Emerging in the mid-to-late '50s in and around the namesake California city, The Bakersfield Sound represented a counterpoint to the slickly produced, orchestra-laden Nashville sound that dominated the airwaves at the time. Buck Owens and Merle Haggard led the initial charge (alongside Tommy Collins, Wynn Stewart, and Susan Raye), and its legacy would live on through country-rock pioneers the Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, and '80s neo-traditionalists like Dwight Yoakam.