Among the numerous casualties, the pandemic has silenced cash registers in Kern County businesses that serve two notable types of tourists: adventure-minded nature lovers, drawn to the Sierra Nevada and Upper Core, and pilgrims drawn to this local canon more uniquely American Music are fascinated, the Bakersfield sound and all its colorful trappings.

Kern County is just one of California’s many tourist badlands: the state’s once thriving industry, which pumped $ 145 billion into the economy as recently as 2019 (and generated $ 12.2 billion in state and local tax revenue) is estimated to have halved more than $ 66 billion. Kern – especially its hotels, restaurants, and bars – typically accounts for a $ 1.5 billion annual share of California tourism.

The way back will be long, also because the pandemic does not have a clear finish line. But the recovery could begin with efforts like this: Senator Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, introduced SB 285, the California Tourism Recovery Act, which authorizes a $ 45 million publicity and job recovery campaign called “Calling All Californians.” would in-state tourism. It would begin as soon as the state authorities found such a trip safe.

The Kern County Museum isn’t waiting for efforts like SB 285, however. With its transplanted Merle Haggard freight car and a humble alcove of guitars and miscellaneous memorabilia, the museum has long benefited from the lingering public fascination with the Bakersfield Sound. Now it is chasing government money from another pot, the California Natural Resources Agency’s Museum Grant Program, to further capitalize on that unwavering interest.

The museum has applied for a modest $ 45,000 grant to build something the city has long needed and missed forever: a permanent, standalone Bakersfield Sound exhibit in the Pioneer Village area of ​​their northern Bakersfield campus.

The exhibition would go to an existing, converted, 1,600-square-foot building near the southeast corner of the museum grounds, which is currently lacking lighting, walls, floors, and display cases. Mike McCoy, executive director of the Kern County Museum, said it was “just the right look”.

The exhibit would have a performance area out front, under a new neon sign that reads “The Bakersfield Sound”.

There will be no problem filling the exhibit with artifacts that are sure to draw crowds.

“The tragedy is that this museum has this extraordinary collection of Bakersfield Sound stuff that no one has seen,” McCoy said.

Fortunately, part of it is now seeing the light of day. On Thursday the Bakersfield Museum of Art opened its virtual exhibition “Roll Out the Red Carpet” with Bakersfield sound artifacts (www.bmoa.org/events). Among the pieces: a distinctive pair of Merle Haggard boots, the front bench seat of Red Simpsons pickup, Bill Woods’ battered racing helmet and a waiter’s vest made of red velvet cocktail from the Blackboard bar.

The real gems, however, are the ornate, even garish, stage costumes, some of which were designed by tailors from stars Nudie Cohn and Manuel Cuevas and worn by Buck Owens and Rose Maddox. These artifacts breathe authentically. “I’m sure a lot of DNA flew around the blackboard after a hot night,” said McCoy. And some of it, he playfully suggested, could still linger in the sequin fabric.

The BMoA’s virtual exhibition runs until August 28th – and hopefully at some point it will be open to visitors to enjoy live and in person.

“Rachel Magnus did an exceptional job putting this exhibition together,” said McCoy of the BMoA curator, “but we can’t do that in our own museum.” Not until the county museum project is funded by the state museum grant program and McCoy “can put all that stuff back in a beautiful new exhibition hall.” His target opening: September 2021.

Despite the hoped-for government grant, the museum will need additional support, McCoy said.

“The secret to making this happen is that we need help from the community,” he said, pointing out the importance of the cash and in-kind donations that helped build the historic bar at the Noriega Hotel and a trolley from the hotel to maintain and install Bakersfield Streets from the early 20th century.

“If someone wants to donate to the Bakersfield Sound exhibition,” said McCoy, “I promise that every single penny of it will be used for bricks and mortar.”

It will be a long road for Kern County to get those lost tourism dollars back. It will be a long road for the entire state: COVID-19 is responsible for a 55 percent decline in nationwide tourism revenues from 2019, and for the loss of more than half of the state’s tourism jobs during that period.

McGuire, the US state senator who promotes tourism restoration law, told The Sacramento Bee earlier this month that the blow to the California tourism industry from the September 11th terrorist attacks, when people avoided air travel en masse for months, “compared to what the.” The pandemic is now affecting state tourism.

The Kern County Museum has the goods to bring back. McCoy just needs a lot of space to display a good, representative selection. Starved cash registers in the southern San Joaquin Valley shiver with excitement.

Robert Price is a journalist at KGET-TV. His column appears here on Sundays; The views expressed are his own. Reach him below robertprice@kget.com or on Twitter: @stubblebuzz.

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