By JIM FUSILLI

Nashville

Merle Haggard and Buck Owens are the standard-bearers for the stream of California country known as the Bakersfield Sound. Rightfully so: The 74-year-old Mr. Haggard is a formidable singer and one of America’s greatest songwriters; and Owens—who died in 2006 at age 76—together with his band, the Buckaroos, brought international attention to Bakersfield with its loud, clean, twangy style. Between them, the two musicians have tallied some 135 Top-20 hits on Billboard’s country charts.

But as we see in the high-spirited and handsomely mounted exhibition “The Bakersfield Sound: Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and California Country” at the Country Music Hall of Fame here, the sound isn’t homogeneous, took decades to develop and is the product of many hands. To discover Bakersfield’s forgotten artists is to tap a vein of American musical gold.

The Bakersfield story begins with the Dust Bowl. From Boaz, Ala., the Maddox family was among the 70,000 migrant workers and their children who traveled west to California’s San Joaquin Valley. Soon after arriving in 1933, the Maddoxes’ four sons and daughter formed a musical act, the Maddox Brothers & Rose; by 1937 they became the region’s first stars, performing a rocking country boogie they called “hillbilly music.” Thanks to their glitzy apparel and wild stage show, they were known as “America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band.”

In the mid-1940s Bakersfield, by now populated with country-music fans, became a rewarding stop for touring musicians. Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing, visited in 1946 and played for a year at the Beardsley Ballroom. Ferlin Husky moved in and had a hit duet with Jean Shepard; their “A Dear John Letter” featured Tommy Collins, Fuzzy Owen, Lewis Talley and Bill Woods. Woods ran the house band at the Blackboard, the honky-tonk epicenter of the city’s music scene. It showcased a lead guitarist from Mesa, Ariz., named Buck Owens.

The Blackboard’s music was designed for dancing and good times. Guitarist Joe Maphis, who recorded with his wife, Rose Lee, was so impressed with the rollicking Blackboard that he wrote “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (and Loud, Loud Music)” in its honor.

But it wasn’t until the 1950s that Capitol Records caught on. Producer Ken Nelson brought some Bakersfield musicians to Los Angeles and, with Owens on lead guitar, Collins had a string of hits for Capitol that brought national attention to a spare, echo-free recording style featuring the bite of a Fender Telecaster guitar. But it was Owens’s similar approach as a singer and bandleader that became known as the model for the Bakersfield Sound.

It was a handy mantle for commercial reasons, but it didn’t quite capture the sound’s essence: Maphis played a custom-made double-neck Mosrite guitar, not a Telecaster, and Owens’s music wasn’t much like what the Maddox Brothers & Rose played. Still, the label stuck and Capitol thrived. Meanwhile, back in Bakersfield, Talley and Owen opened their own label and signed Merle Haggard, who was playing bass in Stewart’s band. Mr. Haggard’s own group, the Strangers, featured guitar great Roy Nichols, who had played with the Maddox Brothers & Rose.

It’s said that the Bakersfield Sound was a reaction to the sweetness of Nashville, but that’s not necessarily so. Bakersfield musicians were influenced by Western swing, hillbilly music and to some extent R&B. If Nashville country came out of the church, as Mr. Haggard notes in one of the exhibit’s videos, “Bakersfield came out of the bars.” It was a relief from working in the fields.

Another misconception is that rock ‘n’ roll was seen as a threat. In fact, many Bakersfield musicians recognized it as an opportunity. In time, the Blackboard featured it. Owens was influenced by Little Richard, calling his music “conducive to excitement.” Three years before Elvis Presley cut his version of “That’s All Right, Mama,” the Maddox Brothers & Rose reworked an African-American blues number and came up with “New Step It Up and Go,” a wild rocker that presages the Presley track.

“The Bakersfield Sound” is fortified by vintage television footage from regional programs like Herb Henson’s “Trading Post.” Artifact-filled dioramas give a sense of how a music scene born of poverty rose to glory. Owens’s beloved sideman Don Rich is given ample due, as is guitarist Billy Mize and Bonnie Owens, a sweet country singer who had been married to Buck Owens and Mr. Haggard (and dated Fuzz Owen in between). Fender Telecasters abound.

As comprehensive as it strives to be, the exhibition fails to fully credit the role of Mexican conjunto or norteño music in the development of the Bakersfield Sound. Dwight Yoakam and Chris Hillman discuss it briefly in a video, and accordionist Flaco Jiménez is saluted for his contribution to the 1988 Yoakam-Owens duet on “Streets of Bakersfield,” but elsewhere it goes without mention. Consider that a correctible oversight, and applaud the Country Music Hall of Fame for spotlighting a seminal musical movement that can still thrill and delight.

Mr. Fusilli is the Journal’s rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com or follow him on Twitter: @wsjrock.

A version of this article appeared March 28, 2012, on page D7 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Fabulous Bakersfield Boys.

By LUCY BURNINGHAM

FOLLOWING THE nose-to-tail, no-waste ethos, more chefs and bakers around the country are cooking with spent grains, the aromatic byproduct of beer brewing. Most commonly comprised of malted barley, spent grains can also include rye, oats or wheat. Incorporating the softened grains into foods is more than a way to be economical and sustainable: It can add textures and flavors that range from earthy to nutty to chocolaty, depending on the beer of origin.

Because the grains go bad within about 36 hours of being strained from the wort (the liquid that becomes beer), chefs tend to cook with the whole wet grains right away—folding them into bread and pizza doughs, adding them to soup stocks or mixing them into raw meatballs.

In other cases, chefs freeze freshly used packets of spent grains. Another option, said Erica Shea, co-founder and owner of the Brooklyn Brew Shop, a store specializing in home-brewing kits, is to spread them on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake in a low oven for 8 to 10 hours. “Then you can keep them practically forever,” Ms. Shea said. She suggests sprinkling the whole grains into banana bread dough or milling them into a flavor-packed flour that lends itself to everything from graham crackers to cheddar scones.

While the grains don’t impart beery flavors, they do express certain elements of the beer from which they came. “Sometimes we pair dishes that use spent grains with the beer they came from, which gives you some similar flavors,” said Adam Dulye, chef at the Monk’s Kettle in San Francisco.

Good news for the home cook: Spent grains are plentiful. The average gallon batch of beer produces 2 to 3 pounds of spent grain, and a little goes a long way. They typically go to local farms for animal feed, but ask your local brewery if they’re willing to share some leftovers. Or befriend home brewers, who will certainly have some on hand. Then you, too, can experiment with adding spent grains to scones and pizza crusts, and discover one of beer’s more virtuous sides.

Hoecakes and Cookies

Tap, Atlanta

Chef Adrian Villarreal makes a spent-grain Southern-style hoecake topped with short ribs braised in beer and served with glazed root vegetables. This spring he’ll debut an ice cream sandwich composed of spent-grain cookies and stout ice cream.

For Veggie Burgers

The Monk’s Kettle, San Francisco

Thanks to a regular supply of spent grains from the local brewers who keep the restaurant stocked with beer, chef Adam Dulye regularly includes spent grains in the chickpea veggie burger. Some cuts of beef, lamb and game are crusted in spent grains before being grilled.

Nutty Bread

Birreria at Eataly, New York

Eataly head baker Paul Mack makes an earthy, nutty bread using spent grains from the three beers brewed upstairs at the Birreria. The bread, which is baked seven days a week, is served in the restaurant and is also for sale by the loaf. Additional spent grains from the brewery are taken to Arcadian Pastures in upstate New York to feed Gloucester spot pigs that are butchered at Eataly.

In Pizza Dough

Deschutes Brewery, Portland and Bend, Ore.

Executive chef Jeff Usinowicz mainly uses spent grains for baking—it’s in the dough for the brewpub’s thin-crust pizzas and special sandwich breads—but he has also added the grains to beer batter for fish and chips and to a graham cracker crust for cheesecake. Additional spent grains go to nearby Coleman Ranch; the grain-fed cows return to the brewpub as meat for burgers.

A version of this article appeared May 5, 2012, on page D6 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Grains Well Spent.

By CHERYL BUXTON

The upside to a down market is perhaps the push it gives organizations to make an inventory of their assets – not the least of which is their human capital. To do this they employ a wide range of sophisticated assessment tools that can highlight strengths and identify areas for professional development in their managers. However, research has told us that the typical interview – even when conducted by a well-trained professional – can only reveal a person’s leadership style (what he or she uses when trying to influence others). Simulation based assessments, on the other hand, can go a little deeper and determine a person’s thinking style, in other words how he or she makes decisions “when the door is closed and when someone isn’t trying to impress someone else.”

However, when confronted with “we would like you to take an assessment,” many executives face the prospect with a degree of trepidation. After all, many people dislike taking tests – especially when they are designed in part to identify and highlight personal strengths and weaknesses. An algebra test only tells you how much algebra you know (or don’t know), but an assessment must identify and expose the insecurities and flaws that you’ve tried to conceal your whole career, right? Not exactly. Following are some recommendations from experienced executive recruiters who have helped thousands of professionals “ace” assessment tests:

First, relax. Even chief executives can feel intimidated by the assessment process if they are in the final stages of being considered for a prestigious role. To alleviate this anxiety, remember that there are, in fact, no right or wrong answers. Advanced assessment methodologies use business case studies that are very hard to game so what is most important is to be yourself and respond candidly and authentically.

To prepare, set aside ample time to take the assessment, which typically lasts 45 to 60 minutes and is conducted via an online survey, paper questionnaire or, for some organizations, over the phone. Remember that ultimately the purpose of the assessment is to raise or clarify questions, rather than provide 100% foolproof answers about your ability.

Once you have done your part and completed the assessment exercise, the administrator may walk you through the results, asking more questions to create a clearer picture of your true strengths and areas for development, such as: Does this sound familiar? When are you more likely to use this style? How has it helped you? Does it ever get in your way?

Be open to receiving the feedback by seeing it as a chance to not only learn more about yourself but also to put your behavioral patterns into perspective and demonstrate a high degree of self-knowledge.

Help the assessor understand as much about your own interpretation of the results as possible, using it to shed more light on what you bring to the table and how you apply your unique style to a variety of situations. This is especially important if your assessment scores look different from what the executive recruiter or hiring organization would have expected. In such cases, another interview might be arranged to address those areas of concern, or more targeted referencing might be conducted to deduce whether there is an underlying issue that may not have emerged initially. If everything checks out, they will continue to move you forward in the process, and may even recommend specific coaching once you are hired to fill any gaps.

As a stand-alone, assessments are not sufficient for making hiring or career-altering decisions. However, when combined with all the information that is available about you, the data they provide are an excellent supplement and can add an important dimension toward understanding who you are. They can also offer another level of confidence that you will thrive in a new position. This process not only helps to maximize the hiring organization’s investment in top talent, but also helps you to maximize your talent to perform at your highest, even when the markets are performing at their lowest.

Read the full article.  

FOR GIANTS FANS

The Cocktail

The Jack Rose

They are technically the New York Giants, but ask anyone who’s schlepped to MetLife stadium through the Lincoln Tunnel on a NJ Transit bus and you’ll learn that the Giants are very much a New Jersey team as well. The Jack Rose, a smooth, slightly sweet cocktail, also has a dual state identity: It was supposedly named after a New York mobster and is made with applejack, a spirit produced primarily in the Garden State that’s also known as “Jersey Lightning.”

2 ounces applejack

1 ounce lime juice

½ ounce grenadine

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a coupe.

The Spirit

McKenzie Bourbon 45.5% ABV

Bourbon doesn’t only come from Kentucky—this one from New York’s Finger Lakes region is made mostly of a local variety of corn and aged in former Chardonnay casks from the area, giving the spirit a slightly buttery finish. The result is a smooth sipper with plenty of butterscotch and vanilla.

The Beer

Six Point Sweet Action 5.2% ABV

Brewed in Brooklyn, N.Y., Sweet Action is a mix of wheat beer, pale ale and lager styles, resulting in an easy-drinking brew that, like the Giants’ roller-coaster season, is a mix of sweet and bitter. Conveniently, it comes in a can so you can throw it at your television should Lawrence Tynes shank a field goal…not going to happen, though.

—Kevin Sintumuang

FOR PATRIOTS FANS

The Cocktail

Ward Eight

Boston’s most historic cocktail was invented, as one version of the story goes, in the late 1890s at Locke-Ober, one of the city’s oldest restaurants, to commemorate the election of a Democratic power broker to the State Legislature. Any similarities between this rumored fix and a Bill Belichick scandal are entirely coincidental. Essentially a whiskey-sour variation, this drink has sharp citrus and floral hints of dark fruit that round out rye’s spicy bite.

2 ounces rye whiskey

½ ounce lemon juice

½ ounce orange juice

1 teaspoon of grenadine

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a coupe.

The Spirit

Privateer Rum 45% ABV

Since rum was the bedrock of New England’s early economy, root for the Pats with a bottle of this sippable, caramel-like Massachusetts rum. Made by a descendant of Andrew Cabot, a privateer during the American Revolution who used his fleet of agile ships to harass the British Navy (downright Welkerian), this is the stuff you’d expect the Patriots’ musket-firing mascots to drink.

The Beer

Pretty Things Jack D’Or 6.4% ABV

The Jack D’Or from Pretty Things, the beer-nerds’ brewery of choice in Massachusetts, is a riff on a Saison farmhouse ale. It has a complex, ever-changing rustic character that runs the gamut from dry to citrus. It’s exceptionally versatile, and finishes strong—just like the Patriots.

—Luke O’Neil

Small-business owners often complain of feeling caught in the cross hairs of the tax code. For a change, here’s good news.

The Tax Court has just blessed a new technique that owners of closely held businesses—and wealthy families—can use to pass assets to heirs with a minimum of taxes and complications. The ruling in the case, Wandry v. Commissioner, is stirring up excitement among experts.

David Kautter, a director of American University’s Kogod Tax Center, calls the ruling a “landmark decision, because it allows tax-free ownership transfers from one generation to another with certainty and in an orderly manner.”

Here is why Wandry matters. Our current system imposes a gift tax of up to 35% when taxpayers give assets away, with exceptions. Individuals now get one $5.12 million lifetime exemption, and they can also give up to $13,000 of assets a year to an unlimited number of recipients. (Next year the lifetime break is scheduled to drop to $1 million and the top rate to rise to 55%.)

This means an owner who wants to give a business to children or others, such as employees, can use these exemptions to transfer ownership tax-free. He can even use the $13,000 annual exclusion to transfer value bit by bit.

That is what happened in the Wandry case. Dean and Joanne Wandry, a Colorado couple, each gave units in a family-owned limited-liability company worth $1,099,000 to their heirs in 2004. To avoid paying tax, they specified the gifts should equal the dollar amount of their exemptions—a key point. (At the time, the lifetime exemption was $1 million and the annual exclusion $11,000.)

The hitch in Wandry and other cases is that the givers have to get a professional appraisal if—as is common—the company is hard to value. Often values are lowballed a bit in order to maximize the gift. But the Internal Revenue Service can contest the appraisal after the gift—and often does. In Wandry, the value rose about 20%.

That brings up an important issue: If values rise after an IRS challenge, must the giver write a big check for tax on the amounts above the exemption?

According to the Wandry decision, no. The judge held the couple intended to make a gift equal to their exemptions, so the excess was never actually given by them. No tax was due.

Here’s a simplified example: John’s business is appraised at $6 million. He gave units worth $5 million to relatives last year, with more to come in $13,000 annual gifts over time.

The IRS later determines that the $5 million of units were actually worth $6.2 million. Does John owe gift tax of about $400,000 on the $1.2 million? Not if he arranges the transaction as the Wandrys did, and the $1.2 million is deemed never to have been given. It remains John’s.

The IRS must feel like this decision stacks the deck in taxpayers’ favor, because they don’t risk writing a check if they lowball the value of a gift.

According to attorney John Porter of Baker Botts in Houston, Wandry is the latest in a line of related cases lost by the IRS. Absent the Wandry decision, often the best outcome is for a family to designate a charity to receive the excess. No tax is due, but the family gives up some control.

The Wandry case is a boon not only for business owners but also wealthy families with “family limited partnerships” or entities holding publicly traded stocks. Even though the stocks’ value is easy to determine, submerging them in a nontraded company provides valuable discounts when units are transferred to heirs.

As a “memorandum” decision, Wandry may be cited as precedent in future cases. The IRS had no comment either on the decision or whether it will appeal the case to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The catch: The IRS has more than three months to appeal the case. Mr. Porter believes its reasoning is sound, but taxpayers who rely on it while gift-tax exemptions are high and rates are low run a risk.

Still, it may be important to act soon. The decision is so advantageous for taxpayers that it could inspire a response from Congress or the IRS.

Proposals on passing wealth through partnerships that would undercut Wandry have been raised repeatedly by lawmakers, notes Kogod’s Mr. Kautter, and the decision could help revive them.

—Email: taxreport@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared April 28, 2012, on page B9 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Shielding the Family Business.