Help me out with the Bakersfield sound--who are the classic artists and what are their best records?

The Rhino "Buck Owens Collection" box set.

The Captiol Merle Haggard "Down Every Road" box set.

The self-titled Buck Owens LP is flawless.

Roll Out The Red Carpet, also reissued by Sundazed, was a massive influence on Gram Parsons around the time he started the International Submarine Band.

Carnegie Hall Concert is a classic as well.

But as for the "Bakersfield Sound," what you might want depends a lot on what time period you're looking at. The Rose Maddox and the Maddox Brothers & Rose box sets on Bear Family are amazing, as are the two single CDs (which don't duplicate the Bear Family sets) on Arhoolie. The Tommy Collins (who wrote many songs for Buck Owens) box set on Bear Family is great too - he was an interesting songwriter. Can't skip earlier, more Western swing oriented artists like Spade Cooley (excellent comp on Legacy) or Tex Williams either.
The "Swing West" series (three CDs on Razor & Tie) is a great place to start investigating the Bakersfield sound - one volume is "Bakersfield," one is "Guitar Slingers" and one is "Western Swing," but they're all packed with California country music prior to the 1960's, feature all the big names and great songs.

I really like the Rose Maddox & Maddox Bros stuff I've heard.

Buck was once made to take out ads proclaiming that henceforth he would "only play country music." This was after a poorly-received (at least by "country" fans) cover of "Johnny B Goode." He later relented, of course - have you heard his amazing psych-country track, "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass?" It's now de riguer for everyone from Garth Brooks on down to proclaim their "rock" roots (e.g. Garth likes Kiss!) In a sense, Buck Owens is why this is possible, even desirable, commercially speaking.

Does it matter? I don't think so. In fact, I could care less about any of it (including Buck, post-1972 or so!), but that was part of his very real influence on country.

He had a matching influence on rock music in that Gram Parsons, Gene Clark, Michael Nesmith and most other country rock pioneers cited him often as *the* primary country influence (along with Merle Haggard, who was quite open about Buck's influence on him, musically and spouse-wise.) For me, this bears some sweet fruit. I just got a copy of Big Beat's "Country & West Coast: The Birth Of Country Rock" CD - probably the best primer on the genre yet made available. It's interesting to learn that the Gosdin Brothers (who are on this comp on their own and as the backing band for Gene Clark of the Byrds' first album) shared management with Buck Owens and that there was a direct connection between Buck and other Bakersfield acts and many of the hippie-ish country rock pioneers.

Country rock, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty much a dead genre - but the classics are still on the shelves and Buck had a lot to do with the development of that sound.

Or the Hagers?

Or the Bakersfield Brass?

Buck produced these artists. They were part of the Bakersfield Sound too.

Yet they were WAY more middle-of-the-road than Buck, Merle or Wynn, you know what I'm saying?

I'm a Buck Owens fan, too. I wasn't trying to take him down (although there's no way I'm gonna defend the Bakersfield Brass!).

But I will agree that it seems like his long-range influence was felt more towards rock than country.

Now, as far as that ad he took out where he pledged to only record country material? That wasn't right after "Johnny B. Goode" (which was years later), it was just BEFORE he released a cover of Chuck Berry's "Memphis." So, in that light, it was almost like he was telling the country establishment to go fuck themselves - right on, Buck.

And I LOVE "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass," but I never considered it psych-country. To me, it just sounded like a standard C&W song with fuzz guitar added (as well as harpsichord straight off of a Left Banke album). But apart from those little embellishments, it's still typical Bakersfield Sound through and through.

wynn stewart is the real father of "bakersfield" as an identifiable sound. and the burrito bros.' "gilded palace" is the ultimate distillation of the whole thing, with irony and glamour added. and yeah, dwight yoakam. brad paisley, for ex., is sorta nashville-ized bakersfield.

(and country-rock, for whatever it's worth, is far from dead.)

I've been listening to a lot of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard lately, and I've been thinking that their spare, wide open sound was a huge influence on California country rock's spare, wide open sound. It's almost as if country music, when made in California, opened itself up to the expansive geography, which can be heard in stuff like "I'm a Lonesome Fugitive". And like you say, that played a pivotal role in the whole extended Byrds family and ultimately stuff like the Everly Brothers' Roots LP, American Beauty, C,S,N, & Y, the Eagles, etc.

This thread got off to a great start, but What happened? Clarence White is one of the best guitarist ever and his brother Roland isn't bad either.
and Gary Paxton!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn-V5HzfcEc

feel like most of the big bases are hit upthread

altho I've never heard Gary Paxton. nice tune there

anyone heard 'Guitar Country' by Bakersfield's Big Guitars?