Bakersfield sound - Definition and Overview

The Bakersfield sound was a genre of country music developed in the mid- to late 1950s in and around Bakersfield, California, at bars such as The Blackboard. Bakersfield country was a reaction against the slick, string-laden Nashville sound, which was popular at the time.

Artists like Wynn Stewart used electric instrumentation and added a backbeat, as well as other stylistic elements borrowed from rock and roll. In the early 1960s, Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, among others, brought the Bakersfield sound to mainstream audiences, and it soon became one of the most popular kinds of country music.

External links

• Echoes of Bakersfield (http://www.rockabillyhall.com/bakersfieldechoes.html), an informational archive site.