Buckaroo Rides Off Into Sunset

[toetoe]

Buck Owens is dead. All who are thinking, "How could anyone notice?" get ready for a spanking. :(

[GaryG]

He was virtually ignored by the Nashville Establishment. I guess those twin Telecasters rubbed them the wrong way. R.I.P. Buck....:(

[toetoe]

What does Beulah Park have to do with it? :D

[GaryG]

That would be just about the ultimate daily double.....:jump:

[falconridge]

Buck Owens is dead. All who are thinking, "How could anyone notice?" get ready for a spanking. :(DAMN! *I* noticed. As for musical tastes, I count myself among the shaggiest of the longhairs, but I always admired Buck and enjoyed his music.

I hereby place a moratorium on mentioning any celebrities or public figures in my correspondence or posts. For no reason I can identify, I referred in recent weeks to Don Adams, Don Knotts, and Buck Owens. Within days of my posts/letters, they were all dead.

Gary G, Buck distanced himself from the Nashville scene just as dutifully as the Tennessee country music arbiters ignored Buck, and I've always thought all the more of the Baron of Bakersfield for his indifference. While, for better or worse, Nashville country was largely derivative of Elvis Presley and early rock influences, the Bakersfield sound remained distinct--and distinctive--and, to my ears anyway, ever so much more authentic. Perhaps one reason it rings truer than the packaged Nashville product is that its most famous practitioners knew whereof they sang. Buck really did pick cotton and potatoes, drove trucks (pickups and big rigs), and dug ditches. And fellow Bakersfield native Merle Haggard did hop freights and serve hard time--one to five for armed robbery--before he turned twenty-one.

To expand briefly on toetoe's sentiment: for those who believe that all country-and-western music is ipso facto facile, soulless, and unsophisticated pablum, remember that many rhythm-and-blues and soul musicians were moved by it. Ray Charles's biggest hit was penned by none other than Buck Owens, and the great Ivory Joe Hunter's most successful recording was of Bill Evans's country weeper, "City Lights."

A favorite of the undersigned, and ringing in my mind's ear as I write: Buck's "Think of Me":

Think of me when you're lonely,
Think of me when you're blue.
Think of me when you're far away,
For I'll be thinking of you.

Thinking of Buck,

falconridge

www.buckowens.com (http://www.buckowens.com/)

[falconridge]

The name of the writer of the song "City Lights," recorded in 1959 by Ivory Joe Hunter, is Bill Anderson--not Bill Evans, as I erroneously reported in my previous post.

[GaryG]

The Bakersfield sound was pure country music and you could always identify it by the high treble settings. I guess Chet Atkins was a great man and all but I blame him for removing the heart and sould from Nashville recordings. Who the hell needs background singers and a string section?? Wynn Stewart made some fine records there too. Same thing in Texas with Waylon, Willie and friends. Nashville tried to tell them what to do so they went home to Texas and did it right. Then the SOBs had a memorial for Waylon on the Opry when he died. Wouldn't give him the time of day when he was alive. Chickenhead are you out there?

[toetoe]

Gary, they constitute the daily FOURPLE! And sweet as maple surple. Just not the eye candy they're touted to be. :)

Another country-westernphile was Charlie Parker, who reportedly explained his jukebox picks to his bandmates thusly: "They're playing their own version of the blues." Paraphrasing here. Old Yardbird Parker was considered a decent arbiter of musical taste, based on the reverence felt for him by all on Earth, with the exception of Glenn Gould.

Dontchew fret now,
Alabaster Chris

[toetoe]

I've never been addicted to C-W, but what has really ruined it over the last 25 or 30 years is what Terry Gross once called the tendency to make the subject matter "how great country music is." That and the obligatory God-Bless-America stuff have just turned into another mass mindmeld, and with no Leonard Nimoy, either. :( :mad:

[GaryG]

Texas has by far the best type of country music. It isn't even heard on country radio having been classed as "Americana". No pretenses, the real thing. I guess now it is too country to be country. I agree about Bird....:ThmbUp: :ThmbUp:

[JustRalph]

Buck Owens

Billy Joe Shaver

Dwight Yoakam (the stuff they didn't play on the radio)

Dig in a little and find out what Country really is.......or can be......

You can't ignore 20 number one hits and the only country guy who inspired a Beatles hit........

[GaryG]

Dwight Yoakam (the stuff they didn't play on the radio)DY helped to resurrect Buck's career with the Streets of Bakersfield duet with Buck. I think Buck had written the song years before. Loved it to death.

[Hosshead]

Buck put the Western into C&W.
Nashville didn't like the way he had the audacity to actually put Drums into his music.
Buck was never the same after the death of the great Don Rich (mortorcycle, struck the center divider) July 17, 1974.
Buck said, " His death left a huge void in my life, in my music and in my soul".

Dwight finally did get him back into the studio to record "Streets Of Bakersfield". They harmonized great on that song.

He was revered by most of the great ones. Including Waylon.
I found and old recording of Waylon doing "Love's Gonna Live Here Again".

Trivia question: (jokes aside) Anybody know the name given to a Waylon fan ?

[JustRalph]

I heard on the radio this morning that Buck had a serious business empire that included radio stations and TV stuff. He was reported to be worth big money.......? I wasn't aware of that...........

[GaryG]

I heard on the radio this morning that Buck had a serious business empire that included radio stations and TV stuff. He was reported to be worth big money.......? I wasn't aware of that...........He had a radio station KUZZ I think way back in the mid 60s. I heard he had cattle and land interests all through the San Joaquin valley. He is a tremendous loss to all of country music.

[JustRalph]

http://www.cbsnews.com/images/2006/03/26/imageGFX53803252002.jpg

http://www.top-country-songs.com/images/buck-owens-buckaroos.jpg

[chickenhead]

I'm embarrassed to say I've never heard of Buck Owens, I'll check him out.

[Hosshead]

If you get just one of his CD's.
I'd suggest: "Buck Owens Live At Carnegie Hall" - a classic !

[DJofSD]

Ya, Buck Owens, Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn. Classic Americana.

[Hosshead]

Here's a list of Bucks' No. 1 singles:

"Act Naturally" -- 1963 (four weeks)
"Love's Gonna Live Here" -- 1963 (16 weeks)
"My Heart Skips a Beat" -- 1964 (seven weeks)
"Together Again" -- 1964 (two weeks)
"I Don't Care (Just as Long as You Love Me)" -- 1964 (six weeks)
"I've Got a Tiger by the Tail" -- 1965 (five weeks)
"Before You Go" -- 1965 (six weeks)
"Only You (Can Break My Heart)" -- 1965
"Buckaroo" -- 1965 (two weeks)
"Waitin' in Your Welfare Line" -- 1966 (seven weeks)
"Think of Me" -- 1966 (six weeks)
"Open Up Your Heart" -- 1966 (four weeks)
"Where Does the Good Times Go" -- 1967 (four weeks)
"Sam's Place" -- 1967 (three weeks)
"Your Tender Loving Care"-- 1967
"How Long Will My Baby Be Gone" -- 1968
"Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass" -- 1969 (two weeks)
"Johnny B. Goode" -- 1969 (two weeks)
"Tall Dark Stranger" -- 1969
"Made in Japan" -- 1972
"Streets of Bakersfield" -- 1988
(With Dwight Yoakam)

[GaryG]

My favorite was a duet with the great Rose Maddox in around 1961 called Mental Cruelty, very likely no longer available. I treasure the 45.

[chickenhead]

Hey, I know Rose and the Maddox Brothers! I met one of 'em at a local fiddling contest here last year (I think Fred Maddox), bought "America's Most Colorful Hillbily Band" CD from him. Great old guy. Runs cattle out around Redding now I think.

[GaryG]

Hey, I know Rose and the Maddox Brothers! I met one of 'em at a local fiddling contest here last year (I think Fred Maddox), bought "America's Most Colorful Hillbily Band" CD from him. Great old guy. Runs cattle out around Redding now I think.Holy crap! Fred used to play bass and was the "leader" of the band. If Rose had lived she would be 80+ and she was the youngest. I played some mandolin when I was a kid and met Fred at the old Sunday afternoon Cal's Corral shows in Huntington Park. He said he liked me because I talked like him! They played labor camps in the 40s with Woody Guthrie and that is how they came to record Woody's Philadelphia Lawyer. I sure wish him well. They were from Boaz in the Sand Mountain area of Alabama.

[twindouble]

You know, I never could bring myself to the point of idolizing anyone but I have a deep respect and appreciation for raw talent that adds to the pleasure of life. Buck fell in the categories like many others that have passed away. By the same token I have the same respect and appreciation for those I've in countered in all walks of life but when the doors of your life's experience is closing one after another it's a tough pill to swallow ESP when it's friends, family or pets. All we have left good memories that conflict with your desire to continue looking for new experiences or live in the past going nowhere. When the clock is winding down we hold on to what's left of those meaningful pleasurable things that allows us to go forward recognizing the limits that didn't exist in youth. Getting old sucks but it's even worse when the young cast you aside as a relic of the past with little to offer. Buck was talented enough to maintain it until he reached a ripe old age, the majority of elderly aren't so lucky or that gifted.

T.D.

[skate]

Td;


nice points. i didnt know Buck, but i'm sure i've heard him.
one of the few country singers that i would recognize, Gene Autry. lots of memories with Gene.

[twindouble]

Td;


nice points. i didnt know Buck, but i'm sure i've heard him.
one of the few country singers that i would recognize, Gene Autry. lots of memories with Gene.

With a smile on my face I do remember Autry. I'm going to write my own OB because I fear my last words might be. "Did I win the last race." :cool:

[twindouble]

Skate; By the way, thanks.

[chickenhead]

Holy crap! Fred used to play bass and was the "leader" of the band. If Rose had lived she would be 80+ and she was the youngest. I played some mandolin when I was a kid and met Fred at the old Sunday afternoon Cal's Corral shows in Huntington Park. He said he liked me because I talked like him! They played labor camps in the 40s with Woody Guthrie and that is how they came to record Woody's Philadelphia Lawyer. I sure wish him well. They were from Boaz in the Sand Mountain area of Alabama.

Thats awesome Gary, small world eh? And yes he was an old timer, but still got a lot of wear left in him. I'll be back at the Fiddle Festival this year, I hope he's there again.

Tell me something about Cals Corral, that is ringing a serious bell, someone somewhere must have told me about that but I've forgotten exactly what it was....but someone I know has been to those/that whatever it is.

[GaryG]

Thats awesome Gary, small world eh? And yes he was an old timer, but still got a lot of wear left in him. I'll be back at the Fiddle Festival this year, I hope he's there again.

Tell me something about Cals Corral, that is ringing a serious bell, someone somewhere must have told me about that but I've forgotten exactly what it was....but someone I know has been to those/that whatever it is.Cal's Corral was held in an old auditorium in Hunt Park. It was about 4 hours long on Sunday afternoon and featured several different bands doing 15-30 min each. It was televised and sponsored by Cal Worthington, a local car dealer that built an empire. He may still be around. A lot of pretty good entertainers passed thru there, Freddy Hart, Tommy Collins (Bksfld) and a guy named Shorty Bacon that was almost a Buck Owens impersonator. I used to hang out backstage and offer to pick with anybody that would let me. If you see Fred tell him I loved them all to death. He opened their segment with their theme song Big Ball In Town.

[DJofSD]

Cal Worthington, a local car dealer that built an empire. He may still be around.

If this is the same Cal of Southern California, go see Cal, Go See CAl, GO SEE CAL, fame, yes, he's still around and still selling cars (reformed) but w/o his dog spot.

[GaryG]

If this is the same Cal of Southern California, go see Cal, Go See CAl, GO SEE CAL, fame, yes, he's still around and still selling cars (reformed) but w/o his dog spot.Yep thats him. Used to be known as High Pockets Cal, the workin' man's pal. There were plenty of dust bowl immigrants in the area SE of LA, Okies, Texans and Arkies, and that is who he catered to. Hop in your hoopie and haul it on down...

[JustRalph]

http://www.calworthington.com/home/caltiger.jpg

I was visiting Cal's dealerships looking for a car in 82 or so...........and he was old then.............here is his info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cal_Worthington

Cal was a pilot during WWII

"Worthington grew up in a family of nine children and dropped out of school at the age of 12. He joined the Civilian Conservation Corps at the age of 15. Worthington served in the United States Army in World War II, flying for the Army Air Corps where he was the aerobatics champion at Goodfellow Field in San Angelo, Texas, and served as second lieutenant. During the war, he served as a B-17 pilot with the 390th Bomber Group, flying 29 missions over Germany, and was discharged after the war as a captain."