Part of country music history itself entails the story of “the Bakersfield Sound.” Buck Owens and Merle Haggard were the God-fathers thereof and blazed the historic trail from Bakersfield, California to the rest of the entire world. Part of the mix that came together to give rise to that sound was the number of bars, saloons, and roadhouses like The Blackboard Cafe, Bob's Lucky Spot, Trout's, the Rainbow Gardens, the Pumpkin Center Barn Dance, the Beardsley Ballroom, Tex's Barrel House, the Kern River Belle, Longbranch Saloon, the Clover Club, and some others places that supported live music helped make Bakersfield a natural place for musicians to come hang their hat, sing their songs, and make a few bucks. Folks like Wynn Stewart, Tommy Collins, Joe Maphis, Freddie Hart, Bonnie Owens, Delbert Smart, Billy Mize, Bill Woods, Eugene Moles, Oscar Whittington, Frankie Lemon and others helped pave the way in these music venues for what would become known as The Bakersfield Sound. And very important add to the list is Fuzzy Owen, Bonnie Owens, Lewis Talley, Roy Nichols, Don Rich, Bill Wood's Red Siegal, Rose Maddox, Buck Owens and my friend Merle Haggard.

This now famous house boxcar reefer is in a new home. The train car itself was from somewhere in the early 1900's and here some 118 years later it is rebuilt and set up as a tribute to Bakersfield and Oildale's favorite son, the great Merle Haggard. Lillian Haggard told me that her folks paid about $10 per month for rent and they moved in September of 1935. On April 6, 1937 Merle is born at the Kern General Hospital in Bakersfield and heads to the boxcar to be raised. She said in 1940 her dad James bought the house from Marianna Bohna. After James death in 1946 and a few years of troubled times with Merle Flossie, his mom, built another house on the lot in 1959. In 1984 Flossie Haggard dies and in 1989 Lillian sells the family home. For the next near 40 years the house begins to fall apart. While working with Merle on the story he told me to go out there and see if I could find the house and get any pictures of the area and the house. I was really shocked how quite, rundown and uneventful the neighborhood was...a sadness came over me and a wondering how could people care so little about a living legend's history. Then again I knew people don't care much about history.

We can go back to transcendent stories, Steinbeck novels, the stories of Will Rogers, and the songs of Jimmie Rodgers coming out of Texas where the Great Depression paired with the historic Dust Bowl Era and masses of people from the Great Plains and the Southwest regions from states like Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, New Mexico, and Texas were becoming part of a historic migration to the West. We have the Arkies and Okies, Texans, Mexicans and others fleeing The Grapes of Wrath heading West on Route 66. We hear the train whistles, where thousands of hobos hop freights, and in the distance we hear Woody Guthrie sing “This Land is Your Land.” On April 28, 1929, four months before the Great Stock Crash of 1929, the Bakersfield's Hippodrome Theatre is the first movie house in Bakersfield to screen a “talkie.” They were called in the early days of a motion pictures with sound. Sound had first come to film in Warner Brothers' “The Jazz Singer” in 1927. The film screened was “The Ghost Talks” directed by Lewis Seiler who worked from 1919 as a gag man before he began to direct two-reel comedies. He worked with Tom Mix on his westerns during the 1920s. The times they were a changin' ever since 1913 when Cecil B DeMille produced Squaw Man the first feature movie done in Hollywood the pace of movie making was becoming big business in California.

During the decade of the fifties the accumulation of people from the historic migration to the area not too many years ago made for an interesting mixture of people to come together and make music. Many say this is part of the mix that itself created the Bakersfield Sound. The music would spread through the valley on to Los Angeles. The work that Bill Woods, Buck Owens, Fuzzy Owen, Cousin Herb Henson and some others was laying the foundation. KUZZ radio was playing the local music and on KERO-TV a show called the “Trading Post Gang” with Cousin Herb could be seen as was spreading the sound. Some big names like Barbara Mandrell, and Joe and Rose Lee Maphis were on the show that ran a decade. KBAK had the “Chuck Wagon Gang” show reaching out and Billy Mize was getting some songs cut by the likes of Vern Gosdin and Dean Martin. Dallas Frazier was writing some great songs reaching a national audience, over the years the likes of Elvis Presley, Eddy Arnold, The Beach Boys, George Jones to Haggard and Nelson would record his songs.

Merle, Theresa, Frank and I go out the backstage door and jump in a black Lincoln and head five blocks to the sold out Les Paul show at the Iridium Jazz Club at 1650 Broadway. We are there before the 10 pm show starts. I walk with Merle into a crowded green room where I can see Les Paul. I walk up keeping Merle with me, Les sees us walking right to him, and I reach to shake Les hand and give him the secret Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity handshake and say, “Hi Frater Les Paul, Benford Standley, and like for you to meet Merle Haggard” ...then I say, “Merle, Les Paul.” And, I stand back as they shake hands. I back up to take some pictures, and think, “Done deal.”

After a short while someone comes in and tells Les that it is show time. Merle, Theresa, Frank and I are led out to some seats at a table right at the stage. I set them down and head over to the sound board with my video camera. Les has a virtual vaudeville show with tap dancing, singing and his band plays a few songs, his band was Jazz pianist John Colianni, the beautiful Nicki Parrott on standup bass, and the great jazz guitarist Lou Pallo. After a few songs and another guest sings, he invites Merle to come up to the stage. Lou tries to hand Merle a guitar and Merle looks at Les and Lou and indicates you think I am going to stand here and play guitar with you two great guitarists who have played together since 1961, Merle just goes up to the mic and he and Les chat some about Dylan and Les asks Merle what is he doing here now goofing off.

The next night Les Paul came to the Dylan and Haggard night number two at the Beacon. I met Les and brought him to Merle's bus where they spent some time, then took and to his seat for Haggard's show. After the show, Les came backstage to Merle's band room and they talked and talked. One could see the great friendship that was starting. They were already talking about Merle cutting a song with Les on a duet CD that was being produced. After a while I took Les out to see the Dylan show, but after about twenty minutes he and Merle headed to a coffee shop near the Beacon and talk and talked. Over the next few years they would talk about working together and making the plans, but it never came about. I stayed in touch with Les, and recorded some of our talks on the phone, Merle said he was also staying in touch with Les. He told me again, “this was the most important thing to happen in his career.” A few years after their meeting Les passed away at 94 years old.

PIONEER TROUBADOURS

aka

ROAD WARRIORS

 

Behind the curtains and the “backstage scene” are the roadies, stage crew, sound and light guys that make this business tick.

They are in the cities before the bands pull into town. While the band members are sleeping on the buses and in their hotel

rooms, these guys are unloading the 18-wheeler trucks and setting up the stage, flying the sound, hooking in the lights, hanging

the curtain, setting up the drums and amps and getting the stage ready for the boys to show up for sound check: 4 p.m. is the

call.

As a concert producer myself, the production is the show, from catering, to the truck drivers that back up the 18-wheelers with all

the equipment and the roadies that unload and roll the equipment to the stage. From the parking lot setup and on to backstage, I

walk up to the front of the building where you can see the merchandise of the artist being unloaded, the sound and lighting

operators setting up their laptops and sound boards, and did I say catering. I love to watch the guys that fly the sound, watch the

guitar techs take care of moving that valuable cargo off the trucks, security meetings going on with the staff before the doors open,

 the miles of electric cable to hook up the lighting.

click pic for some fun with Hag at the

Academy Of Country Music in Las Vegas

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