BAKERSFIELD, CA -- last year, the seeds were being sewn. You could see them taking hold in the nightclubs and beer joints: the Executive Lounge, Julies Saloon, the Brown Pelican. Small, smoke-choked tonks scattered across town, jammed with couples, all cowboy boots, glamour-length press-on nails and elaborate coifs. In one such club sat Henry Sharpe. A gaunt-faced Southerner who played drums in the
Blackboard Cafe house band (where Merle, Buck, Bonnie, Tommy, Wynn, Freddie, Rose and Cal regularly appeared), Henry spouted a tremendous plume of smoke, rattled his cocktail and cheered, Damn, though, ain't this been a good year for country music? Randy Travis, ol Dwight Yoakam ... His companions, bearish Okies all, smiled through the dimly lit haze. The fact that Yoakam had at that time never appeared in
Bakersfield didnt seem to matter. He would, they knew, and to hear his hard country on the radio was for the while enough. Onstage later that evening, Gene Moles (who had a hand in the development of Mosrite guitars) led the band through a string-bending version of Yoakam's Guitars, Cadillacs, etc. Time passes. Late summer. Kern County Fair, an orgy of corn dogs and hillbilly music. Dwight Yoakam was here to play, part of a punishing tour in support of his second LP, which he had dedicated to 60s West Coast country kingpin Buck Owens. Backstage, Dwight and Buck met for the first time. It was no mere glandhand within 10 minutes, Buck Owens, one of the most popular and entertaining country artists evert had shuffled off a decades retirement and was onstage singing with Dwight Yoakam. Now comes a recorded collaboration, the single Streets of
Bakersfield (Reprise), and open-ended plans for a tandem tour. Its artistic activity of historical significance and proportions, the surprising product of the reaction of one lately inert, legendary alchemical compound when introduced to an inflammable, volatile agent, only recently discovered. J lement one: Alvis Edgar Buck La Owens, bom at Sherman, TX, 1929. Not the red-white-and-blue guitarstrumming simpleton known from Hee Haw, but a dustbowl migrant who started in the music business around 1948, at KTYL - The Worlds First Drive-In Radio Station in Mesa, AZ, which became home in 1937 when the Owenses overloaded Ford busted an axle en route to California. Buck relocated to
Bakersfield in 1951, and then to Hollywood, where a job as a Capitol Records studio gofer quickly blossomed to that of session player. (He plays a spirited Telecaster.) He waxed with everyone from Tommy Sands to Tommy Collins. His first solo hit, Second Fiddle, charted in 1959. Once he and his Buckaroos had gathered steam, they were able to cut, by Buck's reckoning, 26 consecutive No. 1 radio hits (19 of which were actual chart-toppers). Buck's Capitol material is among the most distinctive, straightforward and hard-hitting country music ever recorded. Together Again, 'Ive Got a Tiger by the Tail, Crying Time, Love's Gonna Live Here, Act Naturally (covered by the Beatles) were monster hits, none of which are available today. Buck owns all his Capitol masters and has been sitting for years on a body of vastly influential, brilliant work that currently can only be acquired at thrift stores and collector's conventions. Following a change in labels, the tragic death in 1974 of lead guitarist fiddler harmony-singer Don Rich and an attendant career slump, Buck opted to concentrate on his Hee Haw TV show. Following a farewell appearance at the 1979 Calaveras County Frog Jump, it was assumed that he'd never perform live again. Time passes. Add the catalytic agent: Los Angeles-based country singer Dwight Yoakam's rise to popular acceptance and the Billboard top five has been sure and steady over the last three years, his pace barely slowed by minor scandal. (Industry jaws dropped at Yoakam's near vicious attacks on more pop-oriented country musicians.) By the end of 1987, his second LP as gold as its predecessor (both are now nearing platinum, with respective sales of 700,000 and 900,000 copies), Yoakam could no longer be considered merely as one of the Hollywood Kiss-My-Roots set he's a country STAR now, operating in a demanding and sometimes painfully exclusive arena where its customary for demons and doubt to consume any vestige of individual happiness and satisfaction. Buck Owens has done time on the same lofty, lonesome perch, at a height few have reached. This is doubtless a key to what brought the two together. The rapport Buck and Dwight enjoy is as unusual as it is fascinating. Its a dialogue between two popularly .appointed arbiters of the common folk experience, men whose art is necessarily at once an expression of grassroots and a fiercely commercial craft. While this collaboration seems on the surface like the marketing scheme of the decade, the truth is far simpler. Ask Buck Owens why he returned to the stage: Well, actually it was because of my little friend, Dwight Yoakam. Owens speaks with genuine warmth. You know, nine years without makin records or givin concerts ... It wasnt that there wasnt records to make or concerts to do, it was just that the winds of change had blown to such an extent that it was all pop country. I felt what I wanted to do ... (Buck, after all, specializes in what he calls stone country) . . . well, the climate was just not conducive to it. Then along came my little friend, and Id read that he was a proponent of the
Bakersfield sound, and of course Id heard his records on my stations you know that I have stations here and in Phoenix. And when he came here to the Fair in September, I got up and did a couple of songswith him. It was very spontaneous. We just talked it over for a couple of minutes, and it came off real well. A pause. Buck seems as surprised as anyone about whats happened. Dwight and I seem to have something ... I dont really know what, maybe its just what happens when we sing together. When he came along, I just fell right in. It felt right, and thats how it came about that Ill be doin a few tour dates this summer. Buclc brought Streets of
Bakersfield to Dwight at the taping of the Country Music Associations anniversary show in Nashville. With a rough-and-rowdy lyric and a nortena polka arrangement (featuring accordionist Flaco Jimenez), the single finds Buck in fine voice, as bright and on-the-money as ever. Its included on Yoakams upcoming Buenos Noches From a Lonely Room LP, his toughest and darkest album to date, in the hillbilly tradition of mordancy. Ask Yoakam about this collaboration: Im flattered that hed even consider it. We plan to do it as long as its fun for everybody. For me, its real important to see Buck come out, just as a fan. Im happy to acknowledge, in any way I can, that great music of his. Were just tryin to tip the hat to it, and be respectful to Buck. In an odd sense, he probably feels a bit my mentor at this stage. Ive accepted that as a role for him, and in terms of his insight and the advice hes given me, it has been very beneficial. There are interesting career parallels: Both singers came to popularity in a time when lush, sappy pop set the tone for country music; both have had guitarists on whom they rely to a great degree (Pete Anderson is unquestionably the Don Rich figure here); and both play music staunchly based in dirt hillbilly. And both have been publicly attacked: Dwight for his outspokeness and his (some would say arrogant) dismissal of Nashville crossover, Buck for highly aggressive business practices as regards his song publishing and booking agency. In the long run, many of these accusations (they are numerous and titillating) come down to sour grapes. Nevertheless, its likely a part of the tie that binds them. eintroducing Buck to the stage is peril UL haps Yoakams greatest achievement to date, especially considering the odds. Says Yoakam, Buck has said to me many times, I dont feel compelled to have a career again Ive had one. Its not that Buck feels unfulfilled. If he does anything, its purely on the fly, for fun. He knows what will float and what wont. What he needs to do is make some of that old Capitol catalog available! Owens is, in fact, planning to release some past hits. But what of the Big Question: Will Buck Owens assemble a band and return to regular performing? He breaks up laughing: Yeah, theres a chance. Im gonna play the El Camino College in December, dont know the date yet, but by then Ill have put together a nice little group that can play the Buck Owens sound. Hallelujah! Thank you, Buck. And congratulations, Dwight. Buck Owens and Dwight Yoakam appear Sat., July 30 at the Universal Amphitheatre.
L A WEEKLY July 29 August 4, 1988, "'Billy Boys," By Jonny Whiteside,
