Bakersfield is a major city near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. It is roughly equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles 110 miles (180 km) to the north and south respectively. In the 2010 census, the city’s population was 347,483, making it the 9th largest city in California and the 51st largest city in the United States. It is also the third largest inland city in California, behind Fresno and Sacramento. The city is currently in a state of rapid growth. Over the 40-year period between 1970 and 2010, it has grown 400% (from 70,000 to 347,000), making it one of the fastest growing cities in California. Bakersfield is the focal point of the larger Bakersfield-Delano Metropolitan Statistic Area (MSA). In 2010, it had a population of 839,631, making it the 62nd largest metropolitan area in United States. The city is also the county seat for Kern County, the third largest county in California by landmass (which encompasses the entire MSA).

Bakersfield was founded by Colonel Thomas Baker in 1869. It was located near (part of it "in") one of the forks of the Kern River, in reclaimed swampland. At one time called Kern Island, the city became known as Bakersfield after Colonel Baker's residence and field, which was used as a stop over for travelers (called Baker’s Field). Located on the Los Angeles to Stockton Road, and its close proximity to mountain passes to the west, south, and east, would later make the city into a transportation hub. Bakersfield was first incorporated in 1873, but was disincorporated three years later. The city reincorporated, which is used as the official incorporation date, on January 11, 1898.

Dwight David Yoakam (born October 23, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter, actor and film director, most famous for his pioneering country music. Popular since the early 1980s, he has recorded more than twenty-one albums and compilations, charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, and sold more than 25 million records.

Yoakam was born in Pikeville, Kentucky, the son of Ruth Ann, a key-punch operator, and David Yoakam, a gas-station owner. He was raised in Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Columbus's Northland High School in 1974. During his high school years, he excelled in both music and drama, regularly securing the lead role in school plays, such as "Charlie" in a stage version of Flowers for Algernon, honing his skills under the guidance of teacher-mentors Jerry McAfee (music) and Charles Lewis (drama). Outside of school, Yoakam sang and played guitar with local garage bands, and entertained his friends and classmates with his impersonations, such as Richard Nixon, who, at the time, was heavily embroiled in the Watergate controversy.

Alvis Edgar Owens, Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), better known as Buck Owens, was an American singer and guitarist who had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music charts with his band, the Buckaroos. They pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound—a reference to Bakersfield, California, the city Owens called home and from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call American music.

While Owens originally used fiddle and retained pedal steel guitar into the 1970s, his sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental, incorporating elements of rock and roll. His signature style was based on simple storylines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a drum track placed forward in the mix, and high two-part harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich.

Beginning in 1969, Owens co-hosted the TV series Hee Haw with Roy Clark. He left the cast in 1986. In 1974, the accidental death of Rich, his best friend, devastated him for years and abruptly halted his career until he performed with Dwight Yoakam in 1988. Owens died on March 25, 2006 shortly after performing at his Crystal Palace restaurant, club and museum in Bakersfield.

Vincent Grant "Vince" Gill (born April 12, 1957) is an American country singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has achieved commercial success and fame both as frontman to the country rock band Pure Prairie League in the 1970s, and as a solo artist beginning in 1983, where his talents as a vocalist and musician have placed him in high demand as a guest vocalist, and a duet partner. Gill has recorded more than twenty studio albums, charted over forty singles on the U.S. Billboard charts as Hot Country Songs, and has sold more than 22 million albums. He has been honored by the Country Music Association with 18 CMA Awards, including two Entertainer of the Year awards and five Male Vocalist Awards. Gill has also earned 27 Grammy Awards, more than any other male Country music artist. In 2007, Gill was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Vincent Grant "Vince" Gill was born in Norman, Oklahoma. His father, J. Stanley Gill, was a lawyer and administrative law judge who played in a country music band part time and encouraged Gill to pursue a music career. At the encouragement of his father, Gill learned to play several instruments, including the banjo and guitar, before he started high school at Oklahoma City's Northwest Classen High School. He first played with a teenage band called Bluegrass Revues in the late 1970s. The other members were: Billy Perry on the banjo, Bobby Clark on the triangle and Mike Perry on the bass.