buck owens 1929-2006

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Owens, mid-196Os: He influenced the
Eagles, Gram Parsons and the Dead.
li
ltt THE NEWS
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north Texas, Alvis Edgar Owens Jr.
was inspired by Bob Wills and His
Gxas Playboys and Hank Williams
Sr. But he also loved the electrified
rattle of Chuck Berry and Little
Richard. Haggard says that Bakers-
field radio stations in the r95os
mixed white country singers like
GeorgeJones with black artists like
Berry and Fats Domino, so musicians learned it all to please crowds
at local joints like the Blackboard
and Trout's. "There were people
standing in line to do your job, and
if you couldn't belly up to the mike
and do it, you were gone," recalls
Haggard. "Color didn't seem to
make as much difference then as it
does now. The boundary lines were
never really there."
In r965, when Owens covered
Berrys "Memphis," it irked many of
the singer's fans. But Owens said he
considered Berry's music country.
"The only thing was, a black man was
Buckfuens
rg2g2c,06
The king of the Bakersfield Sound gave
country a rock& roll edge By JoE HAGAN
EFORE HE DIED ON MARCH
z5th, at age seventy-six,
BuckOwens carneupwith
the title for an unpublished autobiography : Buc( Em!
It was an up-yours kiss-off to
the world and exactly how the
honky-tonk legend wanted to be
remembered: as the ornery maverick of country music, a California
innovator who resisted the polished Nashville sound and made a
crackling, roughneck music - the
Bakersfield Sound.
"He wanted to be his own man -
he didn't want to be part of the
Grand Ole Opry scene," says Merle
Haggard, a Bakersfield native who
once worked as a songwriter
for
Owens' publishing company and
played bass in Owens'backup band
the Buckaroos (which Haggard also
named). "He was a mentor."
Forgoing the fl owery country pop
of Nashville in the r96os, Owens
fused rock U roll, Tex-Mex andwest
ern swing with traditional country,
adding a driving backbeat and the
bright-toned Fender Telecaster
twang that had made him a top ses.
sion man in the r95os. He often said
he wanted the music to sound like a
freight train, the sort that brought
thousands ofmigrantworkers to Bak
ersfields oil fields during the r93os.
Owens turnedhis distinctive style
into more than twentyNumber One
country hits for Capitol Records in
the r96os, including "Together
Again," "Open Up Your Heart" and
"IVe Got a Tiger by the ThiL" His influence ranged wide, touching everyone from Gram Parsons and Dwight
Yoakam to the Beatles (who covered
Owens' hit'Act Naturally'' on r965's
HeIp!) and the Grateful Dead, who
drew on the Buckaroos'signature
guitar and pedal steel sound. "He al-
lowed the subgenre'country rock'
to come into being," says Yoakam.
"The Byrds, the Burritos and Poco,
the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt and
Emmylou Harris - it's all an extensionof BuckOwens."
Along the way, Owens evolved
into a sawy entrepreneur, starting
his own booking agency, managing
his own music publishing, wresting
ownership of his master tapes from
Capitol in the rg7os and earning
millions of dollars as the owner of a
small broadcasting empire.
The son of sharecroppers from
Tribute to Buck
Hear some of Buck owens' best tracks,
plus versions by selected artists, at
ro I I i n gsto n e. com I I i ste n
singrn'it, ablackmanwho Iwas abig
fan o{" he told an interviewer.
Owens'huge success landed him
a role on the hillbilly variery show
Hee Haw, which typecast him as a
caricatured country rube. "I prostituted myself for money," he admitted inJanuary."Alot of folks didn't
like that. But theypaid me for it."
With the untimely death of his
chief musical confidant, the Buckaroos' lead guitarist Don fuch, in
1974, Owens grew increasingly de,
spondent and eventually stopped
recording in 198o.
Meanwhile, he made his personal fortune by buying and selling
radio stations around the country,
starting with his hometown coun.
try station,KUZZ, which is still
owned by Buck Owens Production.
The company made $r4z million in
rggg by selling major srarions in
Phoenix to Jacor Communications.
In 1988, Yoakam single-handedly
revived Owens'legacy by scoring a
Number One hit with a duet with
Owens on "Streets of Bakersfield."
Afterward, Owens was inspired to
cut his first album in a decade, Hot
DoglAmong his last recordings was
a duet with Ringo Starr singing'Act
Naturally." Yoakam spoke with
Owens on the phone five days before
he died. "Ill always cherish that I had
that conversation, laughing and joking," he says. "The thing that's overlooked about Buck was, he was a
veryvulnerable and sensitive man."
Owens died in his element: His
family says he ate his favorite meal of
chicken-fried steak, performed at his
Bakersfield club, Crystal Palace,
went home and expired in his sleep.
"His biggest legacy is that so many of
theyounger acts admiredhowhe did
things," says Jim Shaw, Owens' longtime piano player. "Out on the edge."
Love Sells Nirvana
Courtney Love
has sold twenty-
five percent of her share of
Nirvana's catalog to former Virgin
Records exec Larry Mestel for an
estimated $sO million. Love - who
has suffered financial difficulties
and was released from a drug
rehab facility in November inherited one-third of Nirvana's
royalties after Kurt Cobain died in
1994 (Dave Grohland Krist
Novoselic have one-third each);
because Cobain was the main
ipods Get
Volume-Limiting
Software
preparing for the
Seemingly responding to criticism
that iPods pump out volumes that
put their users at risk for noiseinduced hearing loss - including an
article in RS 988 on December lst,
2Oo5, and a class-action suit filed in
January - Apple has released a free
software patch that gives users the
ability to set a maximum volume.
The patch also allows parents to
lock in a new maximum volume
setting with password protection.
An Apple spokesman declined to
comment on whythe company
implemented the patch, but
according to Boston audiologist
Brian Fligor, an iPod's volume
maxes out at around 12O decibels loud enough to cause damage in
minutes. The patch is available at
apple.com/iPod.
Alice in Chains:
Back in Action
Four years after the fatal heroin
overdose of singer Layne Staley and one year since their last show
a reunited Alice in Chains are
S
songwriter, she cono
eight percent of the g
publishing rights. -t r
partner to bring Kun
the future," Love sE/
the guy to do it.- Lov
still need the band m
sell Nirvana recordin
car commercial. but:
license songs to b€ G
other bands. ln rehi
willjoin Linda Perry
of Love's new CD.
-'r'
decade, beginning aLos Angeles and ccrr
series of surprise uS
before the band fre=
"Everybody has disai
in life, and we cer.aF
says guitarist
Jerrr
C
reunited with bass:=
drummer sean Kinrr
to continue living '-=
agreattime." Joi. fE
Comes With the Fe :
DuValland, poSS.]'r
Revolver bassist o:'
Also in the
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Yusuf lslarn:.le ;
songwriter forme.*.
Stevens, is preoa.-x
album since 1978'-. 3
ln 2OOO, when ls, ahis catalog, he erc.a.
reasoning for re:l--l
music: "This issre :i
lslam is not as cui awas led to belie,e.-
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Crosby, Stills. \=s
are planning a ioii-
album, accordi:-:::
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U.K.BuzzBand
Watch eirmingham New Wavers the
Editors (frontman Tom Smith,
right) play an exclusive acoustic
performance of their song "All Sparks"
as part of our RS Originals series at
rol I i ngst a ne. corn /v id eas
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