Bakersfield:
The name Bakersfield brings to mind its association with country music, and in particular with the "Bakersfield sound." Former Oildale resident and retired Sonoma State University professor Gerald Haslam's book Workin' Man Blues proposes that this Bakersfield Sound grew out of several different styles of music and that performers picked and chose the styles they liked and thus created their own brand of music found nowhere else in the country.
The Bakersfield Sound was marked by the sharp, loud, high-end sound of the electric and steel guitars, fiddles, and lead and harmony vocals influenced by rock and roll and rockabilly as well as traditional country music.
It was a reaction to the early ('50s and) '60s sweetening of country music as characterized by the Nashville Sound. Bakersfield music was, by comparison, rawer, twangier and more in line with rock music.
Performers such as Cousin Herb Henson, Bill Woods, Billy Mize, Oscar Whittington, Eugene Moles, Jelly Sanders, Johnny Cuevelo, and others played to
