Everything Bakersfield is known for
Bakersfield, California, located in the southern San Joaquin Valley, is widely recognized as the "Country Music Capital of the West Coast" and the birthplace of the Bakersfield Sound. This distinctive subgenre of country music, developed in the mid-to-late 1950s, is characterized by its honky-tonk style, electric instrumentation, and strong backbeats, offering a raw contrast to the polished Nashville Sound. Legendary artists like Buck Owens & His Buckaroos and Merle Haggard & The Strangers are from Bakersfield and were instrumental in popularizing this sound.
The city's musical heritage is also celebrated in songs such as "Streets of Bakersfield" by Dwight Yoakam & Buck Owens. With 84 songs in our collection mentioning Bakersfield and 42 artists calling it home, the city's influence extends beyond country, with artists like Korn contributing to the metal genre.
Showing top 20 of 80 songs
Showing top 20 of 42 artists
Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Bakersfield.
Bakersfield sits low in the San Joaquin Valley, a place where the sun beats down hard on the flat earth. It's a city built on agriculture, fed by the Kern River, and marked by a resilient spirit, perhaps forged in the crucible of the 1952 earthquake that shook the city. While it may not be the first place that comes to mind when you think of celebrity birthplaces, Bakersfield has sent its share of talent out into the world.
Bakersfield owes its existence, and its name, to Colonel Thomas Baker. The man arrived in the southern San Joaquin Valley in the 1860s, a time when the flat, sun-baked earth was mostly grazing land. He established a large alfalfa farm, an oasis of green in the dry landscape, and built an irrigation system to pull water from the Kern River. This enterprise became known as "Baker's Field," a natural enough descriptor for the time and place. The name stuck, plainspoken and practical, much like the city it would eventually represent. You can almost hear the no-nonsense attitude in it, a reflection of the agricultural roots that still run deep. Even now, driving through Bakersfield, the legacy of Baker’s Field persists – a testament to resilience in a valley that demands it.
Bakersfield's story is etched in the land itself, a tale of resilience and adaptation born from the hard work of diverse peoples. The Kern River, though now tamed, once dictated life here, its devastating flood in 1867 shaping the city's early development. But even more critical was the land's bounty. Agriculture drew people from across the globe — Dust Bowl migrants seeking a fresh start in the 1930s, joining communities of European immigrants who had already established farms and orchards. The rows of almond trees and grapevines that define the landscape today are a direct legacy of their labor and vision. The discovery of oil in the late 19th century added another layer to Bakersfield's identity, attracting workers from across the country and fueling a boom that transformed the town. This blend of agricultural roots and industrial grit fostered a distinctive culture. Though distinct ethnic enclaves may have blurred over time, the echoes of those early communities persist in the city's food, music, and the enduring spirit of those who built Bakersfield from the ground up.
10 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.
Bakersfield sits low in the San Joaquin Valley, a place where the sun beats down hard on the flat earth. It's a city built on agriculture, fed by the Kern River, and marked by a resilient spirit, perhaps forged in the…
Bakersfield's story is etched in the land itself, a tale of resilience and adaptation born from the hard work of diverse peoples. The Kern River, though now tamed, once dictated life here, its devastating flood in 1867…
Oildale sits just north of Bakersfield, a slightly elevated patch of land where the flat valley floor begins to wrinkle toward the Sierra Nevada foothills. For decades, oil derricks have defined the landscape, a visual…
Edison, California, owes its very existence to the iron horse. Named in 1870 for the famed inventor, its location along the Pennsylvania Railroad transformed it into a crucial transportation hub. Goods and people flowed…
Lamont sits on land built by water and dreams. Four hundred feet above the Kern River, it's a place where the flat valley floor rises just enough to catch a breeze, a welcome relief from the summer heat baking the…
Weedpatch isn’t much to look at now, just another unincorporated spot in the vast, flat expanse of the southern San Joaquin Valley. But imagine this same patch of land in the 1930s, choked not just with weeds – the kind…
Edmundson Acres, perched at 750 feet, owes its existence – and its particular character – to a confluence of factors. Silas Edmundson, an early agricultural pioneer, recognized the potential of the sun-drenched valley…
Arvin, California, sits low in the valley at just 449 feet, a place where the heat shimmers off the grape vines and almond orchards. This is farm country, and the Di Giorgio Fruit Corporation once cast a long shadow…
Imagine a landscape transformed: before Shafter, only the vast, arid expanse of the southern San Joaquin Valley stretched toward the horizon. Then, in 1898, the seeds of a town were sown, named for Civil War General…
Famoso, California, a name meaning "famous," owes its existence to a confluence of factors, not all of them glamorous. The Southern Pacific Railroad laid tracks through here, transforming a promising agricultural area…