Day 26: Bakersfield Sound

Don Rich & the Buckaroos
Country Pickin': The Don Rich Anthology

As country music in Nashville in the 1950s was converging toward a slick, string-laden pop sound, a rawer sound influenced by rock and roll was developing across the country in Bakersfield, California. Characterized by sharp, clean Fender Telecaster guitar and high pitched fiddle and pedal steel, the Bakersfield sound begins in earnest the man who popularized it: Buck Owens. A Bakersfield transplant, Owens parlayed performances at the Blackboard night club into session work at Capitol Records. In 1957 he began recording under his own name for Capitol and with "Second Fiddle" in 1958, began a string a modest hits that eventually culminated in 1963's "Act Naturally," a song later covered by the Beatles' on Help! Owens' first number one and the song that catapulted him to stardom, "Act Naturally" started another, far more impressive streak: it was the first of 15 consecutive number one singles. Owens' extraordinary success brought national attention to what came to be known as the Bakersfield sound, shining a light on such mainstays of the idiom as Tommy Collins, Wynn Stewart, and Merle Haggard, who achieved enough artistic and commercial success in his own right to earn a spot alongside Owens as one of the two most important proponents of the sound.

One of the men who has yet to be properly recognized for his role in the Bakersfield scene is Don Rich, with whom Buck Owens formed his band the Buckaroos in 1961. In the late 50s Rich played fiddle alongside Owens in Tacoma WA, but when the two reunited in Bakersfield he took to the guitar and by 1962 he was playing lead in the Buckaroos. Rich's magnificent and pioneering lead guitar became of the trademarks of the Bakersfield sound. During his time as a musical collaborator with Buck Owens, Rich occasionally sang and also worked on the records the Buckaroos released on their own. The significance of Rich's role in Owens music is clearly evidence by the dearth of significant output from Owens in the wake of Rich's death by motorcycle accident in 1974. Aside from the wealth of Buck Owens recordings, the best place to hear Rich is Sundazed's 2000 compilation Country Pickin': The Don Rich Anthology, attributed to Don Rich and the Buckaroos. The collection amasses 24 songs that Rich sang with Owens or played with the Buckaroos. Just ten seconds into the opener "Buckaroo" one can already hear Rich's pristine electric picking in all its glory and understand a great deal about the Bakersfield aesthetic.

Don Rich singing "Out of My Mind Completely."