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All Music Guide:
Buck Owens, along with Merle Haggard, was the leader of the Bakersfield sound, a twangy, electricified, rock-influenced interpretation of hardcore honky tonk that emerged in the '60s. Owens was the first bona fide country star to emerge from Bakersfield, scoring a total of 15 consecutive number one hits in the mid-'60s. In the process, he provided an edgy alternative to the string-laden country-pop that was being produced during the '60s. Later in his career, his musical impact was forgotten by some as he became a television personality through the country comedy show Hee Haw. Nevertheless, several generations of musicians -- from Gram Parsons in the late '60s to Dwight Yoakam in the '80s -- were influenced by his music, which wound up being one of the blueprints for modern country music.
Owens was born in Texas, but his family moved to Mesa, AZ, when he was a child, seeking work during the Great Depression. Owens developed a fervent interest in music as a young child, learning to play guitar in his early teens. He dropped out of high school in ninth grade, working on the farm to help his family but also spending a significant amount of time learning how to play the guitar. By his late teens, he had an occasional spot on a local radio station, KTYL Mesa, and was playing gigs in honky tonks and clubs around Phoenix with his friend Theryl Ray Britten. When he was 19 years old, he married Bonnie Campbell, who was also a country singer. By 1950, the couple had two sons.
Buck and Bonnie Owens decided to leave Arizona in 1951, moving to Bakersfield, CA. In Bakersfield, he became a regular performer in a number of clubs, particularly the Blackboard, where he was the lead singer and played rhythm guitar for Bill Woods & the Orange Blossom Playboys. Soon, he formed his own band, the Schoolhouse Playboys, which also played the Blackboard. Buck's exposure in Bakersfield led to some session work for Capitol Records, beginning with Tommy Collins' 1954 hit "You Better Not Do That." During all of this, Buck and Bonnie grew apart and divorced in 1953; they remained friends and shared custody of their children.
Between 1954 and 1958, Owens played guitar on a number of Capitol country records produced by Ken Nelson, including some by Faron Young, Tommy Sands, and Wanda Jackson. Occasionally, he was a session musician at the local Bakersfield studio Lu-Tal, run by Lewis Talley. Owens made his first solo recordings at Talley's studio in 1956, cutting ten songs for an independent label called Pep. The singles -- which included the often-covered "Down on the Corner of Love" and "Sweethearts in Heaven" as well as two rockabilly sides released under the name Corky Jones -- were unsuccessful, yet they attracted the attention of many country music business insiders. Around this time, Owens met Harlan Howard, a struggling country singer/songwriter. The pair became friends and collaborators, with Buck writing the music and Harlan writing the lyrics. Owens and Howard formed Blue Book Music that year in order to publish their songs.
Owens continued to play regularly in Bakersfield clubs. At these concerts, he attracted the attention of Johnny Bond and Joe Maphis, who were performers on Town Hall Party and signed to Columbia Records. Impressed with Owens' music, the pair sent a demo to their record label, who immediately became interested in signing Buck. Several people at Capitol were trying to persuade Ken Nelson, the label's country A&R head, to sign Owens as a recording artist, but he wasn't convinced that Buck was a capable lead singer or songwriter. It wasn't until a Capitol recording artist, the Farmer Boys, picked Owens' songs to record instead of Nelson's that the A&R head decided to sign the guitarist in February 1957.
Initially, Owens' singles for Capitol Records were ignored. They were country-pop numbers, complete with a choral group singing backing vocals. Such a big production didn't fit comfortably with his unvarnished honky tonk roots and both singles sank without a trace when they were released in 1957. Hurting financially from the lack of sales, Owens moved to a suburb of Tacoma, WA, to work at a radio station, KAYE, in January 1958. In addition to DJing and selling ads for the station, he played clubs around the area. By the summer, Owens was convinced that his recording career was over, but Ken Nelson refused to let him out of his contract. In the fall of 1958, Owens had another session for Capitol Records, but this time he was allowed to use a steel guitar and a fiddle. One of the songs from the session, "Second Fiddle," was released as a single and became a surprise hit, climbing to number 24 on the country charts. Even though he had his first taste of success, Owens remained skeptical about his future as a recording artist, so he remained in Tacoma, hosting his own live show on KTNT. On the show, he featured a new local singer named Loretta Lynn. More importantly for Owens, he met Don Rich (born Donald Eugene Ulrich) at this radio show. Rich would become Owens' partner in the next decade and would have an immense influence over his music.
"Under Your Spell Again," the fall 1959 follow-up to "Second Fiddle," broke the doors open for Owens. Climbing to number four, the single began a streak of Top Ten singles that ran more of less uninterrupted into the '70s. After "Under Your Spell Again" became a success, Owens moved back to Bakersfield. That winter, Rich also moved to Bakersfield, joining Owens' band as a fiddler and guitarist. Early in 1960, Owens took over Howard's share of Blue Book Music, leaving him in total control of the publishing of all of his songs. "Above and Beyond" became a number three hit in the spring.
Owens had his next hit, "Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache)," in the fall of 1960. It was followed in January 1961 with Buck Owens, his first album, as well as the single "Foolin' Around," which spent eight weeks at number two. That spring he had a hit single, "Mental Cruelty"/"Loose Talk," recorded with Rose Maddox. Owens and Rich began touring the country together, playing with pickup bands in each honky tonk they visited. Soon, the pair stopped playing acoustic guitars and began playing Fender Telecasters, electric guitars with a bright, punchy twang. Rich would eventually become the lead guitarist. This change was evident in Owens' two Top Ten hits in 1962, "Kickin' Our Hearts Around" and "You're for Me." Instead of being the shuffling honky tonk numbers that had been Owens' signature, the songs were bright, driving tracks in 2/4 that showed a hint of rock & roll influence. By the beginning of 1963, Owens had begun to assemble his own band, featuring a drummer, bassist, and a pedal steel guitarist. One of the first bassists for the band was Merle Haggard, who named the group the Buckaroos.
Owens' first number one single, "Act Naturally," arrived in the spring of 1963. "Act Naturally" elevated Buck from a successful singer into stardom, starting a streak of 15 consecutive number one singles. Its follow-up single, "Love's Gonna Live Here," became his biggest hit, spending 16 weeks at number one. "My Heart Skips a Beat," released in the spring of 1964, was nearly as successful, spending seven weeks at the top of the charts. It was replaced at the top by its B-side, "Together Again"; later that year, "I Don't Care (Just as Long as You Love Me)" spent six weeks at number one.
In 1965, his number one hits included "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail," "Before You Go," "Only You (Can Break My Heart)," and the instrumental showcase "Buckaroo." That spring, Owens took out an advertisement in the Nashville-based publication Music City News claiming: "I shall make no record that is not a country record." He then released his ninth album, I've Got a Tiger by the Tail, which featured a version of Chuck Berry's "Memphis." Owens explained that "Memphis" was a rockabilly song, a genre he believed to be part of country music. Also in 1965, he demonstrated his knack for business by forming Buck Owens Enterprises (which was managed by his sister Dorothy) and the booking agency OMAC Artists Corporation. Blue Book Music was also becoming quite successful, with the songs of both Owens and Haggard earning the company significant amounts of money. The following year, Owens began purchasing radio stations; by the end of the decade, he owned four stations.
Owens' success had spearheaded the national acceptance of the Bakersfield sound. Haggard, Wynn Stewart, and Tommy Collins were all grouped under this heading in addition to Owens. The Bakersfield artists updated honky tonk, standing in direct contrast to the smooth country-pop of Nashville. Consequently, Owens was one of the biggest stars in popular music in the mid-'60s. He was playing hundreds of shows a year, selling thousands of records, and selling out concerts across the country. He continued to build his streak of number one hits with "Waitin' in Your Welfare Line," "Think of Me," and "Open Up Your Heart" in 1966. That year, Owens launched his first television series with Buck Owens' Ranch. The program was a half-hour music show that ran throughout the year and was syndicated to 100 markets at the peak of its popularity. Owens' string of number one hits continued throughout 1967, as "Where Does the Good Times Go," "Sam's Place," and "Your Tender Loving Care" all hit the top of the charts. His streak ended at the end of the year, when "It Takes People Like You (To Make People Like Me)" peaked at number two.
Owens began to branch out musically in 1968, adding more textures, tempos, and stylistic flourishes to his music. Though he only had one number one hit that year with "How Long Will My Baby Be Gone," all of his singles from 1968 -- "How Long Will My Baby Be Gone," "Sweet Rosie Jones," "Let the World Keep on a Turnin'," "I've Got You on My Mind Again" -- charted in the Top Ten, and all but one reached the Top Five. The following year, Owens opened a state-of-the-art, 16-track recording studio in downtown Bakersfield appropriately called Buck Owens Studios. Capitol allowed him to record himself and several other artists -- including Susan Raye, Tony Booth, and Buddy Alan -- at the studio; the label would merely press and package the records.
While Owens had a dedicated country following, he also had picked up a number of pop and rock fans as well. Not only did the Beatles cover "Act Naturally" on their 1965 Help! album, but in the fall of 1968, Owens headlined and sold out two concerts at the legendary rock & roll venue Fillmore West. Owens continued to experiment musically, as evidenced by the two 1969 number one singles, "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass" and "Tall Dark Stranger." In the summer of 1969, Owens' second television show, Hee Haw, premiered. Hee Haw was the concept of two Canadian TV producers, who envisioned it as a down-home, country version of the popular Laugh-In. Owens was hired as its host, and he brought on singer/guitarist Roy Clark as a co-host. Owens only had to tape the show twice a year -- once in June and once in October -- and his segments were spread throughout the season's shows. Initially, the show was just a summer replacement for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, but its summer run was so successful that CBS scheduled it for the fall. As Hee Haw became more popular, so did Owens. In the span of just over a year -- December 1969 to February 1971 -- Capitol released no less than nine Owens albums, including reissues and three new studio records. During that time, he continued to chart in the Top Ten with regularity, as "The Kansas City Song" peaked at number two in the summer of 1970 and "I Wouldn't Live in New York City (If They Gave Me the Whole Dang Town)" reached the Top Ten at the end of the year.
At the beginning of 1971, Owens signed what would turn out to be his last contract with Capitol. He would record for the label for another four years and after his contract expired, he would gain ownership of all of his Capitol recordings, from 1957 to 1975; Capitol could continue to manufacture Owens records until 1980, when the masters would all return to Buck. Throughout 1971, he continued to have Top Ten hits, including a version of Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," "Ruby (Are You Mad)," and "Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms." In 1971, CBS canceled Hee Haw, and the show moved into syndication, where it became even more popular. By 1973, it had been so successful that it forced Buck Owens' Ranch off the air, simply because Owens' first program couldn't compete with the high ratings of his second show. In the spring of 1972, he had his final number one single as a solo artist, the ballad "Made in Japan." However, his career began to slide after that. It took him over a year to reach the Top Ten again with "Big Game Hunter" at the end of 1973. Two other Top Ten hits followed in the spring and summer of 1974, though both songs -- a rewrite of Dr. Hook's "On the Cover of the Rolling Stone" called "On the Cover of the Music City News" and "(It's A) Monsters' Holiday" -- were novelty numbers.
In July of 1974, Rich, Owens' longtime partner and guitarist, died in a motorcycle crash, which sent Buck into a deep depression. Though he had one more Top Ten hit that fall with "Great Expectations," he had trouble breaking the Top 40 in the years following Rich's death. Owens' contract with Capitol expired in 1975, and he moved to Warner Brothers, where he began recording in Nashville. Appropriately, his music began to sound more like country-pop than the hard-edged Bakersfield sound he had become famous for, but that's because he relinquished creative control of his records to the producers. Owens' record sales had significantly declined, but Hee Haw remained popular. Ironically, its success had an unwanted side effect -- for many listeners in the general audience, Owens became the cornball country comedian he was in the show, not the hardcore honky tonker he was at heart. That perception remained throughout the end of the '70s and even a hit duet with Emmylou Harris, "Play Together Again Again," in 1979 couldn't erase it. In 1980, Owens decided he didn't want to continue with the grind of constant performing and recording. He ended his contract with Warner and drastically cut back his performances. Even though he was semi-retired, he continued to tape Hee Haw until 1986.
Owens was out of public view for the early and mid-'80s, which is when a new generation of country singers was developing. Like Buck in the '60s, they stood in opposition to the pop-inflected country of Nashville, building their sound on the Bakersfield country of Owens and Haggard. One of the leading performers of the new traditionalists, Dwight Yoakam, persuaded Owens to join him on a re-recording of Buck's 1972 song "Streets of Bakersfield." After they performed it on a CBS television special, the duo recorded the song, releasing it in the summer of 1988. "Streets of Bakersfield" became a major hit, reaching number one; it was the first time since 1972 that Owens had a number one hit. Its success spurred him back into the recording studio, where he made a new album called Hot Dog! It was a moderate success and it re-energized Owens. He assembled a new version of the Buckaroos and continued to perform and record, including a duet of "Act Naturally" with Ringo Starr.
Owens didn't record or perform frequently in the '90s, but his classic Capitol recordings began to appear on compact disc; they hadn't been in print since 1980, when he gained control of the tapes from Capitol. Furthermore, Owens' influence continued to reverberate throughout country music as well as some quarters of rock & roll. Owens was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1993 and was hospitalized for pneumonia in 1997; in 2006, he passed away at age 76 in his Bakersfield home. Owens had given a live command performance at the White House for then-President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, and the set was released as an LP in 1972. It finally appeared on CD as Live at the White House in 2012, amended with nine tracks Owens recorded especially for the Apollo 16 astronauts to take with them into space in 1972, making the whole package both a memorial and a time capsule of sorts for this beloved entertainer.
Wikipedia:
Alvis Edgar Owens, Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), better known as Buck Owens, was an American singer and guitarist who had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music charts with his band the Buckaroos. They pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, a reference to Bakersfield, California, the city Owens called home and from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call American music.
While Owens originally used fiddle and retained pedal steel guitar into the 1970s, his sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental, incorporating elements of rock and roll. His signature style was based on simple storylines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a drum track placed forward in the mix, and high two-part harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich.
Beginning in 1969, Owens co-hosted the TV series Hee Haw with Roy Clark. He left the cast in 1986. The accidental death of Rich, his best friend, in 1974 devastated him for years and abruptly halted his career until he performed with Dwight Yoakam in 1988. Owens died on March 25, 2006 shortly after performing at his Crystal Palace restaurant, club and museum in Bakersfield.
Owens is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Biography [edit]
Owens was born on a farm in Sherman, Texas, to Alvis Edgar Owens, Sr. and his wife, Maicie Azel Ellington. Midway Mall, at 4800 Texoma Parkway, now sits where his father's farm once was. (U.S. Highway 82 through Sherman was named Buck Owens Freeway in his honor).
"'Buck' was a donkey on the Owens farm," Rich Kienzle wrote in the biography About Buck. "When Alvis Jr. was three or four years old, he walked into the house and announced that his name also was "Buck." That was fine with the family, and the boy's name was Buck from then on." He attended public school for grades 1–3 in Garland, Texas.
His family moved to Mesa, Arizona, in 1937 during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.
Early career [edit]
Owens co-hosted a radio show called Buck and Britt in 1945. In the late 1940s he became a truck driver and drove through the San Joaquin Valley of California. He was impressed by Bakersfield, where he and his wife settled in 1951. Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Wanda Jackson, Tommy Collins, Tommy Duncan, Sonny James, Del Reeves, Tommy Sands, Faron Young and Gene Vincent, and many others.
Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label, using the pseudonym Corky Jones because he did not want the fact he recorded a rock n' roll tune to hurt his country music career. Sometime in the 1950s, he lived with his second wife and children in Fife, Washington, where he sang with the Dusty Rhodes band.
Owens' career took off in 1959, when his song "Second Fiddle" hit No. 24 on the Billboard country chart. A few months later, "Under Your Spell Again" hit No. 4, and then "Above and Beyond" hit No. 3. On April 2, 1960 he performed the song on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee.
In the early 1960s, the countrypolitan sound was popular, with smooth, string-laden, pop-influenced styles used by Eddy Arnold, Jim Reeves, and Patsy Cline, among others. Owens went against the trend, using honky tonk hillbilly feel, mixed idiosyncratically with the Mexican polkas he had heard on border radio stations while growing up.
Owens was named the Most Promising Country and Western Singer of 1960 by Billboard. In 1961, his top 10-charting duets with Rose Maddox earned them awards as vocal team of the year.
At the top [edit]
1963's "Act Naturally" became Owens and the Buckaroos' first No. 1 hit. The Beatles later recorded a cover of it in 1965, with Ringo Starr as lead singer. Ringo Starr later re-recorded the song as a duet with Owens in 1988.
Owens met his longtime guitarist Don Rich in the Seattle area.
The 1966 album Carnegie Hall Concert was a smash hit and further cemented Buck Owens and the Buckaroos as more than just another honky tonk country band. They achieved crossover success on to the pop charts. During that year, R&B singer Ray Charles released cover versions of two of Owens' songs that became pop hits: "Crying Time" and "Together Again".
In 1967, Owens and the Buckaroos toured Japan, a then-rare occurrence for a country musician. The subsequent live album, appropriately named Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in Japan, was an early example of country music recorded outside the US
In 1968 Owens and the Buckaroos performed for President Lyndon Baines Johnson at the White House, which was later released as a live album.
Between 1968–1969, steel pedal guitar player Tom Brumley and drummer Willie Cantu left the band and drummer Jerry Wiggins and steel pedal guitar player Jay Dee Maness were added. Owens and the Buckaroos had two songs reach No. 1 on the country music charts in 1969, "Tall Dark Stranger" and "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass". In 1969, they recorded a live album, Live in London, where they premiered their rock song "A Happening In London Town" and their version of Chuck Berry's song "Johnny B. Goode". During this time Hee Haw, starring Owens and the Buckaroos, was at its height of popularity. The series, originally envisioned as country music's answer to Laugh-In, outlived that show and ran for 24 seasons.
In the early 1970s, Owens and the Buckaroos enjoyed a string of hit duets with his protege Susan Raye, who subsequently became a popular solo artist with recordings produced by Owens.
In 1971, the Buckaroos' bass guitarist Doyle Holly left the band to pursue a solo career. Holly was known for his solo ballads with his trademark booming deep voice on Buck Owens and the Buckaroos albums. His departure was a setback to the band, as Doyle had received the Bass Player of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music the year before in 1970 and served as co-lead vocalist (along with Don Rich) of the Buckaroos. Holly went on to record two solo records in the early 1970s, both were top 20 hits. Holly has subsequently been honored in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and with a block in the Walkway of Stars at the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Owens and Rich were the only original members left of Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, and in the 1970s they struggled to top the country music charts. However, the popularity of Hee Haw was allowing them to enjoy large crowds at indoor arenas.
In 1972, Owens and the Buckaroos finally had another No. 1 hit, "Made in Japan", after three years of not having a number one song. In April, he added pedal steel guitarist, Jerry Brightman. The band had been without pedal steel since late in 1969 when Maness departed, and Owens returned to his grass roots sound of fiddle, steel, and electric guitars releasing a string of singles including "Arms Full of Empty", "Ain't it Amazing Gracie" and "Ain't Gonna Have Ole Buck (to Kick Around no More)". Owens' original release of "Streets of Bakersfield" was released in 1972.
On July 17, 1974, Owens' best friend and Buckaroos guitarist Don Rich was killed when he lost control of his motorcycle and struck a guard rail on Highway 1 in Morro Bay. Rich had been on his way to join his family for vacation on the coast at Morro Bay. Owens was devastated. "He was like a brother, a son and a best friend," he said in the late 1990s. "Something I never said before, maybe I couldn't, but I think my music life ended when he did. Oh yeah, I carried on and I existed, but the real joy and love, the real lightning and thunder is gone forever." Owens would never fully recover from the tragedy, both emotionally and professionally.
Before the 1960s were done, Owens—with the help of manager Jack McFadden—began to concentrate on his financial future. He bought several radio stations, including KNIX-AM and KNIX-FM in Phoenix and KUZZ-FM in Bakersfield. In 1999, Owens sold the KNIX stations to Clear Channel Communications, but he maintained ownership of KUZZ until his death.
Owens established Buck Owens Enterprises and produced records by several artists. He recorded for Warner Bros. Records, but by the 1980s he was no longer recording, instead devoting his time to overseeing his business empire from Bakersfield. He left Hee Haw in 1986.
Later career [edit]
Dwight Yoakam was largely influenced by Owens' style of music and eventually teamed up with him for a duet of "Streets of Bakersfield" in 1988. Their duet was Owens' first No. 1 single in 16 years. In an interview, Yoakam described the first time he met with Owens:
We sat there that day in 1987 and talked about my music to that point, my short career, and what I'd been doing and how he'd been watching me. I was really flattered and thrilled to know that this legend had been keeping an eye on me.
Owens also collaborated with Cledus T. Judd in the song "The First Redneck On The Internet" in 1998, in which Owens also appears in the music video.
The 1990s saw a flood of reissues of his Capitol recordings on compact disc. In 1974, Owens had bought back publishing rights to all of his Capitol recordings, as part of his final contract with the label. His albums had been out of print for nearly 15 years, when he released a retrospective box set in 1990. Encouraged by brisk sales, Owens struck a distribution deal with Sundazed Records of New York, which specializes in reissuing obscure recordings. The bulk of his Capitol catalog was reissued on CD in 1995, 1997 and in 2005. Sometime in the 1970s, Owens had also purchased the remaining copies of his original LP albums from Capitol's distribution warehouses across the country. Many of those records (still in the shrinkwrap) were stored by Owens for decades. He often gave them away as gifts and sold them at his nightclub for a premium price some 35 years later.
In August 1999, Owens brought back together the remaining members of his original Buckaroo Band to help him celebrate his 70th birthday at Owens' Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. All the original surviving Buckaroos were there: Owens, Doyle Holly, Tom Brumley, and Wille Cantu performed old hits from their heyday including "Tiger by the Tail" and "Act Naturally."
Owens was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. He was ranked No. 12 in CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. In addition, CMT also ranked the Buckaroos No. 2 in the network's 20 Greatest Bands in 2005.
Long before Owens became the famous co-host of Hee Haw, his band became known for their signature Bakersfield sound, later emulated by artists such as Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam and Brad Paisley. Buck inspired indie country songwriter and friend Terry Fraley whose band "The Nudie Cowboys" with a similar sound. This sound was originally made possible with two trademark silver-sparkle Fender Telecaster guitars, often played simultaneously by Owens and longtime wing-man Don Rich; Fender had made a "Buck Owens signature Telecaster," and after his death paid tribute to him. In 2003, Paisley blended creative styles with this guitar and his own famous Paisley Telecaster, creating what became known as the Buck-O-Caster. Initially, only two were made; one for Paisley himself and the other presented to Owens during a New Year's celebration that Paisley attended in 2004.
Following the death of Rich, Owens' latter trademark was a red, white and blue acoustic guitar, along with a 1974 Pontiac convertible "Nudiemobile", adorned with pistols and silver dollars. A similar car, created by Nudie Cohn for Elvis Presley and later won by Owens in a bet, is now enshrined behind the bar at Owens' Crystal Palace Nightclub in Bakersfield.
Owens would hand out replicas of his trademark acoustic guitar to friends, acquaintances and fans. Each would contain a gold plaque with the name of the recipient. Some of these guitars cost $1000 and up.
Death [edit]
Buck Owens died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on March 25, 2006, only hours after performing at his Crystal Palace restaurant, club and museum in Bakersfield. He had successfully recovered from oral cancer in the early 1990s, but had additional health problems near the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s, including pneumonia and a minor stroke suffered in 2004. These health problems had forced him to curtail his regular weekly performances with the Buckaroos at his Crystal Palace.
The Los Angeles Times interviewed longtime Owens spokesman (and Buckaroos keyboard player) Jim Shaw, who said Owens "had come to the club early and had a chicken-fried steak dinner and bragged that it's his favorite meal." Afterward, Owens told band members that he wasn't feeling well and was going to skip that night's performance. Shaw said a group of fans introduced themselves while Owens was preparing to drive home; when they told him that they had traveled from Oregon to hear him perform, Owens changed his mind and took the stage anyway.
Shaw recalled Owens telling the audience, "If somebody's come all that way, I'm gonna do the show and give it my best shot. I might groan and squeak, but I'll see what I can do." Shaw added, "So, he had his favorite meal, played a show and died in his sleep. We thought, that's not too bad."
The front of the mausoleum where Owens is buried is inscribed "The Buck Owens Family" with the words "Buck's Place" beneath.
Family [edit]
Owens was married four times, three ending in divorce and one in annulment. He and his first wife, country singer Bonnie Campbell Owens, were married in 1948 and had two sons. They separated in 1951 and later divorced.
He later married Phyllis Buford in 1956, with whom he had a third son. His third marriage, in 1977, was to fiddle player Jana Jae Greif, who was a member of the Buckaroos. They were married for only a few days before he filed for annulment. His fourth marriage, in 1979, was to Jennifer Smith.
Owens had three sons: Buddy Alan (who charted several hits as a Capitol recording artist in the early 1970s and appeared with his father numerous times on Hee Haw), Johnny, and Michael Owens.
Books [edit]
In her 2010 book, Buck Owens: The Biography, investigative journalist Eileen Sisk offers a critical account of Owens and the shortcomings in his private life.
In her 2007 authorized biography, Buck, historian Kathryn Burke gives a positive account of Owens.
