Gill and Franklin's album Bakersfield initially hit stores early last year. It featured ten songs by Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, two Country Music Hall of Famers who each emerged from Bakersfield in the early 1960s and helped make the Bakersfield Sound (as it was dubbed) a national phenomena. Earlier this year, Cracker Barrel issued a deluxe edition of the album that features four bonus tracks.

In an interview with Radio.com, Gill and Franklin discussed the impact the Bakersfield Sound has had on their careers, and why it's important to put the spotlight back on the music today.

For starters, they were finding that the music of Owens and Haggard still resonated strongly with their Time Jumpers audience.

"We were sitting there together every Monday night, playing all of the great songs that we love to play," Gill explained to Radio.com, "and every now and then I get my belly full of swing music and I'd say, Hey, let's play 'Together Again' or let's play 'Holding Things Together,' both Buck Owens and Merle Haggard songs, and the crowd would go crazy. I told Paul, 'There's something here. Maybe we can find a way to do something to honor those guys.'"

Franklin jumped at the opportunity, and soon the two were talking of their histories and their admiration for Haggard and Owens. "As we talked more, we learned about each other," Franklin said. "My very first influence, my dad bought me a Fender 400 steel guitar, and the first thing he did was, he bought a You're for Me album of Buck Owens. And he said, 'Play like that guy, that's the way it's supposed to sound.'"

Franklin then pointed to Gill. "He goes back to Don Rich and Buck," he said, referring to Owens and his longtime lead guitarist. "So when we realized that it made even more sense. It goes back to the core of who we are as musicians."