Bakersfield Rocks!

Our first musical stop in Bakersfield was an unexpected major success! We had high hopes for Buck Owen’s famous club, “The Crystal Palace” a multifaceted venue with a museum, all of Buck’s memorabilia, a restaurant / nightclub, and bar and it was a lot of fun but very commercial. We struck gold however at Trout’s, one of the last remaining true honky tonks in the town where the honky tonk tradition began.

Lloyd Reading jamming with Pat Banister and the Band

Trouts is in a run down part of the
neighboring city of Oildale and had been there since 1945. We headed over for a jam session and just by chance met 92 year old Lloyd Reading, a true country music legend in Bakersfield music lore. Lloyd loves to talk and told us his life story including his migration from the Oklahoma dust bowl, the death of his dad at age 14, how he brought his mom and 4 sibs west as the man of the family, and his remarkable career performing with one of the earliest country music bands in America, the Bob Manning trio in the 1930s. He was friends with Bob Wills and fronted his own band the “California Playboys” for 47 years. Recently he recorded with Red Simpson, another Bakersfield legend and was hoping to play at a special presentation at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, where, according to T Rockwell, Bakersfield legends including Owens and Merle Haggard have received almost no attention.

Glenn and Lloyd Reading

Things only got better the next day when we popped over to Trouts to pick up some tee shirts and found our selves visiting for almost 2 hours with T Rockwell, the adventurous new owner of Trouts. Rockwell has a vision of American Roots music that virtually matches mine. The central themes of my trip are to check out roots music in America, see what’s still left from the past and see what the new roots will be that will begin the cycle again. This is exactly what Rockwell had just done on a trip to rural Texas in search of great, undiscovered artists. He explained to us that when he would go to a small town he would ask everyone “who are the local musicians that I need to hear?” Rockwell is thoroughly disgusted with the commodification and commercialization in modern country where legends like Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard can’t even get a recording contract. He is passionate about finding the best non-commercial artists he can and using the web to bring them to anyone who is interested in checking them out.

The Trout house band with Buck Owen and Merle Haggard in the background

 You can see some of the Roots music project that he has been working on at the following websites.

Texas Tonk 

http://vimeo.com/channels/texastonk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWVf4zEjlkc

Rockwell has also revitalized Trouts with a multifaceted set of offerings every night that include 2 rooms with live music in one room, and line dance lessons, karaoke and mechanical bull riding in the other. I don’t know how he keeps it all afloat financially but it was a wild scene the nights we were there. Lloyd was back on our second visit and told us more stories before sitting in and singing a few tunes with the house band led by multi instrumentalist and singer Pat Banister. 92 years young . . . .amazing.

Bonnie Owens and Merle Haggard. . . .Huh? Better go research this one on your own LOL
Photo and description of the Bakersfield sound courtesy of the Kern County Museum Country Music exhibit