Buck Owens
Classic Country
Alvis Edgar “Buck” Owens Jr. was the architect of the Bakersfield Sound—a hard, twangy, drum-driven answer to the smooth Nashville productions of the late 1950s and ’60s—and one of the most commercially dominant country artists of his era. Fronting his band the Buckaroos, he strung together a run of chart-topping singles that made him a household name, then reached a second generation of viewers as co-host of the television variety show Hee Haw. His stripped-down, guitar-forward records left a permanent mark on country, country-rock, and even the Beatles.
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- Born August 12, 1929, in Sherman, Texas, into a sharecropping family that migrated west during the Dust Bowl years, settling in Mesa, Arizona. He reportedly took the nickname “Buck” from a family mule and left school young to work the fields and play music in local clubs and on radio.
- He moved to Bakersfield, California, in 1951 and became a fixture of its rowdy honky-tonk circuit, most famously the Blackboard club. His sharp lead guitar earned him session work for Capitol Records beginning in 1954, playing on records produced by Ken Nelson before he ever cut a hit of his own.
- Signed to Capitol as an artist, he broke through with “Under Your Spell Again” (1959) and “Above and Beyond” (1960), establishing the lean, electric style that would define him.
- His first No. 1 came with “Act Naturally” (1963), a song the Beatles covered in 1965 with Ringo Starr on lead vocal—a rare instance of a country hit crossing directly into the rock canon.
- The follow-up, “Love’s Gonna Live Here” (1963), became his biggest single, holding the top of the Billboard country chart for 16 weeks.
- He formalized his backing group as the Buckaroos—a name suggested by early bassist Merle Haggard—anchored by guitarist and fiddler Don Rich, with steel player Tom Brumley, bassist Doyle Holly, and drummer Willie Cantu among the classic lineup.
- Rich’s stinging Telecaster and high harmony vocals were central to the sound; the two-part harmonies of Owens and Rich, over a prominent backbeat, became the signature of nearly every hit.
- His mid-1960s peak was relentless: the double-sided “My Heart Skips a Beat” / “Together Again” (1964), the instrumental “Buckaroo” (1965), “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail” (1965), and “Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line” (1966), all topping the country chart.
- In all, Owens and the Buckaroos placed 21 singles at No. 1 on the Billboard country chart, most in a remarkable string across the 1960s.
- He carried the Bakersfield Sound to unlikely stages, releasing the live albums Carnegie Hall Concert (1966) and Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in Japan! (1967), and became known for his red, white, and blue Fender Telecaster as a visual trademark.
- From 1969 to 1986 he co-hosted the syndicated comedy-and-music show Hee Haw with Roy Clark, a role that broadened his fame but which he later felt had blurred his identity as a serious musician.
- The 1974 death of Don Rich in a motorcycle accident devastated Owens personally and creatively; he largely stepped back from recording and touring for much of the following decade.
- Admirer Dwight Yoakam coaxed him back in 1988 for the duet “Streets of Bakersfield,” which returned Owens to No. 1 and reintroduced him to a younger audience.
- In 1996 he opened the Crystal Palace, a nightclub, restaurant, and museum in Bakersfield where he performed regularly in his later years.
- He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, with Yoakam delivering his induction speech; his influence runs through Haggard, Yoakam, the country-rock of Gram Parsons and the Byrds, and beyond.
- Owens died of a heart attack on March 25, 2006, at age 76, hours after performing at his Crystal Palace in Bakersfield.
