Looking
back into the history of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, to be exact...
one finds a
certain
"western" beginning. If we might all remember the first movie shot
in Hollywood was
in
a barn that Cecil B. De Mille rented in 1914, at the corner of Hollywood
and Vine. Shutters on
the
lights are called "barn doors" till this day...the studio "lot"..."shoot"
the camera..."stable" of
artists...YeeeHaw,
jump in the Band Wagon and lets Barn Storm on the World Wide Web.
Once
upon a time Buffalo Benford lived in a house in Beverly Hills that was
built around some
horse
stables. A beautiful 5 bed- room place with pool and two acres of
wooded LA/Japanize
style
designed landscape. There were deer running around...hawks soared
through the canyon
just
up a private street, not too far from The Roxy, The Rainbow and Whisky A
Go Go on
Sunset Blvd. He was
having
three or more pickin' parties a week and was finding these
barn
dances there in the
Hills
of Beverly interesting...in that the house had been a horse
stable and
the land a 32 acre
horse
ranch back in the 30tys. Anymoo the horse ranch in Beverly Hills
was
owned by John
Truesdale
and his wife, who's name was, yeper you guessed it...Beverly...Hence
Beverly
Hills.
Now
you know the rest of the story...from the Hills of Beverly.
In
the early days of Western Music, which would later link to the evolution
of country music
was
having birth here in Los Angeles with the birth of a group called
The
Beverly Hillbillies.
Story
goes that Glen Rice, the station manager at MKPC in LA created this name
and group.
In
Bill Malone's COUNTRY MUSIC U.S.A. he says, "Rice used the eastern moniker
Hillbillies for
the
group of western musicians that he built around accordion player Leo Mannes
(named
Zeke
Manners) and conducted a ballyhoo campaign which alleged that a group of
strange and
primitive
musicians had been unearthed in the hills of Beverly. The band made
its debut on
KMPC
on April 6, 1930, and remained a popular feature throughout the decade.
The Hillbillies
attracted
several fine musicians, such a Elton Britt, who came from Arkansas in 1930,
he was
famed
for his sky-high yodel. Story has it that Woody Gutherie hung out
with the boys in the
hills
of Beverly. They are said to have "combined cowboy music with hillbilly
music to create
their
unique sound.
Before
long Roy Rogers and the Sons of The Pioneers became king and Gene Autry
would
ride
out, as would The Riders of The Purple Sage, Patsy Montana, Rex Allen,
Eddie Dean and
the
Singing Cowboys brought Western music and Western movies to the world.
So
as this Beverly Hillbilly saga continues we find in 1963, the popular television
situation
comedy
The Beverly Hillbillies on CBS brought us a great vision in time meets
another time...
It
was so big that Flatt and Scruggs' song "The Ballad of Jed Clampett"
went to become
number
one on the Billboard's country charts. This was a rare accomplishment
for a bluegrass
song.
Later
in the sixties more country music was kickin' up dust in the West when
The Byrds, Gram
Parsons
and his Flying Burrito Brothers, The Buffalo Springfield, Pure Pararie
League, the Nitty
Gritty
Dirt band (The Dirt Band), Rickey Nelson and his Stone Canyon Band and
the Eagles
began
to create their Brand of Country Music at places like the Palomino Club,
The Ashgrove,
The
Waterlou Ice House and The Troubadour. Country Rock was born in Hollywood.
Now
it is on the downside of the next millennium and there is another Country
Western revival
in
the air...stay tuned to the StudioClub.com to keep on the trail of Western
and Country Music
in
the Wild Wild West...and go to
KickingUpDust.com
for more great MUSIC
VISIT
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