Merle Haggard sings his tribute to the Bakersfield guitar picker/singer legend BILL WOODS. May 3, 2000 Country Music Pioneer Bill Woods Dies By Steven Gaydos Musician and disc jockey Bill Woods, one of the founders of the legendary Bakersfield, Calif. country music scene of the 1950s and '60s, died Sunday. He was 75. Woods had undergone heart surgery in March and suffered a stroke on Saturday. He died at San Joaquin Hospital. His death comes only weeks after the passing of West Coast country music giant Tommy Collins; the two, along with Ferlin Husky and others, laid the foundation for the Bakersfield club scene shortly after WWII. It was this scene that spawned the Bakersfield Sound: a raw, raucous, electric guitar-driven brand of country music that changed the form and helped Hollywood -- the West Coast recording center of the movement -- challenge the primacy of Nashville as a creative and commercial base. As bandleader at the famed Blackboard Club for 14 years, Woods was...