Buck Owens, along with Merle Haggard, was the leader of the Bakersfield sound, a twangy, electrified, rock-influenced interpretation of hardcore honky tonk that emerged in the '60s. Owens was the first bona fide country star to emerge from Bakersfield, scoring a total of 15 consecutive number one hits between 1963 and 1967. In the process, he provided an edgy alternative to the string-laden country-pop that was prevalent at the time.
Forty six Top 10 Hits (including 19 #1’s) on double-CD, triple-LP, and Digital.
Buck Owens turned Bakersfield, California into the epicenter of hip country music in the mid-'60s. All it took was a remarkable streak of number one singles that steam rolled right through Nashville with their electrified twang, forever changing the notion of what constituted country music and codifying the Bakersfield sound as hard-driving rhythms, trebly Telecasters, and lean arrangements suited for honky tonks, beer joints, and jukeboxes all across America. Half-a-century later, these remain sonic signifiers of Bakersfield, so the term no longer conveys a specific sound, place, and era, a situation the weighty Bear Family box The Bakersfield Sound: Country Music Capital of the West 1940-1974 intends to rectify.
Two years after the first installment comes Buck 'Em!: The Music of Buck Owens, Vol. 2, a double-disc set chronicling the eight years when Buck Owens was a crossover superstar thanks to his prominent role as a co-host of Hee Haw. Buck started to slide into a rut toward the end of this run – a process accelerated by the tragic death of his right-hand man Don Rich in 1974, a loss from which Owens never fully recovered – but producer Patrick Milligan slyly disguises this trend by nestling deep cuts, live tracks, and outtakes among the best of his hits, thereby painting a portrait of Buck Owens as a musician nearly as adventurous as he was during the purple patch of the '50s and early '60s.
Omnivore's 2013 double-disc set Buck Em! The Music of Buck Owens (1955-1967) provides an interesting spin on Buck Owens: through a collection of mono singles, live tracks, alternate takes, early 45s, and other rarities, it tells an alternate history of Buck's prime years. If there's a hit on this 50-track collection, it's almost always in a version that's slightly different than what usually shows up on a standard greatest-hits. "Second Fiddle," "Love's Gonna Live Here," "I Don't Care (Just as Long as You Love Me)," "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail," and "Before You Go" are all in mono, there's an early version of "Ain't It Amazing Gracie," and "Act Naturally" is live, so they're familiar enough to not feel jarring and they do provide the core of a collection that winds up wandering into some pretty interesting territory.