Owens, Buck (1929—)

Bucking Nashville country music conventions, the Bakersfield-based Buck Owens helped put his town on the musical map with his spare, twangy, rock-influenced sound that shunned the background singing and orchestral fluff that dominated country music in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Along with Bakersfield native Merle Haggard, Owens helped to popularize a more "authentic" version of country music, known as the Bakersfield Sound, that better reflected how country sounded in the bars and honky-tonks throughout the United States. Despite Owens's great musical influence—he made a big impression on artists such as Gram Parsons, and his "Act Naturally" was covered by the Beatles—he later became known more as a television personality with his work on the country comedy variety show Hee-Haw, on which he appeared from 1969 to 1986.

Owens was born in Sherman, Texas, and his family moved to Mesa, Arizona, during the 1930s. In Mesa, he met and later married country singer Bonnie Campbell and had two sons. He then moved his family to Bakersfield, California, where he began to play music around town. A semi-depressed area that provided a slight relief for the many folks who tried to escape the 1930s Midwest Dust Bowl, Bakersfield was a host for many bars that took people's minds off the bleak conditions of the surrounding area. Owens once claimed that Bakersfield's music was, in fact, a reaction to those desperate conditions, in that the music was a way of providing an escape. In defining the Bakersfield Sound, Owens emphasized the elements that got live crowds most excited. In his days playing guitar with Bill Woods's Orange Blossom Playboys at one of Bakersfield's more popular clubs, The Black Board, those elements were a loud, twangy electric guitar sound laid atop a rock 'n' roll backbeat and bouncy bass—elements found in his first hit, "Under Your Spell Again," as well as his number one hit, "Act Naturally," and "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail."

Owens's success helped to add more variety to country music in the 1960s, with his more edgy sound providing a counterbalance to the string-laden recordings being produced in Nashville at the time. His commercial clout opened the doors for Merle Haggard, who quickly went on to match Owens's sales and artistic influence. Owens also used his newfound commercial clout to branch off, and by the late 1960s he owned a television production company, a significant amount of real estate, numerous radio stations, a management company, and a booking agency—becoming a Bakersfield music giant both behind and in front of the scenes.

In 1969 came Hee-Haw, initially considered simply a summer replacement show, but which gained enormous popularity, causing Owens's star to shine even more brightly as he regularly hosted or appeared on the show through the mid-1980s. Despite his Hee-Haw appearances, Owens virtually disappeared from the music scene by the mid-1970s—partially the result of a self-imposed exile from which he only rarely emerged to play a few live dates or record a live album or duet (Owens and Emmylou Harris's "Play Together Again Again" was a highlight of 1979).

—Kembrew McLeod

Further Reading:

Carr, Patrick, ed. Illustrated History of Country Music. New York, Times Books, 1995.

Dawidoff, Nicholas. In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music. New York, Vintage, 1997.