BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) \u2014 The Beale Memorial Library unveiled a set of 10 portraits honoring nine local country-music pioneers Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
The artist, Patti Peak Doolittle, who grew up in Bakersfield, permanently gifted her distinctive black-and-white paintings to the county library\u2019s main branch, and a crowd of 100 was on hand to take in the exhibit\u2019s debut \u2014 and applaud her donation.<\/p>\n
Beale Memorial Library to host special exhibition celebrating Bakersfield Sound, pioneering musicians <\/a><\/p>\n The Beale celebrated Dolittle\u2019s gift with music and speeches by Bakersfield Sound authority Scott B. Bomar, an award-winning author and four-time Grammy nominee; Mike McCoy, director of the Kern County Museum; Di Sharman, Glenda Rankin and Anna Reading of Citizens Preserving History; and the artist herself.<\/p>\n Prizes and giveaways included a historical artifact of note \u2014 a glass block from the original Trout\u2019s bar, as well as a copy of Bomar\u2019s 10-CD deluxe box set, The Bakersfield Sound: Country Music Capital of the West, 1940-1974.<\/p>\n Nineteen years ago, Doolittle undertook her daunting labor of love: Immortalizing some of the great Bakersfield Sound performers of her younger days. And flying out from Florida to see them now was emotional for her.<\/p>\n \u201cIt made me cry, it still does. Anyway, it\u2019s beautiful. I thought my mother and my father and my sister would be so proud.\u201d<\/p>\n She started and completed the project in 2007. First, she painted Cousin Herb Henson \u2014 in acrylic, sparingly administered, on a huge, 84-by-48 canvas. Then, using the same dimensions and techniques, Red Simpson. Then Buck Owens, followed by a much younger Buck Owens, then Merle Haggard, Billy Mize, Bill Woods, Tommy Collins, Lewis Talley and Bonnie Owens. A year later, Doolittle had painted 10 portraits of nine individuals.<\/p>\n And now, after a somewhat torturous and prolonged journey of 13,000 miles back and forth across the country, they are back in Bakersfield for good.<\/p>\n