Central Valley is Prominent in Country Music

PBS Documentary References California Influences

Country Music, a Film by Ken Burns ran over eight nights on PBS. The series is now available by DVD.

For eight nights in September, Public Television aired the Ken Burns documentary Country Music. It was a comprehensive timeline of the evolution of this genre. From the roots in Irish folk songs to the stages of twenty-thousand seat arenas, the program held true to its intention of telling the story of a truly American art form.

California’s Central Valley played a significant role in the story of country music, and the documentary features a few vignettes of pivotal players.

The country singing group Maddox Brothers and Rose settled down in the Modesto area for most of their music career.

The Valley’s connection to the bigger picture of country music starts with the influx of migrants from the Midwest during the dust bowl.

The program begins with the group known as Maddox Brothers and Rose. The Maddox family came to the west as a migrant family looking for work. The documentary quotes Don Maddox, the only surviving member, telling the story of hearing a country song on the radio as the family picked vegetables with other migrant workers.

In the documentary, Maddox talks about finding a better way to earn a living, telling the interviewer, “We thought, maybe we can form a group so that we can get out of the fields.”

The Maddox Brothers and Rose eventually settled in Modesto, and went on to be a successful act in the late 1940s and 1950s.

The music of what was then known affectionately as a Hillbilly band enjoyed a resurgence in recent years.

Reissues of their music have opened up the Maddox Brothers and Rose to new audiences. In addition to being interviewed in the Ken Burns program, Don Maddox has made sporadic appearances at different venues.

In 2012, he performed on the highly regarded music program “The Marty Stuart Show”.

Country music legend Buck Owens’ likeness as showcased at the Bakersfield Music Hall of Fame.

The development of the Bakersfield Sound is detailed in the broadcast. The program includes a segment on Buck Owens, the singer who, along with Merle Haggard and others, established what most identify as the Bakersfield Sound.

Buck had a prosperous career that included dozens of hit records in the 1960s and 1970s, a big television profile from his years co-hosting the music/comedy show Hee Haw with Roy Clark, and a retirement that featured him and his band The Buckaroos performing regularly at his night club “The Crystal Palace” in Bakersfield. Buck passed away in 2005.

A plaque honoring Merle Haggard sets in front of a Harley Davidson dealership north of the City of Bakersfield. Photo: Steve Newvine

The late Merle Haggard’s story is poignantly on display in a few sections of the program.

The viewer learns the well documented back story of Haggard’s troubled Central Valley childhood that took him to youth detention centers and would eventually take him to an adult prison sentence at San Quentin.

There in the prison, he attends a Johnny Cash performance and commits himself to turn his life around. Through his music, his poetic lyrics of hard times and redemption, he becomes a star and ultimately a legend in the field.

Country music singer and songwriter Bill Anderson shares his reflections in several episodes of the Ken Burns documentary Country Music. Steve Newvine met Anderson when the singer performed at Modesto’s Gallo Center in 2017. Photo: Vaune Newvine

Helping tell these stories is country music singer and songwriter Bill Anderson whose interview reflections are sprinkled throughout the sixteen hours of the documentary.

Bill returned to the Central Valley a couple of years ago for a performance at Modesto’s Gallo Center.

At that time, he shared with me some of his encounters with these Central Valley music legends.

Of the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Bill talked about knowing the group in the 1960s, telling me “I knew Rose rather well and was acquainted with Fred Maddox. Rose ran a nightclub in Ocean City that I performed at back in the sixties.”

For my book, 9 From 99, Bill Anderson told me about meeting Buck Owens on a flight from Los Angeles to Nashville. “We got into a debate about whether singers should only record songs they wrote as opposed to including songs from other writers,” he recalled. “It didn’t take me long to realize I was in the presence of a man who knew who he was and where he wanted to be in his life.”

Bill was performing with Merle Haggard the night Merle played Okie from Muskogee before a live audience for the first time. “I talked to him about it after the show,” Bill said. “Merle said he wasn’t sure how audiences would accept the song given it had patriotic overtones. I told him not to worry.”

Thanks to the Bakersfield Sound, Central California was well represented in the PBS series Country Music. And thanks to the would-be historians of the genre, like Marty Stuart and Bill Anderson, who gave their time to the Ken Burns team to share their reflections, the story of Country Music now has been told.

California’s Central Valley and its’ contribution to the growth of country music, remains a big part of that history.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He recently completed another presentation on workforce improvement using his book Soft Skills for Hard Times as a source authority.

Merced, an International Rest Stop - Buses bring worldwide visitors and their wallets

Visitors depart their motor coach for a rest stop at a local supermarket. Photo: Steve Newvine

After seeing to it that his passengers are safely off the bus, Juan speaks with pride about his job as a motor coach driver for a travel company.

“We like stopping in Merced,” he says.

Frequently, huge tour buses stop for a rest break at a few Merced area supermarkets.

Those buses are loaded with visitors, many from other countries. All of them are passing through town as they make their way to Yosemite National Park.

On a recent Saturday morning, visitors from three bus tours made their last stop before Yosemite at the Raley’s supermarket in north Merced.

One group was visiting from France.

Another group was from Taiwan.

A tour bus can bring a lot of spending power to a local business. That’s why stores like Raley’s and Savemart cater to these tour groups heading to Yosemite. Photo- Steve Newvine

Juan’s bus was a little late making it to the parking lot at Raley’s. The California Highway Patrol was pulling all motor coaches off a section of Highway 99 near Merced for a safety check.

“We passed,” Juan said of the impromptu inspection by authorities. “But that’s because our company has strict rules about keeping our buses safe.”

It’s the hope of tourism professionals in Merced that local businesses capture as much of the economic windfall as possible from a tour bus. The Visit Merced website displays plenty of information about activities motor coach visitors might experience while in the County.

The Merced California Tourist Information Center on 16th Street has all kinds of brochures, and they assign staff to help answer questions about the area.

But these visitors know exactly where they are going.

Yosemite is world renown as a destination anyone should experience.

“We’ll take them up there, and they’ll have a great time,” Juan says.

Driver Juan stands in front of his bus. Juan drives for a company based in Los Angeles and he’s been to Yosemite dozens of times. Photo- Steve Newvine

Drivers like Juan say the stop in Merced is perfectly timed.

“The prices here are better than what they see in the park,” Juan said. “Up there, a typical meal, say hamburger and fries, might run them twenty dollars. Here, they get different things and can save a lot.”

The visitors seemed impressed with the vast selection of foods and beverages than line the shelves.

One group of about six Taiwanese visitors gathered in front of a beverage refrigerator case discussing, in their language, what might be the best one to buy.

The group seemed oblivious to the other shoppers who were trying to pass by. Eventually, I caught their eye and smiled.

They immediately formed a single line to allow shoppers to pass.

Another reason why the Raley’s stop is attractive to visitors is access to the ATM in front of the Wells Fargo Bank. Photo: Steve Newvine

According to the Ontario Motor Coach Association, an international organization for the industry, a bus filled with visitors can bring over fourteen-thousand dollars in economic benefit per day to a community.

That calculation takes into account spending on hotels, meals, admission fees, and souvenirs.

Even a small slice of that economic pie will suffice for restaurants, supermarkets, or a reasonably priced attraction such as Castle Air Museum in Atwater or the Fossil Discovery Center just over the southern Merced County line in Fairmead, Madera County.

The National Parks Service reports that Yosemite alone accounted for nearly seven-hundred million dollars in economic benefit to California just three years ago.

It won’t be long before Yosemite becomes a billion-dollar a year attraction.

That suits drivers like Juan just fine. He plans on retiring in a couple of years, but he says he may stick around part time after that.

“I love this work,” Juan says.

And with that, he finishes his cigarette.

He’s back to work, tending to his passengers on their way to Yosemite, just seventy miles away from the City of Merced.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. He’s written about California in two books: 9 From 99-Experiences in California’s Central Valley and California Back Roads-Stories from the Land of the Palm and the Pine.

Both books are available at Lulu.com

For more information about Yosemite, the Merced Tourist Information Center and other attractions, go to: www.visitMerced.com

For more information on the economic impact of Yosemite, go to: www.nps.gov For information on the motor coach industry, go to www.omca.com

Merced County’s Elevator Speech

A local company doing its part to help grow the regional economy. Photo: Steve Newvine

Most of us are familiar with the term “elevator speech”.

It’s grown to mean how we explain a detailed concept in the amount of time it would take to ride an elevator up or down several floors.
Here’s the scenario.

Someone walks into an elevator and stands next to a friendly-looking stranger. As the doors close, this person strikes up a conversation. You don’t have much time to answer.

You want to make a good impression.

That’s the idea behind the elevator speech.

You have just a few moments to cut to the most important aspect of the question, and you have to leave an impression with the person you are talking to.

The five-year strategy document prepared by the County Economic and Community Development department contains the elevator speech about Merced County.

The document was prepared by the Community Economic Development Strategy committee or CEDS.

In Merced County, a CEDS Steering Committee has representatives from six cities and two from the County. The CEDS Committee is the Workforce Investment Board where I serve as Vice Chair and served as Board Chair a few years ago.

The Community Economic Development Strategy or CEDS document.

In order to get federal economic development funding, a CEDS document needs to be in place. The 2019-2024 CEDS is fifty pages long. It has an executive summary, sections on such topics as demographics and transportation, and a breakdown of seven primary locations for industrial growth. There’s a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) recap, and the section called “Action Plan”.

That Action Plan is the elevator speech for Merced County.

In just three pages, the reader can see the top three priorities for economic development in our community. Broken down in three sections, this action plan/elevator speech should serve as a quick front-and-center awareness statement for Merced County.

The Elevator Speech

• Grow our Economy- create local jobs by helping existing businesses and bringing in new companies.
• Enhance our Competitiveness- prepare the County for business investment by addressing real estate infrastructure, improving the permit process, and developing business parks.
• Develop our Talent- work with business and education to create a work-ready labor force

If you can articulate these three statements, in your own words, to someone who wants to know more about doing business in Merced County, you will have mastered the elevator speech.

So how do you tell this elevator story?

Here’s a quick primer. Grow our Economy. We can begin by saying we’re working hard to create local jobs.

Point to last summer’s effort to save hundreds of jobs at Foster Farms in Livingston. That effort didn’t just happen. A number of key organizations, like the City of Livingston, Merced County, and the State of California stepped up to do what they could do to keep Foster Farms from moving most of their chicken processing operation out of state.

Several months after the deal was made, the company announced further expansion plans in Merced County.

Intensified efforts to improve Career and Technical Education in Merced County Schools exemplifies the “Enhancing our Competitiveness” component of the Community Economic Development Strategy. Photo: Steve Newvine

Enhance our Competitiveness.

We can talk about how local governments are working to make it easier for businesses to start, expand, and grow. We need to remind people there is now a one-stop permitting center inside the Merced County Government Center on M Street in Merced.

Develop our Talent.

We can point to the Career and Technical Education (CTE) efforts going on right now in the Merced Union School District. Every student, not just those on the CTE track, now are required to take two courses that are designed to prepare for the workforce. This makes sense when you hear how employers are looking for workers who are prepared for work. It makes even more sense when we realize that just about every college student holds a part time job while pursuing their degree.

All of this rolls up into the Strategy document. When it is formally adopted by the Board of Supervisors, it will be on the County’s website.

The words matter.

The actions matter even more.

9 From 99 w/new afterword

Steve Newvine lives in Merced. For the past thirteen years, he has served on the Merced County Workforce Investment Board including two years as chairman.

For the past eleven years, he has written an annual assessment of Labor in Merced County; first with the Merced Sun Star and now with MercedCountyEvents.com