Posted on 03/25/2006 5:28:10 PM PST by prisoner6
Bakersfield, Ca By: Kyle Brown
1:36 PM Saturday, March 25th, 2006
03-25-2006 KUZZ Radio owner and Country Music Hall of Fame musician Alvis E. "Buck" Owens died early Saturday morning at his Bakersfield, CA home. His family says Buck died in his sleep and the cause of death is not yet known. Buck was born on August 12, 1929 in Sherman, Texas. The son of a sharecropper, Buck traveled with his family to the Phoenix, Arizona area in 1937 as they searched for a better life. Eventually, they traveled to California's San Joaquin Valley, doing farm work. At a young age Buck vowed that when he grew up, he would not be poor. He found a way out of his family's poverty through his musical talent.
That talent blossomed after Buck moved to Bakersfield in 1951. Within months he was a member of the hottest honky-tonk band in town, Bill Woods & The Orange Blossom Playboys, who held forth at the legendary Blackboard night club. He began playing a Fender Telecaster guitar, which provided a unique new sound in country music. Soon he was playing for recording sessions at Capitol Records. His first session as a leader came in 1957, but the session produced no hits
Shortly thereafter, Buck began his other career, as a broadcaster. He moved to the Tacoma, Washington suburb of Puyallup and bought part-interest in a radio station, where he worked as a DJ and ad salesman as well as playing gigs in the area. He also had a live TV show in Tacoma.
Buck's first Top 10 record, "Under Your Spell Again," was released in 1959. In 1960, he sold his interests in Washington state and returned to Bakersfield, which was his home until he died. From 1962 to 1968 Buck released a series of #1 records that established him as one of the greatest country entertainers of all time.
| Buck Owens, the flashy rhinestone cowboy who shaped the sound of country music with hits like "Act Naturally" and brought the genre to TV on the long-running "Hee Haw," died March 25, 2006. He was 76. Owens died at his home in Bakersfield, said family spokesman Jim Shaw. The cause of death was not immediately known. Owens had undergone throat cancer surgery in 1993 and was hospitalized with pneumonia in 1997. His career was one of the most phenomenal in country music, with a string of more than 20 No. 1 records, most released from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. They were recorded with a honky-tonk twang that came to be known throughout California as the "Bakersfield Sound," named for the town 100 miles north of Los Angeles that Owens called home.  "I think the reason he was so well known and respected by a younger generation of country musicians was because he was an innovator and rebel," said Shaw, who played keyboards in Owens' band, the Buckaroos. "He did it out of the Nashville establishment. He had a raw edge." Owens, elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, was modest when describing his aspirations. "I'd like to be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs and had a hell of a time," he said in 1992. An indefatigable performer, Owens played a red, white and blue guitar with fireball fervor. He and the Buckaroos wore flashy rhinestone suits in an era when flash was as important to country music as fiddles. Among his biggest hits were "Together Again" (also recorded by Emmylou Harris), "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail," "Love's Gonna Live Here," "My Heart Skips a Beat" and "Waitin' in Your Welfare Line." And he was the answer to this music trivia question: What country star had a hit record that was later done by the Beatles? "Those guys were phenomenal," Owens once said. Ringo Starr recorded "Act Naturally" twice, singing lead on the Beatles' 1965 version and recording it as a duet with Owens in 1989. The song, by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison, tells of a poor soul who foresees a movie career playing "a man who's sad and lonely, and all I gotta do is act naturally. ... Might win an Oscar, you can never tell." In addition to music, Owens had a highly visible TV career as co-host of "Hee Haw" from 1969 to 1986. With guitarist Roy Clark, he led viewers through a potpourri of country music and hayseed humor. "It's an honest show," Owens told The Associated Press in 1995. "There's no social message — no crusade. It's fun and simple." Owens himself could be rebellious, choosing among other things to label what he did "American music" rather than country. "I took a little heat," he once said. "People asked me, `Isn't country music good enough for you?' " He also criticized the syrupy arrangements of some country singers, saying "assembly-line, robot music turns me off." After his string of hits, Owens stayed away from the recording scene for a decade, returning in 1988 to record another No. 1 record, "Streets of Bakersfield," with Dwight Yoakam.  He spent much of his time away concentrating on his business interests, which included a Bakersfield TV station and radio stations in Bakersfield and Phoenix. "I never wanted to hang around like the punch-drunk fighter," he told The Associated Press in 1992. He had moved to Bakersfield in 1951, hoping to find work in the thriving juke joints of what in the years before suburban sprawl was a truck-stop town on Highway 99, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area. "We played rhumbas and tangos and sambas, and we played Bob Wills music, lots of Bob Wills music," he said, referring to the bandleader who was the king of Western swing. "And lots of rock 'n' roll," he added. Owens started recording in the mid-1950s, but gained little success until 1963 with "Act Naturally," his first No. 1 single. Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. was born in 1929 outside Sherman, Texas, the son of a sharecropper. With opportunities scarce during the Depression, the family moved to Arizona when he was 8. He dropped out of school at age 13 to haul produce and harvest crops, and by 16 he was playing music in taverns. He once told an audience, "When I was a little bitty kid, I used to dream about playing the guitar and singing like some of those great people that we had the old, thick records of." Owens' first wife, Bonnie Owens, sometimes performed with him and went on to become a leading backup singer after their divorce in 1955. She had occasional solo hits in the '60s, as well as successful duets with her second husband, Merle Haggard. One of her two sons with Owens also became a singer, using the name Buddy Alan. He had a Top 10 hit in 1968, "Let the World Keep on a-Turnin'," and recorded a number of duets with his father. In addition to Buddy, he is survived by two other sons, Michael and John. |
Rest In Peace, Buck.
Thanks, that was so bittersweet.
prisoner7
Guess I was too teary eyed to type.
prisoner6
we used to watch this show... i remember being around 9-10 years old, singing "Pfft You Was Gone" with my friends... in fact, just a few months ago, i taught my 5-year old son the words... he likes it as much as i did... and still do...
Buck was a Bakersfield icon. He built his Crystal Palace on Pierce Rd, which was later renamed Buck Owens Blvd. He bought one of the town's local landmarks, the famous arch over Union Ave. and had it placed over the road in front of his nightclub.
I wasn't a great fan of his music, but really enjoyed going to his club. He performed there regularily, even with a damaged voice from throat cancer. His club, the Crystal Palace puts to shame some of its rivals in Branson.
He'll be missed.
What happens when you play a
country song backwards?
Answer: The guy sobers up,
the dog comes home,
and he gets his job back.
So long Buck, we'll miss you!
Mebbe, it was taken before Ernie died? But then, who knows?
RIP Buck. You've been included it The Great All Star Band in the Sky.
Speaking of Chet Atkins and Mark Knopfler, I have a tape of the two of them together, and it's so great ... kind of half-country, half-jazz (Chet was a monster jazz guitarist, and Knopfler is just plain brilliant), and all fun -- lots of chit-chat back-and-forth joking during singing. They had a blast recording together, you could tell.
HeeHaw" is just as funny now as it was 25 years ago
Having lived in Texas for 12 years, I found that C&W is pretty much intergenerational, and sticks around longer. At least away from the cities overrun with "hip-hop" and "mall-punk".
And this is from a headbanger.
Ernest Borgnine is going to be very shocked to know that he's dead!
A very good history and read of Buck is at the above link..... some 27 sections..
Elvis was shacking up with Ginger Alden when he bought the farm.
Did he do anything besides The MAgnificent 7? That's the only movie I can recall him in.
prisoner6
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