Buck Owens died a few weeks ago. To a lot of people it was probably one of those “Oh, that’s too bad” moments. They might vaguely remember that Buck Owens was a country singer or more likely that he was the co-host of Hee Haw with Roy Clark, then they moved on with their day. It hit me a little harder. Buck was personal to me. Buck was a hero. More than that, Buck was a connection to my father.
My father was a country boy through and through. He was the oldest son of a farmer, and spent his youth in that endless cycle of plowing, planting and harvesting the crops that supported his family. I grew up in the sticks- my back yard was a cornfield and I spent most summer days on my cousin’s pig farm, but I was never a farm boy. Whenever I slopped the hogs or shucked corn it was because I could, not because I had to to survive. Despite those differences, my father and I had one great Country connection- the music. My father loved country music, and Buck Owens loomed large in his personal pantheon.
By the time I was born, the youngest son of a farmboy turned engineer, the recording career of Buck Owens was winding down. Most of his #1 hits were in the 60s, and though he’d have a few more singles on the charts in the 70s, by then he was well into his second career as a bona fide television star. The story goes that the night I was born, my father sat in the waiting room watching Hee Haw. I like to think that the idea of naming his son ‘Buck’ occurred to my father at least fleetingly.
Hee Haw was a smash hit, at least in the part of the country where I grew up, and we watched it religiously every Saturday. My mother popped the popcorn, my father broke out two bottles of RC Cola from the refrigerator, and we gathered in front of the Magnavox for an hour of music and laughter. By the time I was two I could sing the Hee Haw theme song by heart. When my parent’s friends came to visit, they’d have me entertain by singing the “Doom, Despair and Agony” song. It was like Buck Owens was a member of the family, an uncle I saw every week.
As I grew older, I mostly left country music behind, preferring rocknroll to the music of my early youth. Except for Buck- his brand of country incorporated more rock than any Nashville artist, and you can’t leave your relatives behind. When I moved to Los Angeles, I discovered a whole new world of Alt-country built on the driving rhythms of Buck’s Bakersfield sound. In a way, it was like coming home. So when Buck Owens died on March 25, a member of my family passed away. I will miss him dearly. Fortunately, he left my father and I a vast legacy of music to remember him by. And I’m comforted to know that the Honkytonk in Heaven is playing some kickass music right about now…
