KUZZ "Bakersfield's Best Country"

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KUZZ “Bakersfield’s Best Country”

Bakersfield has strong historical ties to Country music. Located at the Southern tip of the San Joaquin Valley, agriculture is the city’s second-biggest industry. Much of the population is made up of American refugees from the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma and the dry plains of Texas who settled here during and after the Great Depression. The cavernous dance hall, the Rainbow Gardens, was located just south of Bakersfield and was a regular stopping point for touring Country and Western groups like Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. It was in small Bakersfield honky-tonks that homegrown future stars like Merle Haggard and Buck Owens honed their craft.

In 1958, radio station KIKK went on the air playing Country and Western music for Bakersfield. In 1960 the call letters were changed to KUZZ. Local Country and Western television star Herb Henson was the station manager. In fact, he effected the call letter change to reflect his own stage moniker, “Cousin” Herb Henson. At that time KUZZ was at 800 on the AM dial as a ‘daytimer,’ a station which was prohibited by the FCC from broadcasting after sundown.

Buck Owens purchased KUZZ from its owners in 1966 at the 800 AM position and a year later purchased the 107.9 frequency, bringing it to Bakersfield from San Clemente. Owens immediately put the FM station on the air as alternative rock station KBBY-FM, programming mainly ‘underground’ rock and roll while Owens continued to play Country and Western music on KUZZ. Station newsletters from the late 60s show that KUZZ broadcast regularly scheduled Farm Reports and an hourly Gospel Moment with everything closing down at sunset.

Following the 1969 demise of Owens’ KBBY-FM, Buck quickly switched the call letters to KZIN-FM, showing its ties to KUZZ-AM and changing the programming to Country and Western. KZIN was a 24-hour signal, which differed from its sister station only slightly by playing more album product and often giving newer artists stronger airplay than KUZZ. The idea of a 24-hour Country AM station was still uppermost in Owens’ mind and, in 1977, plans were finalized to purchase the 970 AM position then occupied by rival Country station KBIS. At the same time, KUZZ’s 800 AM daytime frequency was sold to the Four Square Gospel Church headquartered in Los Angeles. Their plans were to broadcast a Christian music format out of Bakersfield.

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