The town, known mainly for agriculture and oil production, was the destination for many Dust Bowl migrants and others from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and parts of the Midwest.
Important influences were Depression-era country music superstar Jimmie Rodgers, early 1950s honky tonk singer Lefty Frizzell, and 1940s Western swing musician Bob Wills.
Many of her early recording sessions featured prominent members of the Bakersfield movement, including Lewis Talley and Speedy West.
Other women to emerge from the West Coast country movement include Bonnie Owens, Kay Adams, and Rosie Flores.
Years later, the Rolling Stones made their connection explicit in the lyrics of the very Bakersfield-sounding "Far Away Eyes", which begins: "I was driving home early Sunday morning, through Bakersfield".
No Bakersfield natives (nor any other Californians until Jon Pardi achieved the feat in 2023) were ever inducted into the cast of WSM's flagship Grand Ole Opry.
The Fender Telecaster was originally developed for country musicians to fit in with the Texas/Western swing style of music that was popular in the Western US following World War II.
Besides Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, a Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, was the most well-known artist involved in the development of the Bakersfield Sound.
[10] As a child, Haggard spent a lot of his time listening to the records his mother had given him, particularly those of the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Bob Wills, and Lefty Frizell, who he described as his hero.
[12] His most famous song, Mama Tried, is based on his real life experiences of being a rebel child, going to prison, and his mother's refusal to give up on him despite his troublemaker behavior.
[citation needed] Merle Haggard's music is considered to have kept the Central Valley, and the many Dust Bowl migrants who came there to work, alive through his songs.