Buck Owens
Alvis Edgar "Buck" Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929[1] – March 25, 2006)[2] was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on the Billboard country music chart. He pioneered what came to be called the Bakersfield sound, named in honor of Bakersfield, California, Owens's adopted home and the city from which he drew inspiration for what he preferred to call "American music".[3]
Buck Owens
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr.
August 12, 1929
Sherman, Texas, U.S.
March 25, 2006 (aged 76)
Bakersfield, California, U.S.
Singer, bandleader, TV host
- Vocals
- guitar
1945–2006
While the Buckaroos originally featured a fiddle and retained pedal steel guitar into the 1970s, their sound on records and onstage was always more stripped-down and elemental. The band's signature style was based on simple story lines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a prominent drum track, and high, two-part vocal harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich.[4]
From 1969 to 1986, Owens co-hosted the popular CBS television variety show Hee Haw with Roy Clark (syndicated beginning in 1971). According to Owens' son Buddy Alan, the accidental 1974 death of Don Rich, his closest friend, devastated him for years and impacted his creative efforts until he mounted a comeback in the late 1980s.
Owens is a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Personal life[edit]
Owens was married four times, three ending in divorce and one in annulment. He married country singer Bonnie Campbell Owens in 1948. The couple had two sons, one of whom was Buddy Alan, and separated in 1951, and later divorced.[29]
In 1956 Owens married Phyllis Buford with whom he had a third son.[29] In the 1970s he had a relationship with Hee Haw "Honey" Lisa Todd and appeared with her as "Buck Owens and his gal Lisa" on the TV game show Tattletales.
In 1977 he wed Buckaroos fiddle player Jana Jae Greif. Within a few days he filed for annulment, then changed his mind; the couple continued the on-and-off marriage for a year before divorcing.[30] In 1979 he married Jennifer Smith.[29]
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.
Owens 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 in 2004. These health problems had forced him to curtail his regular weekly performances with the Buckaroos at his Crystal Palace. Owens died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack at his ranch just north of Bakersfield on March 25, 2006, only hours after performing at his club. He was 76 years old.[2]
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. He was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The stretch of US Highway 82 in Sherman, Texas, is named the Buck Owens Freeway in his honor.
Biographies[edit]
In November 2013, Buck Owens's posthumous autobiography Buck 'Em! The Autobiography of Buck Owens by Buck Owens with Randy Poe was released. The book has a foreword by Brad Paisley and a preface by Dwight Yoakam.
In a 2007 authorized biography Buck, historian Kathryn Burke gives a positive account of Owens.[31]
In Buck Owens: The Biography (2010) investigative journalist Eileen Sisk offers a critical account of Owens and the shortcomings in his private life.[32]