Bakersfield: The Oil Town Where Country Music Got Its Sound
Bakersfield is California's Texas - an oil town at the southern end of the Central Valley, populated by descendants of Dust Bowl refugees who brought Oklahoma and Texas culture to the Golden State. The 'Bakersfield Sound' that Buck Owens and Merle Haggard created in the 1950s and 60s was country music's twangy, electric alternative to Nashville's polished productions. The oil that pumps from the Kern River field has sustained the economy for over a century. The politics are conservative in ways that baffle coastal Californians - Kevin McCarthy represented Bakersfield, and the district stays red while the state stays blue. Bakersfield is the other California, the one that Fox News interviews when they want to show that not everyone in the state agrees with San Francisco.
The Sound
The Bakersfield Sound emerged in the 1950s from the honky-tonks where Dust Bowl refugees gathered - the sharp twang of Telecaster guitars, the stripped-down production, the working-class lyrics that Nashville's string-laden arrangements couldn't accommodate. Buck Owens and Merle Haggard were the stars; their bands were the sound. Owens owned KUZZ radio and the Crystal Palace (his museum and performance venue); Haggard brought outlaw credibility and a catalogue of classic songs. The Sound influenced everything that followed - the Dwight Yoakam revival, the alt-country movement, the recognition that country music had alternatives to Nashville's mainstream.
The Oil
The Kern River Oil Field, discovered in 1899, is one of America's largest. The derricks dot the hills around Bakersfield, the pumps nodding continuously, the industry employing thousands in extraction and refining. Bakersfield is California's oil capital - the production that the state depends on while officially moving away from fossil fuels. The oil industry creates the blue-collar culture that distinguishes Bakersfield from the service economies that dominate coastal California. The jobs pay well; the politics align with fossil fuel interests; the city knows where its prosperity comes from.
The Okies
The Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s brought hundreds of thousands of refugees from Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas to California - 'Okies' in the derogatory term that Steinbeck documented in 'The Grapes of Wrath.' Many settled in the southern Central Valley, where agricultural work was available and the culture felt familiar. Their descendants retained the evangelical Christianity, the country music, the conservative politics that they brought from the Plains. Bakersfield's culture is Okie culture three generations removed, the Oklahoma values transplanted to California and persisting against the state's liberal drift.
The Heat
Bakersfield's summer heat is among the most extreme in California - 100°F is routine, 110°F is not unusual, the Central Valley trapping heat between mountain ranges. The heat combined with the agricultural dust creates air quality as bad as Fresno's. The mountains are visible on good days, invisible when the haze settles in. The heat explains why land is cheap, why the population grows despite the climate, why anyone seeking affordable California ends up tolerating conditions that coastal residents would reject.
Visiting Bakersfield
Bakersfield is served by Meadows Field Airport (BFL). The Crystal Palace presents Buck Owens's legacy with nightly performances and museum displays. The Kern County Museum covers oil and agricultural history. The Padre Hotel downtown has been restored to stylish accommodation. The Murray Family Farms offers agritourism experiences. For food, the Basque restaurants (Wool Growers, Noriega's) reflect the Basque sheepherding community; Dewar's Ice Cream is a local institution. The heat is extreme May through September; spring is best. Bakersfield rewards visitors who appreciate country music history and California's complicated geography.
From the Air
Located at 35.37°N, 119.02°W at the southern end of California's Central Valley where the Sierra Nevada meets the Tehachapi Mountains. From altitude, Bakersfield appears as urban development amid oil fields and farms - the derricks visible on the hills, the agricultural grid visible in the valley, the mountains rising to the east and south. What appears from altitude as a Central Valley city is California's Texas - where Dust Bowl refugees created the Bakersfield Sound, where oil derricks still pump, and where conservative culture persists in liberal California.