tonks like The Blackboard Cafe, Trouts and Bob’s Lucky Spot, among several others. These venues and rockabilly-influenced production were indispensable in the growth of the Bakersfield Sound and modern country music.

“This was the hub and capital for live country music back in the day,” said 32-year-old Zane Adamo, leader of the Bakersfield-based Soda Crackers. The band plays mostly classic Bakersfield songs from the 1940s to the 1960s, though they do have two originals available on streaming services and a 45 record. “We didn’t have the recording business like LA did, but we sure did have the venues,” he said. “There were also nearly a dozen honky tonks and a handful of dance halls in town open seven days a week with real dance floors playing country music 365 days a year.”

Today, live music can be found on the weekends in Bakersfield, and there are only a few venues in town that boast a real dance floor. “None of our historic honky tonks are around anymore,” Adamo said. “It’s not as easy as you’d think it would be to find a country band playing any given night.”

Looking Back. Moving Forward.

Most of those who came up with the biggest names of this period have passed away, but a few are still alive and making music. Sonny Anglin, a sideman who played in those historic honky tonks and bars that kept this sound going at home as the Bakersfield Sound went national, wrote a few songs in his day. One was recorded by current Bakersfield country artist Devyn Brinsfield.

“I’m a Truck Drivin’ Pool Shootin’ Son-of-a-Gun” is a wonderful, updated version of a classic, truck-driving song that defined a significant portion of the late Bakersfield Sound period.  Brinsfield worked with Anglin to record this single, which is available on streaming services. 

photo courtesy of devynbrinsfield.com

Brinsfield has a new Bakersfield Sound, even if he would prefer not to restrict his artistic expression with specific terminology. “I’m starting to get to the point where I don’t wanna define anything in music except what’s art and what is not,” he said. His voice echoes the deep-dark tones of early Sturgill Simpson and a bit of the punk sound that roughed up the edges of Dwight Yoakam, and his music would be fit as well in an Oildale honky tonk as a Laurel Canyon coffee shop. It’s California country at its core.

Over the course of several years, Brinsfield got to know Anglin, who shared a song he had written with Jerry Reed’s bass player. “It sounded like a Waylon song, and I love Waylon,” he said. “So I asked Sonny if we could cut it, and he said yes. It was years in the making and one day in the studio, and it turned out so great.” With Kyle Appleton, another mainstay of present-day Bakersfield country music, on the production and Telecaster, the song opens a door to the past while pushing the sound forward. The traditional influences of the first wave of Bakersfield revolt were simply what these artists liked from childhood.

photo courtesy of Adolfo Mendoza

Much like Brinsfield loved Waylon Jennings, the Mendeoza brothers grew up listening to classic California country. Adolfo Mendoza, the 23-year-old lead singer and rhythm guitarist of Los Hermanos Mendoza, a Bakersfield-based classic country outfit with a distinct Mexican flair, explained that his grandfather worked in the fields of the Central Valley. When he returned to Mexico, he brought home cassette tapes of Owens and Yoakam. His mother loved the music. 

After the youngest was born, the family moved from Ventura, California, to Bakersfield, and the three brothers were surrounded by these classic sounds. “Whenever we were in the car or listening at home, it was KUZZ or KCWR,” two of the strongest country radio stations in the region, said Adolfo. “It was a Buck Christmas every year in our house.”

“Ninety percent of what we cover is what we listened to growing up,” said 21-year-old Beto, who holds down the backbeat on the stand-up bass. “More people need to hear it.” Turns out, folks are interested in these classic yet updated versions of the California canon. Los Hermanos Mendoza recently published a collection of live recordings from some of their biggest influences. Live Sessions includes music by Roger Miller, Eddit Rabbit and, of course, Owens. 

Their live shows sell out across Central and Southern California, attracting people of all ages and ethnicities. “We have 11-year-old Mexican kids in cowboy hats standing next to 80-year-old white guys, singing all the words together,” said Jose, the eldest Mendoza and lead guitar player. This acceptance is the same response the original Bakersfield Sound players received and for the same reason: people want to listen to this kind of music, explained Adolfo. “We like the gritty live sound. In one way or another, this is a revolt against modern country music.”

photo courtesy of buckowens.com

Misremembered Memory

With a younger generation showing interest in this music, it’s not surprising that new venues, like Roster Honky Tonk and the 18th Street Bar and Grill, and some old ones, are attracting smaller touring acts and regular locals to their stages.

“The Nile Theater is back as a mid-size venue in the heart of downtown, and the Fairfax Grange is starting to gain its footing as the last live music dance hall left in Bakersfield,” said Adamo of the Soda Crackers. “That being said, it is tough here and you’ve really gotta work hard and people want to hear the music that came from here first and foremost,” he admitted. “Original artists need to win over Bakersfieldians and show that they know where they’re playing. Gotta throw a few Buck and Merle songs in there.”

Collective memory, which is apt to misremember certain aspects of history, smoothing the rougher aspects of our past, allows Buck Owens to be mentioned in the same breath as, say, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Chet Atkins or any of the other stars of the Nashville Sound period, but that was a tough road for Owens and the other stars of the Bakersfield Sound era. There was a reason it took the Grand Ole Opry so many years to invite Owens to the party, and he went so far as to turn down the invitation.

So, it’s fitting that “The Streets of Bakersfield” has remained one of the period’s most enduring anthems, as it captures a lot about the rougher aspects of the city, even today. Homer Joy wrote this song in large part because Owens wouldn’t give him the time of day. As the story goes, Joy came to work with Owens and his Buckeroos but was ignored and insulted. Not one to give up, he came back to the studio day after day, only to be brushed aside by the manager. One night, he was walking around the city, in new boots, to blow off steam. He was so pissed off and his feet hurt so much, he went back to his motel and wrote this song.

The next day, Joy played it for the studio manager and then Owens, who ran with the song, leaving Joy with a paycheck and not much else. Owens released the song in 1973 without much fanfare, but re-recorded it with Dwight Yoakam in 1988, which took the song to number one on the Billboard Country Music charts. This revolution had its share of winners and losers over the years. And even as the monuments to its place within the history of country music fall, as demand for the music changes, the Bakersfield Sound remains integral to modern country music.