This is the second page of a discography of Buck Owens, the king of the "Bakersfield Sound." This page looks at his work from 1970 on, as well as best-of collections and links to other Buck Owens sites. Page One of this discography covers his work in the 1950s and '60s.
Buck Owens "Big In Vegas" (Capitol, 1970) [ST 413]
Yeah, sure... that's what they all say.
Buck Owens "Your Mother's Prayer" (Capitol, 1970) [T 439]
Buck Owens & Susan Raye "We're Gonna Get Together" (Capitol, 1970) [ST 448]
Buck Owens "Kansas City Song" (Capitol, 1970) [ST 476]
When in doubt, record a regionally-themed novelty song. Heck, it worked for Roger Miller, didn't it?
Buck Owens "Merry Hee-Haw Christmas" (Capitol, 1970) [ST 486]
Buck Owens "Live In Scandanavia" (Sundazed, 1970/2008)
Here's a tasty reissue of one of Buck's rarest albums, a commemorative record of a 1970 Northern European tour, recorded "live" at Njardhallen Hall in Oslo, Norway and originally only released in that country. Devoted fans of the Bakersfield Sound will want to check this one out, for sure!
Buck Owens & Susan Raye "Great White Horse" (Capitol, 1970) [ST 558]
Buck Owens "I Wouldn't Live In New York City" (Capitol, 1970) [ST 628]
Heck, neither would I! Not with those rents, at least. (By the way, Columbus, Ohio's honkytonk hero, High Sheriff Ricky Barnes does a mighty fine cover version of the title song... worth tracking down as well...!)
Buck Owens "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (Capitol, 1971) [ST 685]
One of Buck's lesser albums, a perfunctory release in which he goes country-folk, doing Dylan, Donovan and a trio of Simon & Garfunkel tunes. It's silly, and there's no passion in the performance, besides which these songs were old-hat even by the time this came out. Buck contributes a few tunes as well and one of these, the "Detroit City"-ish "San Francisco Town," is the album's lone standout track. I suppose if you relish hearing Owens do kitsch, then this would be of interest -- there's a Moog riff on his version of "Catch The Wind," and the echo-y arrangements on "I Am A Rock" sound cool, even if Buck is sleepwalking his way through the vocals. But as an actual, true-blue country album, this is pretty weak.
Buck Owens "Ruby" (Capitol, 1971) [ST 795]
Buck Owens & Susan Raye "Merry Christmas From Buck And Susan" (Capitol, 1971) [ST 837]
Buck Owens "Live At John Ascuaga's Nugget" (Capitol, 1972) [ST 11039]
Not merely "The Golden Nugget," mind you: it's at John Ascuga's Golden Nugget! Buck does Vegas (well, Nevada, at least...) and poses with a really cute elephant on the the album's cover. One imagines an interesting story about myriad gambling debts being settled by recording this big old product-placement-y album... but I doubt the real story behind this album is anything nearly so interesting. Pity, also, that it's not a theme album about gamblers, but oh well -- you can't have everything! (Actually, it's not a bad little record... and for some reason it's fairly easy to find on vinyl. Worth picking up.)
Buck Owens "Live At The White House" (Capitol, 1972) [ST 11105]
Buck Owens & Buddy Alan "Too Old To Cut The Mustard" (Capitol, 1972) (LP)
Buck records a goofy album with his son, Buddy Alan...
Buck Owens "In The Palm Of Your Hand" (Capitol, 1973) [ST 11136]
Buck Owens "Ain't It Amazing Gracie" (Capitol, 1973) [ST 11180]
Buck Owens & Susan Raye "Good Old Days" (Capitol, 1973) [ST 11204]
Buck Owens "Arms Full Of Empty" (Capitol, 1973) [ST 11222]
Buck Owens "It's A Monster's Holiday" (Capitol, 1974) [ST 11332]
Buck Owens "41st Street Lonely Heart's Club" (Capitol, 1975) [ST 11390]
Buck Owens "Buck 'Em" (Warner Brothers, 1976) (LP)
(Produced by Norro Wilson)
Buck's two-album run on Warner brothers yielded some surprisingly strong results... For whatever reasons, he'd kind of stopped actually giving a fart about his releases on Capitol, and most of his '70s stuff is kind of a wash... But these records show some renewed vigor, perhaps with the help of produced Norro Wilson (whose touch I generally enjoy on albums of this era...) At any rate, this one's worth checking out. (Note: the songs on both Buck 'Em and Our Old Mansion, along with some bonus material, are available on a CD reissue, The Warner Brothers Recordings, reviewed below...)
Buck Owens "Our Old Mansion" (Warner Brothers, 1977) (LP)
(Produced by Norro Wilson)
A rock-solid, true-country gem! This one's pretty surprising, since Buck had been kind of phoning 'em in for a few years towards the end of his Capitol career... But here, his heart is clearly in it, and he's playing these songs for all he's worth... There's a heavy western swing vibe on many songs, but also a nice, sweet, fiddle-drenched honkytonk sound that recalls Buck's golden years. Hell, with a record like this under his belt, I guess he was still in his "golden years." Be nice if somebody could put this one back in print sometime so more folks could hear it in its full glory.
Buck Owens "Hot Dog" (Capitol, 1988)
His return from retirement and the release of his first album in over a decade was big news and real cause for celebration in 1988... Not only did Buck Owens give his fans a chance to see him again, he cut one humdinger of a record... The chart success of the single "Streets of Bakersfield," his fab duet with acolyte Dwight Yoakam spurred Owens back into greatness... This record features re-recordings of a bunch of oldies, but instead of the same old story of a former country star recording a sad little nostalgia disc, this isn't just a final wheeze from an old geezer, but a solid affirmation of his role in country music legend and his continuing artistic vigor. It's a fun record. The songs are solid and the performances are strong... Definitely worth checking out!
Buck Owens "Live At Carnegie Hall" (Capitol, 1989)
A fine live set from the 'Sixties, released for the first time nearly a quarter century after the fact, as a resurgent Buck was riding high on his late-'80s revival. Nice stuff, with the band in fine form.
Buck Owens "Act Naturally" (Capitol, 1990)
Buck Owens "Kickin' In" (Capitol, 1991)
Buck Owens "Live In Austin, TX" (New West, 2007)
Buck Owens "Live In Austin, TX" (DVD) (New West, 2007)
Buck Owens "The Buck Owens Collection" (Rhino, 1992)
So far, the best Buck CD edition best-of to hit the American market. I have to confess to having rather mixed feelings about Buck Owens... Although he is undeniably one of the greatest (and best known) popular country artists of the 1960s, his work is laced with an air of offhanded professionalism that verges on detachment and even cynicism. This was especially true in the early '70s, when he was mad at his record label (Capitol) and started phoning in his albums. Still, Buck recorded dozens of the best, most boisterous country hits of the 'Sixties and almost singlehandedly breathed life back into the genre, with his bouncy, rock-savvy "West Coast/Bakersfield" country sound. Plus, his band totally kicked ass. This 3-CD set dips a little too deeply into his more lugubrious contractual obligation albums (the third disc covers the early 'Seventies on...) but it's still a pretty worthy retrpspective. For folks looking for a purer dose of early '60s Buck, the numerous reissues of his original albums on the Sundazed label are also highly recommended.
Buck Owens "Act Naturally: The Buck Owens Recordings 1953-1964" (Bear Family, 2008)
Jinkies! A 5-CD box set covering the early years of Buck Owens -- not just the bouncy, Bakersfieldy hits that made him a coast-to-coast star in the early 'Sixties, but also all his journeyman work as a hotshot session picker, and random, under-the-radar indie recordings from the mid-1950s, in the years before Capitol got whiff of what he was up to. I'll never, ever, ever be able to afford this one, but it sure sounds cool.
Buck Owens "The Warner Brothers Recordings" (Rhino Handmade, 2008)
While I'm at it, I may as well mention this fab set of late-vintage Buck Owens tracks that came out a while ago on Rhino's boutique "handmade" label. It's a collection of Owen's work on Warner Records from the late 1970s, drawing from two albums produced by Norro Wilson, Buck 'Em and Our Old Mansion, as well as several singles and even some unreleased tracks from an album that got shelved in '79. It's all surprisingly good, despite the absence of Buck's longtime bandleader Don Rich, who had died in '74, leaving Owens rudderless and adrift for a while. This 2-CD set gathers all of his Warner recordings together in one nice package -- and is available though the Rhino Records website.
Susan Raye & Buck Owens "The Very Best Of..." (Varese Sarabande, 2011)
A nice collection, particularly for fans of the early-1970s heyday of perky countrypolitan/sunshine country -- this set includes tracks from three albums released by Owens and Raye between 1970-73, and includes a half-dozen Top Forty hits, including their biggest charting single, "The Great White Horse," which peaked at #8 in 1970. Wholesome and earnest, Susan Raye was a protegee of Owens, who scored several hits on her own (heard on another Varese collection that's also worth checking out...) She didn't have the same hillbilly ooomph as Owens, but she held her own, and these duets, particularly the uptempo numbers, have some fun moments. There's an interesting mix of new songs and country oldies such as the old Browns hit, "Looking Back To See" and a remake of the Mickey Baker pop/R&B song "Love Is Strange." Most of the songs are Buck Owens originals, and they have a classic feel -- "Cryin' Time," "Together Again," "I Don't Care" -- with songs like this, how can you go wrong? Like many Varese releases, this disc fills a gap for country fans looking to hear long-neglected chart hits and album tracks that have languished in the vaults; it's another reissue that fans will want to snap up.
Buck Owens "The Best Of Buck Owens, v.1" (Capitol, 1964) [ST 2105]
Buck Owens "The Best Of Buck Owens, v.2" (Capitol, 1968) [ST 2897]
Buck Owens "The Best Of Buck Owens, v.3" (Capitol, 1969) [SKAO 145]
Buck Owens "The Best Of Buck Owens, v.4" (Capitol, 1971) [ST 830]
Buck Owens "The Best Of Buck Owens, v.5" (Capitol, 1974) [ST 11273]
Buck Owens "The Best Of Buck Owens, v.6" (Capitol, 1976) [ST 11471]
Buck Owens & Susan Raye "The Best Of Buck And Susan" (Capitol, 1972) [ST 11084]
Buck Owens "The Very Best Of Buck Owens, v.1" (Rhino, 1994)
Buck Owens "The Very Best Of Buck Owens, v.2" (Rhino, 1994)
Don Rich & The Buckaroos "Country Pickin'" (Sundazed, 2000)
A nice set culled from the various "band" albums cut by the Buckaroos, putting together an authoritative collection of the best work by Buck's guitarist, the late Don Rich. Rich was the man who sculpted the Buck Owens sound, wielding a bright-toned Telecaster with the same ease as any number of blonde California surfer dudes -- here he even sings on a few songs, but it's mostly an instrumental affair... It helps to be a connoisseur of non-vocal tunes, but any fan of Buck's can find something to be excited about here. Rich died in a 1974 motorcycle accident, causing a loss that Owens and the Bakersfield sound never really recovered from; here you can hear the man in his prime, playing the fiddle and guitar like nobody's business.
Various Artists "HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUCK: A TEXAS SALUTE TO BUCK OWENS" (Texas Round-Up, 2002)
An all-star twagadelic tribute to the late Buck Owens, with musicians such as David Ball, Libbi Bosworth, Rodney Crowell, Cornell Hurd, Jim Lauderdale, The South Austin Jug Band and the Derailers (who backed Owens in his later years at his ginormous Bakersfield nightclub, the Crystal Palace...) About as rootsy and Buckalicious a compilation as you're likely to find!
