From the Byrds to Dwight Yoakam and Lone Justice: Three Decades of California Country-Rock Will Get Their Due in Nashville
by Chris Willman
Attention, L.A. country music fans: It may be time to charter a bus.
Come Sept. 30, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville will be opening a new exhibit, “Western Edge: The Roots and Reverberations of Los Angeles Country-Rock,” in a newly renovated, 5,000-square-foot gallery filled with artifacts, annotation and video largely collected from the scene of the crime in Cali. It covers three distinct decades in SoCal music history: the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. L.A. scenesters who remember any of these eras fondly may have their lives flashing before their eyes, and they’ll only have to book a ticket to Tennessee to do it.
There’s no huge hurry to get there; “Western Edge” will be on display at the Hall of Fame for three years. But for those who’ve hankered for decades to see this kind of historical homage come together, the opening can’t come fast enough.
“Everybody’s dealt with the first incarnation of the sound, from the Depression up through Buck and Merle,” said Dwight Yoakam, at a media event held at the Troubadour to spur west coast interest in the exhibit, “but not many have dealt with the things that came after — the things that inspired me as a teenager and in college and that drew me to the west coast. It was a beacon, that stuff.” He added, “It’s an honor to be part of this exhibit that has to do with that next stage of the Tom Joad road that led to California’s version of country music… They’re doing Ken Burns-level research.”
… That’s not all, Palomino-heads. “With Lone Justice, we met with Ryan Hedgecock and Marvin Etzioni, and Ryan in particular had like 20 manuscripts and 20 or 30 set lists that they wrote by hand from the early days… and the first flier, when they were opening for Rank and File and they went around the Universal Amphitheatre at a Blasters show and put them on everybody’s car windshields. And Maria McKee was an outstanding, outstanding interview — one of my favorites, really colorful. She dressed up in what she called her ‘Loretta Lynn gown’ — a floor-length, multicolored, Southern ball gown. She looked more like Scarlet O’Hara, almost. She was so passionate and gave so many good stories. I didn’t know she been a street performer with her brother (Love’s Bryan MacLean) singing gospel songs at 16, for instance, and that was part of why she learned to project.”