larger view

“The Blackboard was the biggest, loudest, roughest bar in Bakersfield for the better part of a quarter-century. Its owners could not have known, back in 1949, that it would become known as the freewheeling cradle of the Bakersfield Sound, the most legendary of the city’s half-dozen country-music incubation stations. But that's just what happened. Nashville had the slick studios and the celebrity mansions, but Bakersfield had raw-edged Telecaster guitars and the vague sense that something special was happening here - at places like the Blackboard.” ( Robert Price.BKS)

Lloyd Reading,1930s Bakersfield country music legend -played the Blackboard over one hundred shows here! Hank Ray, historian and country blues player, standing in front of the actual ruins of the original Black-Board. Hank had brought amps and a car power converter, for the amps -it was just too damn hot to play! It would have been really awesome to jam with a real Blackboard legend at the original spot, some 70+ years after he ripped up the joint with his tunes.




Blackboard, owned by Frank Zabaleta and Joe Limi( standing on the side-walk), was the place to be back in the day. In 1951 the cafe reopened after a major remodeling and became known around town as the hottest places to hear, non horn playing, music acts, The Blackboard’s heyday came in the decade or so starting in 1952. The famous,” Bakersfield Sound,” a string twisting –twang Fender guitar based music, with a hard driven beat, a new country music style unique to the Bakersfield area, was born and burnin’. The new building is made of cement with a brick front. Photo Courtesy of Adoph Limi.
Below show inside the Blackboard, owned by Frank Zabaleta and Joe Limi
Blackboard

(from: Kern County Museum)

The world famous landmark,"The Bakersfield sign", arched walk-over Union avenue. Even tho it defined Bakersfield, the city fathers tore it down and luckily Buck Owens stepped up to the plate and had it restored and erected on the side street next to his Crystal Palace. Even though the sign is a true piece of classic Americana, the city fought Buck all the way, just like the hypocritical S.O.B.s did on the naming of "Buck Owens Blvd", which runs in front of the Palace. This postcard was sold back in the day, this copy was from the Kern County Museum. The Palm trees were moved to the new auto mall between Gasoline Ally and Wibble Road, Near Harris St.by Stier's RV.

Painting Pictures with Time, Lloyd Reading Of Bakersfield Was There 70 Years Ago, A True Blackboard Legend!

”Saw ya won’t me ta tell ya about the Blackboard ay”
I had gone on the tour of the old Bakersfield honky tonks last week with the country music legend, Lloyd Reading . Well, yesterday was time for the king of all haunted honky-tonks worldwide, The Blackboard! I had plans to set up amps and put a converter in my old truck, so as the time drew near I packed up the gear and called Anna, Lloyd Reading's daughter . We met in front of an empty lot next door to the Kern County Museum, which had oddly enough just published an article about the Blackboard that morning in the newspaper’s magazine “Bakersfield Life”. When I first got there, I was not sure which empty field had been where the famous Blackboard stood… I set up in front of a little occupational center parking lot just north of the museum. I turned up my Hip shot-B-Bender-Stratocaster and was playing as load as I could. I suppose I was tryin’ to scar up some old Black Board ghosts, I was in the mood for a spectral dance. As I played, clad in “cowboy armor” hat-boots-gingum (sp?) shirt and blue jeans. As I played there on Chester Ave, I got a lot of looks from passers by on their trek over the bridge into Oildale. Of all the looks I got, all were inquisitive. Hey…no one thinks I am a nut! Even though it is like 120 degrees! I played my songs “Bakersfield Girl “(magazine cover model Dolly Dagger’s favorite song SEE LINK : http://www.myspace.com/cand... then I played a heavy blues version of Walk these Streets Alone
(The New York “Mercs” favorite song : SEE LINK : http://www.myspace.com/hank... Ya- it is selfless self promotion…I know!

As I waited for Lloyd and Anna, I could feel a magic about the place, even though it is hot as hell, this is indeed a haunted Honky-tonk! Just about then I saw their red Dodge Caravan parked in a lot just north of my locality. I walked over to them. Anna was the first to speak, “yer in the wrong spot, the Blackboard was over here! I ran back through the perilous Bakersfield heat and got my truck, did a "u" turn on Chester Ave. and came back around to the very South East corner of the Kern County Museum . “This is it!” Anna declared, and I replied –“ it is hotter than hell”, Lloyd responded; “this is Bakersfield!”

I set up, I decided it was just to hot to set up the equipment, so the dreams of me playing at the place of the original Blackboard, with one of its’ legends, was not going to happen today.
It is hard to describe the feelings I had being here, "hallowed ground of the Bakersfield Sound" with him, a true Blackboard Legend! I suppose it would be like a Disney fan going to Disneyland and watching the film Fantasia or Steamboat Willie with Walt Disney himself! Anyway, the heat was getting to me. So we decided to have Lloyd show me the layout of the Blackboard and how it was back in the day. He did a bee-line to the chain link fence and waived his right arm in gesture;”here is where she stood” I gazed at the empty dirt field with artifacts of the old place abundant all over the surface. “Here is where the door to the restaurant was” pointing to the South-East corner of the little field next to a large weed.


These 2 photos show Lloyd Reading pointing out where the door, bar and actual chalk covered blackboard that the bands signed in on were, in the world famous honky tonk, The Blackboard. LLOYD Reading, of Bakersfield, is one of the only surviving players from the Black-Board days. Just this year he will turn 90 years of age and is a Black-Board alumni of the late 1930s.


“Here is where the actual “Blackboard's Blackboard was,” Waiving his guitar pickin hand over to the West about 15 feet in from the current sidewalk. “What?”
I declared, there was an actual Blackboard! I suppose everyone in Bakersfield new this but me, but wow! When you walk in the door, there was a school room blackboard on your left and that is where the bands signed in to their playing slot, “played for three hours, with now breaks, unless there was a fight”. Next Lloyd showed me where the hole in the wall was where the people passed through dividing the restaurant and the bar, There was some legal or code issue, so the two had to be separate... R.T.I.…red tape issue! After this we got our “get ares” out and got some Kodak moments on film and picked a wee bit of a tribute to the ”Honky-tonk Angles” OF THIS, MOST FAMOUS OF ALL THE HAUNTED HONKYTONKS!




Lloyd Reading,1930s Bakersfield country music legend -played the Blackboard over one hundred shows here! Hank Ray, historian and country blues player, standing in front of the actual ruins of the original Black-Board. Hank had brought amps and a converter for car power for the amps -it was just too damn hot to play! It would have been really awesome to jam with a real Blackboard legend at the original spot,some 70 years after he ripped up the joint with his tunes. Note the Archaeological importance of this "historic site", From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Historical archaeology is a branch archaeology that concerns itself with "historical" societies those that had systems ofwriting (Buck and the boys all had song “ writing”). It is often distinguished from prehistoric archaeology which studies societies with no writing. However, in current international usage the term historical archaeology is particularly used, especially in North America and Australasia, to describe the archaeology of the most recent past - from approximately AD 1500 to the present - meaning that it is concerned with the material remains of the modern period.
Bakersfield sound and Blackboard artifacts everywhere, maybe Buck's guitar pick is in that old field?!

Long before Buck Owens opened the very upscale, hugely popular, Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, "he helped shape the music that would come to define Bakersfield in an unassuming little honky tonk on Chester Avenue."
The Blackboard’s was originally a cramped little wooden shack like cafe built in 1925, when Buck Owens was four years old (Buck Owens: August 12,1929- March 25, 2006.) that served breakfast to blue-collar oil and agricultural workers and had live country music at night.