By Kathleen Hokit, Published on May 16, 2026 | Photo Credits: Kern Media LLC
The walls outside the first-floor auditorium of Beale Memorial Library now carry the soul of a generation.
On Thursday morning, May 14, 2026, artist Patti Peak Doolittle made it official, donating her “Legends of the Bakersfield Sound: Portraits in Black and White” collection to the library, a permanent visual tribute to the genre-defining musicians who put Kern County on the country music map.
Originally, Doolittle was commissioned by Trout Bar’s owner to create the paintings to be exhibited at Trout’s, a legendary Bakersfield country music venue that caught fire in 2022.
A crowd of nearly 100 packed the library for the dedication presented by Citizens Preserving History and Kern County Library Foundation, watching as Doolittle, who grew up in Bakersfield and now lives in Florida, returned a passion project nearly two decades in the making.
The collection features 10 oversized acrylic portraits of nine pioneers: Cousin Herb Henson, Red Simpson, two portraits of Buck Owens at different stages of his career, Merle Haggard, Billy Mize, Bill Woods, Tommy Collins, Bonnie Owens, and Lewis Talley.
Glenda Rankin and Patti Peak Doolittle
Among those celebrating the moment was local plein air artist Charlotte White, who has known Doolittle for nearly three decades.
“It was wonderful to see the portraits on the wall at the Beale Library,” she told Kern Magazine. “I have known Patti Doolittle for approximately 30 years. She is a blessed local artist and a valued member of the Bakersfield Art Association. To see her honored by Andrae Gonzales was long overdue and such an awesome honor.”
Charlotte White getting ready to live sketch
The morning unfolded in two parts. From 10 to 11 a.m., a press conference brought together the people who made the moment possible.
Bakersfield Sound author and four-time Grammy nominee Scott B. Bomar spoke about the importance of preserving musical history through visual art.
Scott B. Bomar
Mike McCoy, executive director of the Kern County Museum, added the museum’s perspective on safeguarding the region’s musical legacy.
Di Sharman, Glenda Rankin, and Anna Reading represented Citizens Preserving History—the local nonprofit responsible for tracking the portraits down and shepherding them back to Bakersfield after they vanished from Trout’s honky-tonk in 2017.
Members of the Kern County Library Foundation, whose board helped raise the funds needed to frame, mount, and protect the works for permanent display, were also on hand to mark the occasion.
From 11 a.m. to noon, the celebration turned into a concert featuring an all-star band spanning multiple generations of Bakersfield country talent.
From 11 a.m. to noon, the library transformed into something closer to an old Bakersfield honky-tonk reunion than a traditional gallery event.
Anchored onstage were Ernie Lewis, Norm Hamlet, Rick Reno Stevens, Kyle Appleton, Zane Adamo, and drummer Zack Arnold—co-writer alongside Lewis of the song “10 Portraits” inspired by Doolittle’s collection—a lineup stacked with musicians deeply tied to the Bakersfield Sound and the generations that followed it.
Hamlet, the legendary steel guitarist who spent nearly five decades performing with Merle Haggard and The Strangers, blessed the stage with the unmistakable sound of his steel guitar, filling the auditorium with the music that helped define Bakersfield country history.
Born in Woodville and later becoming one of the defining architects of the Bakersfield Sound after arriving in Bakersfield in 1965, Hamlet’s presence alone carried the weight of country music history.
A member of both the Western Swing Society Hall of Fame and the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, Hamlet’s unmistakable steel guitar drifted through the auditorium, honoring the portraits of a very era he helped shape.
Leading the performance was Ernie Lewis, whose decades-long musical journey has stretched from bluegrass and Americana to Bakersfield country. Born in Missouri before moving to Bakersfield in 1966, Lewis performed with groups including the Honeybee Ridge Gang, Moosehead Band, Highway 65, and The Fruit Tramps, sharing stages with artists tied directly to the Bakersfield Sound legacy.
Beyond Thursday’s stage, Lewis has become one of Bakersfield’s most dedicated musical caretakers—a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and retired Beardsley School District teacher who spent years performing at the recently closed Crystal Palace alongside Johnny Owens.
Lewis first became a regular at the Palace in 2013 with The Fruit Tramps before co-founding The Buck Fever Band with Johnny Owens in 2016. After that group dissolved in 2021, Owens launched The Bakersfield Sound and invited Lewis to join, with the group continuing to perform at the Palace until its closure in August 2025.
Throughout the morning, Lewis guided the show, carrying the heartbeat of the event, as artists rotated on and off the stage to perform songs honoring the music, memories, and spirit behind Doolittle’s portraits.
Zane Adamo, fiddler and lead singer of The Soda Crackers, stepped into the spotlight carrying forward a younger generation of Bakersfield Sound musicians rooted in the genre’s traditional style.
Rick Reno Stevens brought decades of country music experience to the stage. A Foothill High School Hall of Fame inductee, Stevens built a career that stretched from Bakersfield to Nashville, performing with Buck Owens at the Crystal Palace while also working alongside artists including George Jones, Martina McBride, Tanya Tucker, Vince Gill, Alabama, Randy Travis, and more.
David Reeves Carpenter also joined the celebration. The longtime California country artist and songwriter recorded with Motown Records in the 1970s and later earned recognition from the California Country Music Association for his music career, including his radio favorite “Lombardi Ranch.”
Rocky Savage brought the room to life with a harmonica solo, while vocalist Kim McAbee stepped forward to perform “Cryin’ Time,” adding another layer of Bakersfield country history to the stage.
McAbee released her album “Make Believin’” in Bakersfield in 1991, featuring tracks including “Look Me Up,” “Perfect Night (For Loving You),” and the title track “Make Believin’.”
Jennifer Keel followed with “Stop the World.” Keel has been part of the live Bakersfield Sound scene since the mid-1980s, performing with groups including the Dooley Brothers, her own band BRANDED, Buck Owens and The Buckaroos, Monty Byrom and the Buckaroos, and Rudy Parris and the Buckaroos.
David Simpson also took a turn at the microphone, each artist adding another emotional layer to the performance.
Kyle Appleton, who performs with multiple bands throughout Bakersfield and has toured with artists across the country, brought his blend of blues, rock, and country influences to the stage during the celebration.
For many in attendance, the performance felt bigger than a concert. It was a gathering of local icons, musicians, preservationists, and storytellers coming together to celebrate Doolittle’s 10-piece collection—while the artist herself sat front row witnessing her work honored through the very sound that inspired it.
For Lewis, a longtime keeper of the sound and current member of Johnny Owens and the Bakersfield Sound, Thursday’s unveiling marked his third portrait event with Doolittle’s collection—but the first with the paintings finally home for good. He worked closely with Di Sharman to put the morning together, and the relief was real.
“It all came to a big head because now the portraits are permanently affixed,” Lewis says. “They were traveling, and they’re so huge to carry around. I was just elated that they found a home in our county library for everyone to see.”
The performance also gave Lewis the chance to share his original tribute, “The Last Bakersfield Honky Tonk,” written after Trout’s burned down in 2022. Lewis played in the Trout’s house band years ago, and his studio release of the song features other artists with personal ties to that building.
“It was neat sharing it, especially with some of the guys I was on stage with, because they’re all my playing partners,” he says. “There’s a lot of movement in it, a lot of things going on. It felt wonderful—there was so much more to it than just singing it. There were a lot of pieces to the puzzle to that song.”
Lewis sees the permanent exhibit as one more nail in the wood—his phrase—keeping the sound alive for the next generation.
“The Bakersfield Sound is an official genre,” he says. “I’ve had this suit of armor on just to make sure that it stays alive. I’m seeing more younger artists coming out these days doing it, and that’s a blessing.”
Rick Reno Stevens
Guests sipped vintage Bubble Up and took home recipe cards for Rainbow Stew—references that drew knowing smiles from anyone fluent in the Merle Haggard songbook.
The collection is now on permanent display at Beale Memorial Library, 701 Truxtun Ave.
Getting to Know Ernie Lewis
Beyond his place on Thursday’s stage, Ernie Lewis is one of Bakersfield’s most dedicated musical caretakers—a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and retired Bakersfield City School District teacher who’s been playing the recently shut down Crystal Palace with Buck Owens’ youngest son, Johnny, since 2013.
What first pulled you into country music?
“I have to thank my brother, Robert Lewis. He was 10 years older than me, and I grew up idolizing him. We moved out here from Missouri in 1966, and when he was 15 or 16 he was already playing music in enlisted men’s clubs. He showed me my first little notes on a guitar. Then in the late ’60s and ’70s, he started listening to country, and movies like Bonnie and Clyde and Deliverance—that bluegrass and banjo world—hooked me on the instruments. That’s really how I became a multi-instrumentalist. I just wanted to keep learning.”
What do you love most about Kern County?
“The support. The fellowship. People from the outside always have something to say about Bakersfield, but this is a great place to raise children—I helped raise kids here. There’s a real unity in the country music world, and even in the rock scene. Somebody gets sick, and people are quick to jump in and put together a fundraiser. It’s a hard-working community, very supportive, very caring.”
When you want to eat local, where do you go?
“My personal favorite is Vatos Tacos—I love Mexican food. For Italian, my wife and I go to Frugatti’s. We’ve kind of got our places.”
When you and your wife just need to get out of town, where do you head?
“We’re water people, and we actually get in the ocean. For a quick, sleepy-town getaway, it’s Morro Bay. If we’ve got three or four days and we want something a little warmer, Laguna Beach.”
What’s coming up next for you?
“The next musical adventure on my calendar begins July 27 and ends July 30. I’ll be flying to Anchorage, Alaska, to begin a four-day tour with Norm Hamlet and Mario Carboni—we’ll be performing at various venues. Prior to the Alaska tour, I’ll be back east visiting family for about a month. But I’m always doing studio work at home. Right now I’m working on a new album with Fidel Martinez, a local poet and my writing partner. Fidel and I have released two albums and an EP since 2024, and I’ve been included in other releases he’s produced, such as Cotton Ghosts, which won album of the year in 2025.”
Find more of Ernie Lewis’s music—including “The Last Bakersfield Honky Tonk” — at ernielewismusic.com. Contact Mr. Lewis at (661) 496-3981 for hire inquiries.
For any errors please contact Kathleen Hokit at publisher@kernmagazine.com
