Buck Owens - Biography, Death

Country singer and musician, born in Sherman, Texas, USA. The son of a sharecropper, his childhood was spent in poverty and he had little schooling. He later took up the guitar and eventually settled in Bakersfield, CA (1951), joining a band which he later led and named the Buckaroos. He became known as the pioneer of the electrified ‘Bakersfield’ sound and went on to record a string of hit records including ‘I've Got a Tiger by the Tail’, ‘Together Again’, and ‘Love's Gonna Live Here’. His song ‘Act Naturally’ was covered by The Beatles in 1965. He also co-hosted the long-running television variety show Hee Haw from 1969–86, and continued to perform concerts right up to his death.

Buck Owens
Buck Owens
Background information
Birth name	Alvis Edgar Owens Jr.
Born	August 12, 1929
Origin	Sherman, Texas
Died	March 25, 2006
Genre(s)	country music
Occupation(s)	country singer
Instrument(s)	Guitar/Singing
Years active	1950s-2006
Label(s)	Capitol Records, Warner Brothers Records, Rhino
Associated acts	Susan Raye, Rose Maddox, Dwight Yoakam, Roy Clark, Merle Haggard

Alvis Edgar "Buck" Owens, Jr., (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006) 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".

A consummate bandleader, Buck Owens pioneered a unique and fresh sound: clean and crisp, characterized by sharp, staccato guitar riffs and straightforward lyrics. 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 and Western Swing. Rich can be heard harmonizing on all of Owens hits until his untimely death in the 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 (Rich, whose actual last name is Ulrich, is buried in a simple grave at Hillcrest Park Cemetery northeast of Bakersfield). The tragic 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-1980's.

Owens co-hosted the popular and groundbreaking Hee Haw program with Roy Clark.

Biography

Alvis Owens, Jr., was born in Sherman, Texas (U.S. Highway 82 through Sherman was named "Buck Owens Freeway" in his honor). "'Buck' was a mule on the Owens farm," Rich Kienzle wrote in About Buck, the biography at Owens' official website adapted from Kienzle's notes for Rhino Records' 1992 "The Buck Owens Collection" box set .

In 1945, Owens co-hosted a radio show called "Buck and Britt".

Soon, Owens was frequently traveling to Hollywood for session recording jobs at Capitol Records, playing backup for Tennessee Ernie Ford, Sonny James, Wanda Jackson, Del Reeves, Tommy Sands, Tommy Collins, Faron Young and Gene Vincent and many others.

During the Rock and Roll craze of the 1950s, Owens recorded a rockabilly record called "Hot Dog" for the Pep label, using the pseudonym Corky Jones.

Owens was named the most promising country and western singer of 1960 by Billboard, and his Top-10-charting duets with Rose Maddox in 1961 earned them awards as vocal team of the year.

In 1967, Owens and the Buckaroos toured Japan, a then-rare occurrence for a country musician. The subsequent live album, Buck Owens in Japan, is considered possibly the first country music album recorded outside the United States.

Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of the biggest American rock bands of the period, often demonstrated a country flavor, and even mentioned Owens in the hit, "Lookin' Out My Back Door":

Hee Haw hit the television airwaves in 1969, keeping Owens busy throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Owens established Buck Owens Enterprises and produced records by several artists, released on the Capitol label.

Owens recorded for Warner Brothers, but longtime fans and Owens himself were less than happy with the results since the recordings, done in Nashville, reflected the very type of bland country music he had always assailed.

Death

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.

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."

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.

Owens left behind three ex-wives, and three sons: Buddy Alan (who charted several hits as a Capitol recording artist in the early 1970s), Michael and Johnny Owens. The front of the mausoleum is inscribed "The Buck Owens Family" with the word's "Buck's Place" beneath.

His first wife, country singer Bonnie Owens, died at age 76 on April 24, 2006, at a Bakersfield hospice.