Various ***** The Bakersfield Sound BEAR FAMILY. 10-CO BOX
How California became Honky Tonk Heaven. In the '60s, Buck Owens and Merle Haggard sang country chart-toppers by the bucket-load, establishing Bakersfield, California, as a direct rival to Nashville. Their music was less showy, more contemporary than that from Music City and would influence country rock and the later Outlaw genre. This superb Bear Family presentation, with a considerable number of previously unreleased studio tracks, radio recordings and demos by artists ranging from Bob Wills to Arlo Guthrie, documents the musical history of the city — from field record-ings made by dust-bowl migrants in the 1940s, up to 1974, when Buck Owens notched his final Top 10 hit and Bakersfield guitar hero Don Rich was killed in a motor-cycle accident. Comes with a lavishly illustrated 230-page hardback book, by award-winning writer Scott B. Bomar with a foreword by Foo Fighter Chris Shiflett. Fred Dellar
