In the boom period following World War II, the music scene in California was a vibrant place. Steven Connor writes, "Since the Second World War, music has both experienced and attempted to encompass dissipation, evaporation, exposure" (60), and California attracted musicians of all kinds, from classical to the early creators of what would become rock and roll. In country music, George Lewis writes, "California has Bakersfield ('Nashville West') and, of course, Los Angeles-which has produced everything from Hollywood's singing cowboys to the rhinestone- studded dogcollar sound of cowpunk" (59), and the large Mexican population also influenced the country sound, adding Hispanic rhythms and harmonies to the mix.
California was the home of one of the first television shows dedicated to country music, Cliffie Stone's Hometown Jamboree, broadcast from Pasadena; in the fall of 1952, the show featured Lefty Frizzell, who had left Texas and Nashville to try to build a broader following (Wolfe 31). Many musicians eventually made their way to California, as much for the welcoming physical climate as for the artistic one.
Capitol Records led the way in Los Angeles, Wolfe writes, with "an impressive roll of Top 10 artists in 1950: Tennessee Ernie Ford, Margaret Whiting and Jimmy Wakely, Tex Ritter, Leon Payne, Hank Thompson" (270). Country here was strongly influenced by western swing and honky-tonk singing.
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