I’m excited to present my newest video for you all! This time around I’ve tackled the Bakersfield Sound with a really great song called “California Cotton Fields,” written by Dallas Frazier and originally recorded by Merle Haggard. Besides Haggard’s great version, “California Cotton Fields” has also been recorded by Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, and many other artists.
Watch here: https://www.facebook.com/deke.dickerson/posts/10157482637816746/
Like most of the other songs I’ve done videos for, this one got stuck in my head a few weeks ago and just wouldn’t leave. Besides the catchy melody, the song has incredible lyrics about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl migration to California. And that guitar-driven Bakersfield twang!
The lyrics to this song have always resonated with me. I didn’t move to California in the Depression, but I left my home state of Missouri when I was twenty-two years old because there were no opportunities for me there. California beckoned as a land of endless opportunity. Like the man’s father in the lyrics, I related to this line in the song (a staggeringly great line, if you want to talk about country music song craftsmanship): “California was his dream, a paradise, for he had seen, pictures in magazines, that told him so…”
When I arrived in California, I found a melting pot I had never experienced in black and white Missouri. An interesting thing about California is that you rarely meet a native Californian. A great majority of the white folks in California came from places like I came from: Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska. They were country folks who moved to California in the Dust Bowl or for other economic reasons in the following decades. Latinos from Mexico and every other country south of the US border made up a large part of the population—the hardest-working people you’ve ever seen. One of my first jobs after moving to Southern California was working at a gas station in Yucaipa on the edge of the desert. Every shift was a new cultural learning experience for this young Missouri boy. I interacted with whites, Latinos, African Americans, Asians, Middle Easterners, people of every race and religion and economic group. I had to learn how to understand accents from Guatemala, Ghana, or the Bronx. It was a great education for me.
I guess all of this has been on my mind this last week during the election. Once again, television pundits and news people just couldn’t wait to say bad things about California and its huge voting bloc of people. California contributes somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the national economy, and one out of every eight Americans lives here. Somehow, this state full of Okies and Arkies and mostly working-class blacks and Latinos and every other culture are “Coastal Elites,” according to the news.
What a bunch of horse manure. Even though California puts much more money into the federal economy than it takes out, our votes in the electoral college system (and importantly, the Senate) are woefully underrepresented—for example, one vote in California is worth 57 votes in Wyoming. We get the short end of every political deal. But after making a bunch of money that go to support other economically depressed States (California would be the fifth largest economy in the world if we separated from the US), and not having our votes count as much as people in other states, people still just can’t wait to talk bad about California. “Coastal Elites,” my ass. We support the rest of this country, like a mighty foundation to a great, tall building.
So when I chose this song, I thought about all those folks, hard-working people, all over the great state that I’ve come to call home. I thought about Merle Haggard, whose family came from Oklahoma and settled in Bakersfield. I thought about Buck Owens, whose family came from Texas by the Oklahoma border and settled in Bakersfield. I thought about all the other great music that came out of California, with all those races and cultures and people from all walks of life interacting and influencing each other. I found my own personal “California Cotton Fields” through the music scene here. Even though I never got rich or famous, I found my dream out here in the Golden State. I hope you all enjoy my version of this great song, because I sure enjoyed making it for you.
Of course, my dream has been put on hold since March, since the COVID pandemic has canceled all of my shows and festivals and tours. The only way I’ve been keeping my bills paid has been through making these videos for you and getting tips from you generous folks who think that supporting musicians and other creative folks is important. I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated your generosity over the last few months!
Watch here: https://www.facebook.com/deke.dickerson/posts/10157482637816746/
