BUCK OWENS R.I.P.
pickwick33
8,946 Posts
We just lost this country legend today, although his cause of death has not yet been revealed. 
pickwick33
8,946 Posts
We just lost this country legend today, although his cause of death has not yet been revealed.
Comments
My dad loves his stuff.
All of his music is great, but his Christmas albums are especially appreciated.
A seriously sad event. Buck was one of the greats.
Buck still played every friday night in Bakersfield at his club. I kept promising myself that I would make the drive and get my picture with Buck to send to my grandmother. Now I will never have the chance to do it. I shouldn't have put it off.
Growing up in Bakersfield was cool. What made it even cooler is that because of Buck, we had our own theme song. "Walking The Streets Of Bakersfield" would always play on the radio. Of course, Buck owned the country stations there, but still, Of all the shit towns in the middle of nowhere America, we had a song, and it was a good song. Anybody could have written a song about Bakersfield, but Buck understood Bakersfield. That song had a mix of Tejano and country that sounded like Bakersfield.
I don't want my Grandma to find out that Buck is dead.
As for me, like most my age I grew up watching Hee Haw as well, and that's where I first "met" Buck. Not that I was a country fan as a kid - more like it was always on in the house, and my father would be watching it. Buck really didn't mean much to me until I started listening to country music in my early 20's. I was coming off a serious rockabilly binge, and I understood that Buck was one of the crucial artists for rock fans getting into C&W, mainly because at a time when country was all violin sections and overbearing background vocalists, Buck recorded with his road band and had a harder, more guitar-oriented sound than the rest. When you hear the Byrds' country material, as well as that International Submarine Band elpee, that was Buck Owens & the Buckaroos they were trying to emulate.
Even though most of his Capitol albums have been reissued on CD, I still impulsively pick up those same LP's when I see them in "the field." See, I can remember a time (early 90's) when those records were hopelessly out of print, so if I saw the most chewed-up copy of an old Buck album around, I bought it without question. Even though the reissues drove the value down, and now you see Buck's albums going for $4-6 along with Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline, I still buy the Buck albums I don't have out of habit.
The day before Buck died, I put two of his elpees on hold at the used store, even though I own enough of his albums as it is. He was that good, so a few more Buck rekkids couldn't hurt...
My buddy has a cool Buck Owens guitar-
Speaking of which, hopefully Owens is now reunited with his former guitarist Don Rich, who did all those cracking leads.
Buck was hip hop and didn't even know it. The way he repped his city... his lyrics... I mean shit....
You don't know me but you don't like me
Say you care less how I feel
How many of you who sit and judge me
Ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?
Might as well be straight outta compton for the bakersfield set.....
Bakersfield has a big place in Country Music history.
Buck is a big part of it.
I used to play his first record, "Hot Dog", a killer rockabilly tune he recorded under the name Corky Jones on the Pep label, on the radio show I used to do here in Dallas......all his music had a decent edge to it and was......
I couldn't find anywhere else
Hey, I'm not trying to be nobody
Just want a chance to be myself
I've done a thousand miles of thumbin'
I've worn holes in both my heels
Trying to find me something better
On the streets of Bakersfield
Chorus:
You don't know me, but you don't like me
You say you care less how I feel
But how many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?
Spent sometime in San Francisco
Spent a night there in the can
They threw this drunk man in my jail cell
Took fifteen dollars from that man
Left him my watch and my old house key
Don't want folks thinkin' that I'd steal
Then I thanked him as I was leaving, and
I headed for the streets of Bakersfield
Chorus:
You don't know me, but you don't like me
You say you care less how I feel
But how many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?
You don't know me, but you don't like me
You say you care less how I feel
But how many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?
How many of you that sit and judge me
Have ever walked the streets of Bakersfield?
I love you guys!
This is the same as my Buck Owens story word for word.
I saw Willie and Jerry Lee (even got to shake Jerry Lee's hand). Never got to see Buck live, due to the fact that he only played at his own club in Bakersfield. (Buck was a wealthy man, and invested his savings wisely - when the hits stopped, so did he. Except for his club and a brief comeback tour in the 80's with Dwight Yoakam, Buck had retired.)
Nashville dominates country like NY dominates hip-hop, so the fact that Buck turned Bakersfield into a minor empire was nothing to sleep on.