Bakersfield Roots

Country music doesn't get any better than this.

The hard luck, futility, even the sketchiness of the perennial down-and-outer come through loud and clear in the emotive harmonizing of Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam, two country giants -- one of whom helped shape the Bakersfield (California) sound in classic country music, the other of whom brought that sound back in the 1980s to listeners who had been starving for it.

Homer Joy's song is, of course, a classic. But this version is special because it captures the cross-cultural, working-class roots of the city itself, thanks to the addition of norteño legend Flaco Jimenez on accordion. A perfect country recording.