Billy Mize and the Bakersfield Sound

In the 50s and 60s, Bakersfield, California bore witness to the emergence of a uniquely talented collective of musicians. Together, they birthed a genre that both lyrically and sonically indexed their particular life experience, challenged the established musical tastes of the Nashville scene, and permanently altered the landscape of Country music. They called it The Bakersfield Sound. While artists like Merle Haggard and Buck Owens rode the wave of the movement to lasting national fame, Billy Mize, a vocalist, instrumentalist, and songwriter, found the touring lifestyle to be incompatible with the only thing he loved more than music: his family. But a series of tragedies, rivaling the saddest Country lyrics, refused Billy both of his passions and inevitably led to an inability to sing. After going through an intensive stint at a brain rehabilitation center, Billy's 80th birthday approaches, for which the city of Bakersfield has thrown a huge concert event, and at which Billy is determined to take back the microphone and sing again.