Nashville will soon be home to a Country music-inspired Mexican restaurant.
Restaurant chain Bakersfield takes its name from the era of Country music popular in the 1950s and 1960s that boasted such musicians as Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. The restaurant is slated to open in SoBro area mixed-use tower Encore’s street-level retail space in late 2014.
The approximately 4,000-square-foot Bakersfield space, owned by John Lanni, Joe Lanni and Alex Blust, will join Encore restaurants Etch and The Farm House. Bakersfield will offer Mexican street-style tacos and tortas, along with 100 types of tequilas and American whiskeys.
The restaurant will not offer live music, but will feature the sounds of Bakersfield-era tunes. For weekend partiers, the bar and kitchen will remain open until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
Bakersfield launched in 2012; Nashville will be the chain’s fourth location, following locations in Columbus and Indianapolis.
Encore is located at 301 Demonbreun Street in Nashville.

Legendary steel guitarist Weldon Myrick has died at age 76.
A fixture in the Grand Ole Opry house band for 32 years, Myrick was also a prolific session musician on Music Row. He suffered a stroke last Friday and passed away on Monday (June 2) at Saint Thomas Hospital.
Myrick was a key figure in the sound of Country Music Hall of Fame member Connie Smith. His steel licks “answered” her vocal phrases throughout her 1964 breakthrough hit “Once a Day,” and he subsequently performed on many of her other classic recordings.
A native of Jayton, Texas, Myrick began playing his older brother’s steel guitar at age 8. He moved to Nashville in 1963 and joined The Po’ Boys, the band of Country Music Hall of Famer Bill Anderson. Myrick played on such Anderson hits as “Bright Lights and Country Music,” “I Love You Drops” and “Eight By Ten.”
Other landmark records featuring Weldon Myrick’s steel sound include Jeannie C. Riley’s “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” Donna Fargo’s “Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.,” Roy Clark’s “Thank God and Greyhound You’re Gone,” Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles,” George Burns’ “I Wish I Was 18 Again,” Linda Ronstadt’s “Long, Long Time,” Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Middle Age Crazy,” Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochie,” Cal Smith’s “Country Bumpkin,” Jessi Colter’s “I’m Not Lisa,” Lacy J. Dalton’s “16th Avenue,” Merle Haggard’s “The Way I Am,” Sammi Smith’s “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” Reba McEntire’s “Whoever’s in New England” and George Strait’s “Right Or Wrong.”
The list of artists he has backed is voluminous. A small sampling includes Roy Acuff, Bobby Bare, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, The Pointer Sisters, Elvis Presley, Charley Pride, Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, The Oak Ridge Boys, Wayne Newton, Jimmy Dickens, Marty Robbins, Charlie Rich, Jerry Reed, The Everly Brothers, Dan Fogelberg, Lefty Frizzell, Leon Russell, Hank Snow, Tom T. Hall, The Statler Brothers, Waylon Jennings, Tanya Tucker, Mel Tillis, Cat Stevens, George Jones, Kris Kristofferson, Brenda Lee, Tammy Wynette, Hank Williams Jr., Kitty Wells, Porter Wagoner, Ronnie Milsap, Joan Baez, Roy Orbison and Dwight Yoakam.
Myrick was also a recording artist, as both a singer and an instrumentalist. His discs have appeared on such labels as Capitol, Dot, Mega, Decca, RCA, First Generation and Hilltop. He was a member of the Grammy-nominated country-rock band Area Code 615. His playing can also be heard on more than a dozen movie soundtracks. As a songwriter, he has been recorded by Buddy Holly, The Wilburn Brothers, Jean Shepard and Penny DeHaven, among others.
Myrick won Super Picker instrumentalist awards from NARAS annually in 1974-79. He was ROPE’s Musician of the Year in 1996 and was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1997. He retired from the Opry in 1998.
In recent years, Myrick has done concerts and steel-guitar seminars in Japan and Sweden. He performed at various senior-citizen venues around Nashville and backed Opry stars on WSM radio’s The Midnight Jamboree and at benefits.
Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division announced this week that it will review the 73-year-old legal system governing what songwriters and publishers charge broadcasters, digital music services and other licensees for playing their compositions, according to the Wall Street Journal.
After two antitrust settlements were signed dating back to the 1940s, the country’s two largest performing rights organizations—Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) and American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)—were mandated by the federal government to license their members’ compositions to any parties willing to pay the rates set by federal judges through the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The Justice Department’s review will include a 60-day period for public comments about the consent decrees. The department could then recommend changes to regulation, which will be reviewed by the U.S. District Court.
ASCAP’s consent decree was last amended in 2001, while BMI’s was last amended in 1994.
According to sources, BMI and ASCAP will request the government streamline the rate-setting process, in order to limit it to a 90-day arbitration period, instead of full-blown trials. They will also push for the ability to license members’ catalogs to select music users.
Some publishers are considering withdrawing their catalogs from these PROs if not allowed to opt out of ASCAP’s and BMI’s licensing agreements in case-by-case circumstances. If publishers do withdraw from these PROs, they would be responsible for collecting their own performance royalties from radio stations, streaming services, television broadcasts and other outlets, or they can outsource the job to a third party.
“ASCAP remains committed to working with the Department of Justice and all industry stakeholders to modernize the music licensing system so that it better serves songwriters, the businesses who depend on our music and the people who listen to it – not just today, but for generations to come.” ASCAP President and Chairman Paul Williams stated. “Updating music licensing regulations to reflect the realities of today’s music landscape will preserve the benefits of collective licensing to businesses that license music, give consumers greater access to the music they love and allow the more than 500,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers we represent to be compensated for the true value their music brings to the marketplace.”
“In the current digital environment, it is crucial that ASCAP and BMI’s outdated consent decrees are amended to reflect the realities of the current marketplace and emerging business models. We welcome the Department of Justice’s review and we are optimistic the system will be reformed to allow our writers and composers to receive fair market value for their music,” said Martin Bandier, Sony/ATV Music Publishing Chairman and CEO.
The review comes when lawmakers are considering a larger revision of copyright law, including the rules that regulate what digital music services pay record labels, and performers to transmit recordings.