Various Artists: Swing West!: Guitar Slingers

Nashville may be the indisputable home of the country-music industry, but that hasn't always been the case. Of course, any country fan can tell you that being home to the industry isn't the same as being home to the music, and in the '50s and '60s, areas west of the Rocky Mountains gave Nashville a run for its money. It's called country-and-western music for a reason, after all, in part because the Dust Bowl sent countless country people west, largely to California. With them, they brought the music of the country, leading to a vibrant music scene that's largely preserved through a series of recordings for Capitol. Located just north of L.A., Bakersfield served as the epicenter for a new, hard-driving country sound. The great Buck Owens and Merle Haggard eventually emerged as its biggest stars, but, as the first volume of this three-disc collection of western country shows, it predates them. An enjoyable, but far from exhaustive, survey of Bakersfield country, Swing West!: Bakersfield sets the tone for the series, offering a taste that should leave most listeners ready for more. Covering the work of Glen Campbell, Roy Clark, and virtuoso/inventor Les Paul, among others, the largely instrumental second volume, Guitar Slingers, captures some of the most intense guitar work, regardless of genre, ever recorded on the Pacific end of the Continental Divide. Ole Rasmussen & His Nebraksa Cornhuskers' 1952 recording of "C Jam Blues" may not be the best track on the collection's third volume, Western Swing, but it reveals something about the style it covers. Working their way through a Duke Ellington song, Rasmussen and his band break down the notion that genre distinctions matter, making jazz out of country and country out of jazz. Bob Wills, who had been playing western swing for years before he hit California, provides the best-known face for the style, but the third volume of Swing West! fleshes out the portrait with a selection of tracks by Tex Williams, Hank Thompson, Merle Travis, and others. California and country music are no longer associated with each other very much, but the sound of western country continues to exert a powerful influence on country music regardless of its place of origin, and Swing West! provides a fine introduction for those interested in hearing how it started.