Music Review: Don Rich and the Buckaroos, Guitar Pickin’ Man

By Melissa Bratcher

In the pantheon of great guitarists, there are ones that come easily to mind: Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Jeff Beck, B.B. King. I’d add the Buckaroos’ Don Rich to that list. His style is immediately recognizable, and without his sonic experimentation, Buck Owens’s catalog would lack a certain verve. While Owens was always happy to dip a toe in the rock side, Don Rich’s playing upped the ante. His fuzzed-out guitar work on “Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass?” is as fresh and timely as anything recorded in 1969, and viscerally satisfying. This is pretty remarkable for someone who was hired to play fiddle.
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Music Review: Buck Owens And The Buckaroos, The Complete Capitol Singles: 1957-1966

By Melissa Bratcher

Once again, Omnivore Recordings gives us the Christmas gift we need: a new Buck Owens and the Buckaroos compilation. The Complete Capitol Singles 1957-1966 covers a particularly creatively fecund phase in Buck Owens’s career: the early days at Capitol, his partnership with the brilliant Don Rich, and a string of hits that defined the influential Bakersfield Sound. The Complete Capitol Singles 1957-1966 is gorgeously remastered and sounds stunningly good. Crisp, even, with that trebly production that Buck favored (so it would sound good on AM radio) sounding better than ever.
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Music Review: Buck ‘Em! The Music Of Buck Owens, Volume Two (1967-1975)

By Melissa Bratcher

“Would we still be talking about Buck Owens if it weren’t for Hee Haw?” I was asked recently and have spent an inordinate amount of time mulling over the answer. The answer, of course, is maybe. Hee Haw was an amazing music delivery system, imbuing Buck’s image with a family-friendly, easily accessible shorthand: he’s that smiling guy on TV every week with his Buckaroos and the pretty girls and Grandpa Jones and Roy Clark, and he’s kind of funny with his dad jokes, and he makes some catchy tunes. You think (if you’ve spent time watching Hee Haw) about what Buck Owens looked like, which, in an pre-MTV/CMTV videos era, is pretty spectacular. You can conjure up what he looks like playing his American flag striped guitar, you know what the Buckaroos look like, you can see Don Rich smiling in your mind’s eye.

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Music Review: Buck Owens, Buck ‘Em! The Music of Buck Owens (1955-1967)

By Melissa Bratcher

A sticker on the front of the CD proudly proclaims that Buck ‘Em! The Music of Buck Owens (1955-1967) isn’t your father’s Buck Owens collection, and it certainly isn’t. The hits are here, of course, but so are alternate takes and live tracks, as well as unreleased music. For a completist (like, say, me), it’s a treasure. With voluminous, entertaining liner notes written by Buck Owens himself (culled from his upcoming autobiography, also titled Buck ‘Em) (which is pretty impressive, especially since he passed away in 2006) (which is some Tupac level of productivity right there) it’s a chronological trip through the Buck Owens catalogue, and what a catalogue it is. Buck Owens and his Buckaroos made so many records, with so many catchy songs that it amazes me that they aren’t revered in the same way as Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson.

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Music Review: Buck Owens, Honky Tonk Man: Buck Sings Country Classics

By Melissa Bratcher

Another gem appears from the Buck Owens vault. Honky Tonk Man: Buck Sings Country Classics is a collection of musical backing tracks from Hee Haw with Buck’s reference vocals over them, which sounds like it wouldn’t be a treasure at all. But let me back up a moment.

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Music Review: Don Rich Sings George Jones

By Melissa Bratcher

Some people fantasize about going to Shangri-La, some people dream of winning the lottery. Me? I dream of going to Buck Owens‘s tape vault. Until a couple of years ago, it never crossed my mind, but with 2011’s release of Buck Owens’s Bound For Bakersfield collection of pre-Capitol demos (review), and now with the dual releases of Don Rich Sings George Jones and Buck Owens’s Honky Tonk Man, I want to go there. I cannot get my head around the fact that Don Rich’s lone solo record languished in the vault for 40 years. I can’t help but wonder what’s left in there, and desperately want to find out.

Don Rich was Buck Owens’s right hand: his guitarist, fiddler, and the man who brought harmony—a high tenor over Buck’s high tenor—to his tracks. They had an uncanny, beautiful way of harmonizing. Don’s smiling presence on Hee Haw, just over Buck’s shoulder, is my favorite thing about the show. Okay. That sounds a bit like fan fiction. Note to self: Don’t look that up. Ever.

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Buck Owens, Bound For Bakersfield

By Melissa B.

A couple of months ago, I bought a compilation album of old country music artists because the first track listed was by Buck Owens. The song “Rhythm and Booze” was unlike any Buck I’d ever heard: jangling, frenetic, and rock and roll, all slinky and naughty. I was mystified, and not at all sure it was Owens. This was kind of amazing.

Imagine my delight to find “Rhythm and Booze” on the brilliant collection of Buck Owens’ pre-Capitol Records demos Bound For Bakersfield. I can’t lie: I was freakishly excited to hear this CD and I am delighted to report that it has not disappointed. This is an often-surprising collection of songs written and recorded by a 21-year-old Buck Owens, who had not yet found the sound that would make him famous and define the “Bakersfield Sound.” However, there are little flashes here and there of the man and musician that Buck would become later in his recording career.
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Bucking Trends: How I Learned to Love Buck Owens

By Melissa Bratcher

One of the earliest crushes I can remember having is smiling Buck Owens on Hee Haw with his red, white, and blue striped guitar; his charming smile; his cringeworthy humor; and his soothing voice. I wore a pair of Hee Haw overalls to show my devotion to Mr. Owens and often pretended that he was my dad (not that anything was wrong with my dad, just, well, he wasn’t Buck Owens). I loved him and his music always reminded me of home.

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