Buck Owens Biography, Photos and Posters

Buck Owens

Biography

Born: August 12, 1929
City and Country of Origin: Sherman, Texas
Music Training:
Awards: 1996 inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame;
Top Recordings: "Under Your Spell Again," "Above and Beyond," "Act Naturally," "Made in Japan," "Streets of Bakersfield"
Buck Owens Biography: Alvis Edgar "Buck" Owens, Jr., was an American singer and guitarist, with twenty number-one hits on the Billboard magazine country music charts. Both as a solo artist and with his band, the Buckaroos (so named by Merle Haggard, a former bandmate), Buck Owens pioneered what has come 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."

Owens was born in Sherman, Texas to Maicie Azel Ellington and Alvis Edgar Owens, Sr. 'Buck' was a mule on the Owens farm," and one day when young Alvis was 3 or 4 years of age he walked into the house and announced that his name was also "Buck," and from then on it was. The family moved from Shernman, Texas to Mesa, Arizona, during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. "Buck" co-hosted a radio show called "Buck and Britt" in the late 1940s. He discovered the San Joaquin Valley of California after he became a truck driver. He was impressed by Bakersfield, where he and his wife settled in 1950.

A consummate bandleader, Buck Owens pioneered a unique and fresh sound: clean and crisp, characterized by sharp staccato guitar riffs, and pedal steel guitar solos, with straightforward lyrics. It was far more streamlined than the honky tonk music of the late 40's and early 1950s with its fiddles and back up singer arrangements. While Owens originally used fiddle and retained pedal steel into the 1970s, his sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental, incorporating elements of rock and roll. The sound Owens developed with the Buckaroos depended on his camaraderie with and the talents of his best friend, Don Rich, whom he met while in Tacoma. Rich can be heard harmonizing on all of Owens hits until his untimely death in 1974, when Rich lost control of his motorcycle and struck a guard rail on Highway 99 north of Bakersfield as he made his way to join his family for a vacation on the coast at Morro Bay. The loss of his best friend devastated Owens for years and abruptly halted his singing successes and career until Owens performed with Dwight Yoakam in the late-1980s.

Owens co-hosted the popular and groundbreaking Hee Haw program with Roy Clark. Hee Haw, originally envisioned as country music's answer to Laugh-In, outlived that show and ran for twenty-four seasons. Owens was co-host from 1969 until he left the cast in 1986, convinced that the show's exposure had obscured his immense musical legacy.
Died: March 25, 2006

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