- [Roy] As many of you know, the country music capital of the world is Nashville, Tennessee.

But the influence of country music came from all around the world.

Today, we're headed to the country music capital of the West Coast, Bakersfield, California.

Home to some 400,000 people, Bakersfield is more than just fields and oil rigs, it's the home of country music's iconic Bakersfield sound that would help define a whole generation of country music.

♪ And walk the streets of Bakersfield ♪ - A city with the history so deep, their museum stretches over 16 acres.

Oh wow.

Wow.

Sprinkle in some delicious chow from Ethel's Old Corral, and this trip becomes a must.

Root beer float.

So let's go.

The streets of Bakersfield are calling.

(upbeat music) Central California definitely has its own vibe.

From the laid-back latitudes of the Central Coast to the scenic wonders of the Sierra, and all the amazing people, cultures, food found in the great cities and towns of the San Joaquin Valley.

I'm on a mission to explore the festivals, the hidden gems, the history, endless stories that make up this great place I love to call home.

I'm Roy Sizemore and we're hitting the road.

(upbeat music) "Hitting the Road with Roy Sizemore" is made possible by Measure P, expanding access to arts and culture.

And of course, by viewers like you.

Your support fuels the adventures and incredible connections that make the Central Valley special.

Every journey we take, every story we share is thanks to you.

Become a member today to help keep the good times rolling.

Visit our website to learn more.

Thank you.

When you think of Bakersfield, the first things that come to mind are probably ag and oil, but this city has much deeper roots in pop culture than you may think.

Today, we're visiting the Buck Owens Crystal Palace to get a better idea of what makes Bakersfield so iconic in the world of country music.

Also, what even is the Bakersfield sound?

Well, let's find out.

(upbeat music) I'm here with Jim Shaw.

He's one of the directors for the Buck Owens Foundation.

And you're a Buckaroo as well.

- Yes, I am.

- All right, now what all do you play?

- I'm the keyboard player.

- And you've been here the entirety of the Crystal Palace, right?

- Oh yeah, and long before, decades before that.

- Right.

When did you guys build this?

- This was '96 when we opened.

- What was the whole plan behind it kind of?

- On the road in the '70s when we were traveling all the time, Buck always talked about having his own place so he could sleep in his own bed at night and have people come and see him instead of traveling.

And so we talked about it forever and started getting serious in the early '90s and putting together ideas and finally started construction in '94.

And it took a long time because Buck kept changing his mind.

But anyway, 130 change orders later, we opened up in '96 and have going for 28 years.

- What are some of the big stars that played here?

- It'd be easier to list the ones that haven't, but Garth Brooks, The Dixie Chicks, Lady A, Brad Paisley, Dwight Yoakam, pretty much everybody.

- Everyone.

Now I hear Garth Brooks has a special story about this place.

- Garth proposed to Tricia at the Crystal Palace.

- That's awesome.

That is like, that's wild man.

Can you tell me about this crazy car right here too?

- Yeah, well this- - I mean it's kind of the elephant in the room right now, I probably should mention this, what's the story here?

- It's a Grand Ville Pontiac.

Everybody thinks it's a Cadillac, but it's not.

But it was built by the rodeo tailored to the stars, Nudie in Los Angeles, he built it for Elvis on spec.

He was gonna give it to Elvis to see if he could sell him a bunch of suits.

And Colonel Parker and all his minions would not let him get close to Elvis because they knew what he was up to.

So after he got frustrated, Buck was down there one day getting some suits in Hollywood, saw this car in the back and said, "What's the deal on that?"

He heard the story and Nudie says, "I'd sell it today for whatever I got in it.

I'm so sick of looking at it."

And so we got it for $11,000.

- Really?

- Well in 1973.

- Oh, okay.

I was gonna say, because I mean, just the silver dollars, the guns and everything.

How'd you get it in here?

- During construction, before the roof went on, it came over with a crane.

- Okay, that makes so much more sense because I'm like, I was thinking you took it apart piece by piece and then put it all together.

- That's how we'll have to get it out if it ever came out.

- Oh God no.

I think it's here forever.

- I think so.

- This hot rod is definitely not going anywhere anytime soon.

But I came here for more than just cool cars and cool bars.

(Roy speaking Spanish) I need to know what makes the Bakersfield sound.

So when people think of Bakersfield, you think oil, cotton, agriculture, my mind jumps to music immediately, like the whole Bakersfield sound.

I mean, you guys created your own thing.

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

- That's probably the number one question I'm asked, what is the Bakersfield sound?

Why Bakersfield and why not the Merced sound, the Madera sound, the Fresno sound?

And in thinking about that, I think what it is is after the Dust Bowl and all the migration here and all these guys playing music and all the valley towns, it could have been any of them.

But what happened here was Buck Owens in his proximity to Los Angeles, he went over the hill and started recording with Ken Nelson down there at Capitol Records and got a record deal and became very successful, and opened the door to Merle Haggard who did the same thing.

And so now you've got Buck Owens and Merle Haggard and Bakersfield famous throughout the country and the world.

And so basically, I think that's what it was.

If they'd been somewhere else, it would've been- - So Modesto sound, or Fresno sound?

- Yes, exactly.

Country music was ready for something new about that time.

It had gotten very smooth and polished and- - Very Nashville.

- Yeah, and I think there's a great parallel to rock music at that time, which was huge productions and stuff like that.

And the Beatles came, and when you got four guys, and there's space between the notes, you know what I mean?

It's very raw and edgy, and then you've got Buck and the Buckaroos, four guys, and there's space and there's a whole different raw sound.

And I think music was ready for it, and thus, he took off.

- This place brings up so many memories for me growing up in the country, watching old "Hee Haw" episodes with my grandpa.

So much memorabilia, so much history.

The photos that line these walls tell you everything you need to know about the Buck Owens Crystal Palace.

Seriously, I could hang out here and just look around for hours.

All right, tell me what's going on in this picture here.

- This is a favorite picture.

This is Don Rich who was my boss.

He's the leader of the Buckaroos.

And myself in between songs in the recording studio messing around probably two or three years after I started with the Buckaroos.

And he died a year and a half later in a motorcycle accident.

- [Roy] Oh wow, I didn't know that.

- And I became the leader of the Buckaroos at that time.

But I'd give anything for him to still be here.

- Yeah, right, and you guys, you'll not only play with Buck, but the Buckaroos, you've played with some other people too, right?

You've recorded?

- We were recording musicians for a lot of other people.

And yeah, we did an album with Arlo Guthrie.

Nice one with Goldie Hawn.

That was fun.

- She did a country album?

- Yeah, absolutely.

She did an album up at our Buck Owens Studios here in Bakersfield.

- How did that sound?

- She sounded just like Goldie Hawn.

- Enough said, enough said on that.

♪ And I shed my blue tin ♪ - How much money do you have in pictures here?

There's like pictures everywhere.

But this is pre-digital, right?

- Oh yeah, we're talking about between 30 and $40,000 and negatives and enlargements and yeah, yeah, it was a big deal.

- Wow, and is this Buck here like doing honky-tonk- - Yeah, that's the blackboard, that was the famous club in the early days and yeah, that was kind of how he got his start.

- Wow.

No big stage, no arena.

Just some good old boys picking and playing.

That's awesome, man.

That is fantastic.

I still can't believe the icons and heroes of mine that walked through these very halls and played on this very stage.

So how many shows do you think Buck did on this stage?

- Well, he played almost every weekend for 10 years.

So that's... - We'll do the math.

- Thousand.

- Yeah, there we go.

Sure.

- He got back to his roots on this stage.

He didn't come up here and do the Buck Owens show, just go through his hits.

He loved to play George Jones and Merle Haggard songs and his favorite old songs.

So we just, it's kinda like inviting people into his living room and having a jam session.

- To be honest, I'm just kind of excited to be on the stage that like so many people, like heroes, music heroes of mine have been on here, and still in the future is still gonna- - I bet you Dwight's played here 15 times.

Brad Paisley 15 times easily.

And like I said, Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum and Dixie Chicks and pretty much, and then all the old timers too, Ray Price and all those guys.

- And it's not huge.

Talk about an intimate setting and you got the upstairs too, but you're right there, you're so close, you could see sweat.

- We used to travel on the road and we'd play for 20 and 30 and even 40,000 people.

And you look at a sea of faces and it's just, they don't become faces anymore, you can see the first couple rows.

But when you play a place like this, and it's more intimate, and it's actually more fun to play a place like this.

- Now this might be a little hard, but can you tell me about Buck's last show here?

- Well, yes.

It would've been a Friday night and March 24th, 2006.

And he wasn't feeling good that night.

And so he came up to me before the show and said, "Jim, I'm gonna go home, I'm not feeling good."

And Buckaroos would sometimes play without him when that happened.

So I said, "Okay, chief, see you tomorrow night, feel better."

And he went outside to leave and some people came around the corner from Oregon and they got all excited.

They said, "Oh, the last time you were here, Buck, you were sick and we came all the way from Oregon, so we're so excited to see you tonight."

And he said I said to myself, "Oh man."

So he turned around and came back in and I looked back and kind of did a double take because he was coming up on stage.

And I said, "Oh great, he changed his mind."

So we did a show and it wasn't his best show because he wasn't feeling good.

But he gave it everything he had, came up at the end of the night and put his hand on my shoulder, said "See you tomorrow night," and that's the last time I saw him.

- And he died that night?

- He died three hours later.

- Oh man.

Wow.

So this was it, his last show was right here on this stage.

- That means for 18 years though, that we've continued on.

- Right.

Wow.

So if someone's planning to go to LA from the Valley or come to like Fresno from LA, they need to plan ahead, go on the website, find out what's going on, and make sure to stop at the Crystal Palace.

- Yeah, absolutely, I think it's worth it for them to stop a hundred feet off the freeway, why not?

- Like, seriously, just to come in here, I love that we have the whole place to ourselves.

I could sit and look at all these pictures forever.

Jim, thank you so much for having us, man.

- Absolutely, my pleasure.

- Well, it's been a decade or two, but there's just one more thing I gotta do before I leave.

(Roy playing drums) So yeah, it's been about 20 years since I sat behind a drum set and I got to play on ones that so many of like my favorite artists and favorite bands have played.

So yeah, this is awesome.

(laughs) I feel like a kid in a candy shop.

You know, Bakersfield really is an industry city, industry of country music, absolutely.

But the big industries in this town are definitely oil and ag.

I got a lot of respect for these guys working these hard jobs.

Thankfully those workers are rewarded by one of Bakersfield's best hidden gems.

Just on the border between Bakersfield and Oil City is Ethel's Old Corral, water hole and saloon diner extraordinaire.

This place has got it all.

Great food, great folks, good vibes.

I'm often stopping by for a quick bite to eat and a quick chat with the new owners, Karla and Ronnie.

Ethel's has been a historic spot passing through different owners over the years, but it all started from its namesake, a woman named Ethel Beeson.

But I'll let Ronnie tell us about that.

All right, I'm here with Karla and Ronnie.

We're at Ethel's.

Where's Ethel?

- Ethel passed away probably 25 years ago.

And we bought this 19 months ago.

- Oh, okay.

Now how long has this place been here then?

- About 70 years.

- Really?

- [Ronnie] Yes.

- [Roy] And how long have you been the owner?

- 19 months now, we bought it 19 months ago.

- Now how long you been coming here?

- [Ronnie] Since I was eight years old.

So about 60 years.

- [Roy] Right, so you liked it so much, you're like, "I'm gonna buy it."

- [Ronnie] I've been wanting to buy it for a long time.

- Now what's the food, like Americana?

- Yes, so we do all home cooking.

We patty our own burgers.

We make our own deep pit.

So we cut our own steaks, yes.

- Nice, what's your your big item there?

- [Karla] Burgers.

Everybody comes for the burger.

- And pastrami.

- And pastrami.

- [Roy] Do you do a pastrami burger?

- [Karla] We do a pastrami burger as well, yes.

- Now do you guys do desserts?

What do you do?

- [Karla] Homemade cobbler.

We do root beer floats.

We do sundaes.

- [Roy] I like all that, all right.

This is one of those stick to your ribs type places.

Like come hungry.

- Comfort food, yes.

- Comfort food, come hungry, come out with your appetite.

- Absolutely.

- And the food is definitely, as the kids said 20 years ago and I still say today, the bomb.

And you've undoubtedly seen they let me sample just a little bit of everything on the menu.

And there's not a single weak link.

So what is the whole history behind- - The Indian?

- Yeah.

- [Ronnnie] It come from Big Old Tire, that was a tire shop.

They called a Big Old Tire right on the circle in Bakersfield.

- [Karla] It was actually originally to advertise a brand of tire.

- Oh, okay, makes sense.

- It was a tire company.

And there's a whole thing on him you could read out front, tells the dates and stuff, but he's been around for a long time.

- [Roy] So he's a Bakersfield local.

- [Ronnie] Yes, he is.

- This has been kind of part of the community down here for a long time.

So you get a lot of workers coming in from the field, the oil field?

- A lot of horseback riders.

Because on the other side of town, they ride down the river and they come here.

A good group of people come out here.

- So they like old school put the rope and tie the horses up?

- [Ronnie] All the hitch posts out here.

- [Roy] That's so cool.

- [Karla] So we've got motorcycles, old cars, regular cars, the horses.

- And you're kinda the only thing out here, right?

So you gotta come find you.

All right, so fun fact about Ethel's.

It's actually a bit of a family biz.

All right, so Misty, I'm seeing a little family resemblance a little bit?

- She's my daughter.

- And he roped you in to come work here?

- He did, he did for sure.

- What's it like working for your pops though?

- They're great bosses, they're great people.

They're so good to everyone, and they're good to me as well.

- Now what's your favorite food here?

- I would have to probably say a burger.

Yeah, the hand patty, and they do all kinds of stuff.

So you can get a good grilled chicken salad if you want, but they have great burgers as well.

- Trying to make me eat healthy?

I don't want to eat healthy, it's road food for me.

I want chili and cheese- - Oh, we have good chili, good homemade chili.

- I want bad stuff.

Yeah, she got me to eat healthy.

I mean fried okra is a superfood, right?

Ha!

- Good French burgers too.

- What's a French burger?

- Just on a French roll, a patty about that big, and just a good, grilled onions and all that.

- Oh, okay, I thought I had a little hat on or something.

(bright music) Ethel's Old Corral, seriously one of the best.

Great food, great people, great vibe.

This is a working man's bar.

If you're a local or passing through Bakersfield and you've never come here, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Your tummy will thank you.

Oh my God.

And we're off to our last location of the day, the Kern County Museum.

But first, we're gonna stop some more iconic, incredible, amazing.

It's a big shoe.

All right, so everyone said if you go to Bakersfield, you gotta see the big shoe.

So the big shoe.

All right then.

We're here at the Kern County Museum, chock full of a lot of history in Bakersfield.

But today what we're looking for, we're gonna look at that, but I'm also looking for Merle Haggard's house.

Supposedly his first house, his original house he grew up in was gonna get tore down and they moved it here.

So we're gonna go try to find it.

(upbeat music) The Kern County Museum takes up 16 acres.

This place is so huge, they needed their own street signs just to help us get around.

But of course I still found myself sidetracked.

Well I found the Bakersfield sound exhibit, so I'm guessing Merle's House is probably really close.

But before we find out, I wanna go check this out.

(upbeat music) ♪ Walk the streets of Bakersfield ♪ This place has everything, the old suits, the old instruments, even some of the old pieces of the honky-tonks.

So this is just an image from Trout's.

Trout's burned down a long time ago, but someone had stolen the sign.

The owner said, "If it's ever found, we're gonna donate to y'all."

They filled out the paperwork, but it just disappeared for years and years and years, and then just recently turned up.

So they're restoring it and it's gonna be in this building soon.

There's also letters that, I don't even know how, survived the test of time.

This letter was written to Johnny Cavello by Bill Woods about Merle Haggard.

Merle's address and phone number are written on the back of the letter.

Johnny, here's one of the best boys I've run into lately.

He writes songs, sings good, plays good, take off!

He would sure be a good man for you.

He has his guitar and equipment with him.

Give him a listen.

That's pretty awesome.

That's before he was anybody, before he was famous.

This is his intro.

That's crazy.

And they have the letter, that's so wild.

(upbeat music) Kids, letters are text messages written on paper with a thing called a pencil or ink pen.

(gentle music) Now I know Merle's House is right around the corner from here, but I got to thinking, maybe you don't really know who Merle Haggard is.

Merle was a country music artist that grew up right here in the Bakersfield area.

As a troubled youth and young adult, Merle found himself doing some time in the San Quentin prison.

That's where his life changed.

He witnessed one of Johnny Cash's legendary prison concerts and it inspired him to pursue a music career.

♪ And when you've been living hell to me ♪ - So after getting out of the clink, he would submerge himself deep in the Bakersfield country music scene where songs like "I'm a Lonesome Fugitive" and "Mama Tried" would propel him to stardom.

Along with Buck Owens, Merle Haggard is seen as a pioneer of the iconic Bakersfield sound.

And his house is right here at the Kern County Museum.

All right guys, when you come to Pioneer Square, when you get to the rail carts, turn around because that, that's Merle's house.

And if you come along with me, I'm gonna show you some things here real quick.

If you notice how the siding's different, the wood siding's different.

The original house, it was originally a box car, a railroad box car, that'll also help you tie it in with that.

And then they added this little front part on.

But this is the house that Merle Haggard grew up in, and it was gonna get demolished, but a lot of people got together and saved it.

And I'm gonna go inside.

But first, let's do a quick history lesson.

The Dust Bowl was one of the most challenging times in American history.

It was a period between 1930 and 1940 of extreme drought, destructive winds, and massive dust storms, devastating the agricultural economy of the Midwest.

Over 200,000 people would migrate out of the Midwest to California.

Among those people, the Haggard family.

And I'm gonna go inside.

(gentle music) Oh wow.

It's so tiny.

That's crazy.

It's a sitting room because you couldn't really do much more than sit in it, that's for sure.

All right, you could see where they cut into the rail car.

It might've been this is where one of the doors were.

It's crazy to think that at one point, this house was a Santa Fe refrigerator rail car hauling goods all across the country.

That was until Merle's parents would move their family from Oklahoma to California, purchasing this rail car in 1935 and converting it into their home.

The original tiny house.

They probably put a bed out here in the sitting room.

Storage in the bench to take up less space.

You could see all the old rail car, you could even see the railroad's name right there on that beam.

Oh wow.

Yeah, they covered it up with like wallpaper.

But this was an actual rail car at one time.

It just shows you that like, it doesn't really matter where you come from, where you start, you can always end up bigger, better than what you grew up in.

Because I mean, living in a rail car and then becoming a huge star, it doesn't matter where you start, it's where you finish.

The 16 acres that make up Kern County Museum are jam-packed with history.

Everything from old schools and doctor's offices to an entire room dedicated to historic vehicles, like almost prehistoric some of these rides.

This is an actual hand-pulled fire engine.

So this would be clear way the heck over there.

If you look at the picture, you see all those guys right there.

It looks like a handle because it is.

So they would pull this and run to the fire.

It had the ladders and you see the fire extinguishers on the side.

There's even some buckets underneath there.

And they could do like a bucket brigade.

That's wild.

So no horses, no engine, just man, just guys pulling it.

(upbeat music) What's your wheels made out of?

Wood and metal.

That's gotta be bumpy.

All right guys, so when we were coming down to Bakersfield, I was like, "Oh, we gotta go to Noriega's."

Someone goes, "Oh no, that closed in 2020."

But look, I'm in Noriega's It was the famous Basque restaurant here in Bakersfield.

This bar though, it's giving me "Shining" vibes a little bit.

A little "Shining" vibes on this one.

But this is the original bar from Noriega's.

Wow, it's even got the signs.

It'd nearly be impossible for us to see everything in one day.

This place is amazing and a must-stop.

If you're coming to Bakersfield, grab the fam and head over to Kern County Museum.

Press the red button to start.

Eureka, boys, we got a gusher, woo!

We embraced the Bakersfield sound at the Buck Owens Crystal Palace, stuffed our faces full at Ethel's Old Corral.

Do it.

Do it.

And dove into the rich local history at the Kern County Museum.

Heck, we even saw the big shoe.

That was awesome.

The bottom line is there's just so much to do and so much to see when you walk the streets of Bakersfield.

(Roy playing drums) All right, I'm done.

I am terrible.

What happened?

I used to be good.

(laughs) I used to be a decent drummer.

(upbeat music) Thank you, Bakersfield.

I'm sorry, I can't hold it anymore.