Hitmakers Captivated by the Bakersfield Sound

Ed Leibowitz spotlights five modern country artists—descendants of the Haggard and Owens tradition—who continue to champion raw, authentic, unvarnished country music.

By Ed LeibowitzPublished: Dec 19, 2025

Alta

Merle Haggard and Buck Owens remained outliers from the polished Nashville products of the 1960s, even though they dominated the country charts. These five contemporary artists, all of them descendants of the Bakersfield sound, continue fighting the good fight to keep authentic country alive.

This roundup appears in Issue 34 of Alta Journal. SUBSCRIBE

Garth Brooks

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The Oklahoma-born singer broadened country music’s appeal with a heavy dose of anthemic rock ’n’ roll swagger. However, Garth Brooks’s No. 1 country smash “Friends in Low Places,” from 1990, harks back to Bakersfield in the ’60s. The heartsick schlub at the center of Brooks’s tragicomic saga, who wraps his despair in a cloak of clever wordplay and self-mockery, bears a distinct resemblance to the disconsolate schnook who sings his blues away in Buck Owens’s 1963 chart-topper “Act Naturally.” Crowning himself “the biggest fool that’s ever hit the big time,” Owens’s wretch imagines himself cast as the star of a movie about a morose and lonely loser, bent at the knee: “I’ll play the part / And I won’t need rehearsin’ / All I gotta do is / act naturally.”

Chris Stapleton

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Eight days after Merle Haggard’s death on April 6, 2016, 11-time Grammy winner Chris Stapleton paused his show in Mesa, Arizona, to recognize “probably the greatest singer and songwriter that ever lived.” He then launched into a cover of “Today I Started Loving You Again,” Haggard’s searing ballad about love and loss. Seven years later, Stapleton would release an original single called “Think I’m in Love with You,” which would explore much of the same emotional territory: “I think I’m in love with you / I didn’t know it at the time / I know what I wanna do / It’s makin’ me lose my mind.”

Jamey Johnson

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Alabama-born Jamey Johnson possesses a voice that can shift from gravel to silk and back again—which makes it the perfect instrument to blend with Merle Haggard’s tough-and-tender tenor. During his final touring years, Haggard repeatedly welcomed Johnson onstage to sing duets with him, their vocals braiding together on songs like “The Long Black Veil” and “Heaven Was a Drink of Wine.” As a songwriter, Johnson explores territory familiar to fans of Haggard’s catalog—lives trampled underfoot, penitents aching for salvation.

Dwight Yoakam

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In 1988, Los Angeles–based singer-songwriter Dwight Yoakam released “Streets of Bakersfield,” his duet with Buck Owens. The song became Yoakam’s first No. 1 country hit, and the last of Owens’s career. Today, the SiriusXM music channel Dwight Yoakam and the Bakersfield Beat features songs by Owens and Haggard as well as Yoakam’s own music, which has been heavily influenced by those two artists.

Margo Price

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With Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, her 2016 debut studio album, Margo Price established herself as one of the most gifted singer-songwriters in contemporary country music. Price’s songs ooze tar and grit, while her backing band uplift her vocals with rim shot snare, aggressive guitar, and deep pedal-steel sighing—the tonal landscape of the Bakersfield sound. “Hurtin’ (on the Bottle),” Price’s ballad about hard alcohol’s failure to cauterize a wounded heart, seems a direct descendant of Merle Haggard’s “The Bottle Let Me Down.”