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. The town, known mainly for agriculture and oil production, was the destination for many Dust Bowl migrants and others from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and other parts of the western South. The mass migration of "Okies" to California also meant that their music would follow and thrive, finding an audience in California's Central Valley. 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, also influencing later country stars such as Dwight Yoakam.
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