Tag Archives: Bakersfield

Essential Reissues of 2019

Some of the best reissues of 2019. Click the titles to find full reviews and music samples.

Various Artists: The Bakersfield Sound

A towering achievement in musical archaeology, even when measured against Bear Family’s stratospherically high standard. Reissue producer Scott B. Bomar digs deeply into Bakersfield’s musical soil to explore the migrant roots that coalesced into the history, connections, influences and circumstances that forged the Bakersfield Sound. Ten discs, nearly three-hundred tracks, and a 224-page hardcover book essay the scenes development, how lesser-known players contributed to those who would become stars, and how the stars blossomed from their roots. Reissue of the year.

Various Artists: Cadillac Baby’s Bea & Baby Records – The Definitive Collection

Triple-disc set cataloging the riches of Narvel “Cadillac Baby” Eatmon’s Chicago-based labels, including Bea & Baby, Key, Keyhole, Ronald and Miss. Competing with Chess, Vee-Jay, Brunswick and Delmark in the early ‘60s, the entrepreneurial Eatmon sourced acts through his Show Lounge nightclub, and built a small, but artistically important catalog that includes blues, soul, R&B doo-wop and Latin-tinged numbers. The accompanying 128-page hardbound book includes a lengthy interview with Eatmon, alongside producer’s notes, liners, and artist profiles.

Blinky: Heart Full of Soul – The Motown Anthology

Sondra “Blinky” Williams may be Motown’s most widely heard unsung singer. She recorded dozens of sides for the Detroit powerhouse, but only a few ever made it to market. At the same time, she was heard weekly by millions of television viewers as Jim Gilstrap’s duet partner on the theme song to Good Times. Her many fans have lobbied for years to “free Blinky from the vaults,” and with Real Gone’s two-CD set, their wish has finally been granted.

Buck Owens and the Buckaroos: The Complete Capitol Singles 1971-1975

The third of three double-disc sets cataloging Buck Owens’ singles on Capitol. Though he didn’t have the same level of commercial success in the early 1970s that he’d had throughout the 1960s, his artistry was undimmed, and his omnivorous musical appetite was still unsated. Recording primarily in his own Bakersfield studio, he covered material from outside the country realm, and stretched out from his classic Telecaster-and-steel sound to incorporate pop, bluegrass and gospel. A strong and fulfilling chapter of the Buck Owens legacy.

Hank Williams: The Complete Health & Happiness Recordings

Third try is the charm. Williams’ 1949 radio transcriptions for patent medicine sponsor Hadacol have slowly been resuscitated and restored over a series of releases, culminating in this best-yet edition. In a year that saw Williams transition from the Hayride to the Opry, and evolve his material from a cover of “Love Sick Blues” to the iconic original “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” these eight shows capture Williams on a fast-moving train to stardom. This new restoration attends to both the physical issues of the source transcriptions and the aural issues of earlier remasters.

Van Duren: Waiting – The Van Duren Story

Following Big Star by a few years, Van Duren suffered the same lack of renown as his fellow Memphians. Though Big Star’s public renown grew over the decades, Duren has remained obscure. A limited edition Japanese reissue of his 1977 debut failed to spread the word, and his follow-up album remained vaulted for decades. But with this documentary soundtrack sampling the rich Badfinger/Rundgren sounds of his late-70s power-pop, Duren’s music may finally reach the sympathetic ears it deserves.

Uncle Walt’s Band: Uncle Walt’s Band

This springboard for Walter Hyatt, Champ Hood and David Ball was well-known in their adopted Austin, and among in-the-know music fans; but their instrumental finesse and joyous mix of country, jazz, folk, blues, bluegrass and swing was too sophisticated for reduction to a commercial concern. Omnivore’s reissue of the group’s 1974 debut polishes the brilliant gem by doubling the original track count with eleven bonus demos and live recordings.

Yum Yum: Dan Loves Patti

The conflagration of criticism and meta-criticism that burned this release to a crisp two years after its release is one of the stranger chapters in pop critic history. Yum Yum’s Chris Holmes was, according to his former roommate Thomas Frank, a prankster faking out his record company in a quixotic bid to supplant corporate Alternative Rock with finely crafted orchestral pop. Absurd on its face, Frank’s critique caught fire in an escalating war of meta-criticism. More than twenty years later, Holmes’ creation remains sweetly satisfying to those with a taste for candy.

Robin Lane & The Chartbusters: Many Years Ago

Triple-disc set pulling together the great Boston band’s entire first-run catalog, including pre-signing demos and an indie single, two albums and a live EP for Warner Brothers, a post-Warner EP, demos, session tracks, and live material. The music rings with the passion of its author and the intensity of the band’s playing.

The Strangeloves: I Want Candy

Three Australian sheep-farming brothers turned out to be a trio of New York songwriter-producers coping with the British Invasion. The authors of the Angels’ “My Boyfriend’s Back” turned themselves into a beat group with the earworms “I Want Candy,” “Cara-Lin” and “Night Time,” and waxed a full album of catchy Bo Diddley beats. Reissued on red vinyl, the original mono mix delivers an AM radio gut punch and an object lesson in the power of mid-60s mono vs. stereo.

Various Artists: That’ll Flat Git It! Vol. 32
Twenty-eight years and thirty-two volumes in, there is still life in Bear Family’s rockabilly anthology series. This latest edition takes a fourth trip into the vaults of Decca, Brunswick and Coral, and turns up a surprising number of worthy sides. The label’s typical attention to detail fills out a 39-page booklet with period photos, label reproductions, and knowledgeable liner notes by Bill Dahl.

Tom Brumley: Steelin’ the Show

Instrumental highlights of the Buckaroos’ steel guitar ace

Alongside fellow Buckaroos, Don Rich, Doyle Holly and Willie Cantu, steel guitar ace Tom Brumley was a core part of Buck Owens’ “Bakersfield Sound.” Brumley first connected with Owens as a studio musician at Capitol in the early ‘60s, and joined the Buckaroos in 1963. He stayed with Owens’ throughout the group’s phenomenal commercial run in the 1960s, departing in 1969 to join Ricky Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band (that’s him on “Garden Party”). So successful were the Buckaroos in backing Owens that they developed a parallel recording career of their own, and the sides collected here – all instrumentals except the closer – are drawn from both Buck Owens albums, and those recorded separately by the Buckaroos. Brumley’s steel guitar shines on these instrumentals, but as the closing Buck Owens track “Together Again” shows, his instrumental support and solos with a megawatt star fronting the band resonated on a whole other level. This collection offers fans a generous helping of Brumley’s talent and style, including languorous ballads and hot-picked barn burners, and provides a nice complement to his work on Owens’ iconic hits. [©2019 Hyperbolium]

Buck Owens and the Buckaroos: The Complete Capitol Singles 1971-1975

Buck Owens closes out his phenomenal first run on Capitol

After a pair of double-disc sets covering Owens’ trailblazing, chart topping singles of 1957-1966 and 1967-1970, Omnivore closes out the Bakersfield legend’s run on Capitol with this superb third volume. Owens’ early ‘70s singles didn’t repeat the commercial dominance of his 1960s output, but several still landed in the upper reaches of the charts (and at #1 with Bob and Faye Morris’ “Made in Japan”), and demonstrated continued creativity. The early ‘70s were a time of artistic exploration for Owens as he recorded in his then-newly built Bakersfield studio, produced himself, covered material from outside the country realm, and stretched out from his classic Telecaster-and-steel sound to incorporate pop, bluegrass and gospel. As this set attests, his declining chart fortunes were more a product of changing public tastes and industry trends than a slip in artistry.

Owens opened 1971 with a moving cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” featuring a solemn vocal, acoustic guitar and atmospheric backing harmonies that take the song to a different emotional place than Simon & Garfunkel’s original. He showed off his omnivorous musical appetite and sense of humor with a southern-funk take on Jimmy Driftwood’s “Battle of New Orleans” a transformation of Shel Silverstein’s “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” into the country-styled “On the Cover of the Music City News,” a loping bluegrass arrangement of Cousin Emmy’s “Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man” and an energetic version of the traditional “Rollin’ in My Sweet Baby’s Arms.” The latter two expanded the Buckaroos’ musical palette with the addition of Ronnie Jackson’s banjo.

The biggest hits in this five year span came from the pens of others, but Owens continued to write fresh material for himself. He cracked the Top 10 with “Great Expectations,” and the novelties “Big Game Hunter” and  “(It’s A) Monster’s Holiday,” and further down the chart he scored with the defeated “In the Palm of Your Hand,” the discontented “Arms Full of Empty,” the defiant “You Ain’t Gonna Have Ol’ Buck to Kick Around No More” and the happy-go-lucky “Ain’t It Amazing, Gracie.” Owens clearly had fuel left in his songwriting tank, even if country radio and the listening public weren’t paying as close attention as they had the previous decade.

Owens’ songwriting prowess can also be heard in B-sides that include the Mexicali-tinged waltz “Black Texas Dirt” and the steel and fiddle heartbreak of “I Love You So Much It Hurts.” He picked up excellent material from Terry Clements, John English, Dennis Knutson, Robert John Jones and Buckaroos Jim Shaw, including “(I’m Goin’) Home,” “41st Street Lonely Hearts Club,” and his last Capitol single, “Country Singer’s Prayer.” With the 1974 death of Don Rich having deeply dented his enthusiasm for music making, his waning commercial success led him to a mutual parting of the ways with Capitol (who shelved his last album in the process). He signed with Warner Brothers for a pair of albums that garnered middling chart success before he slipped into a hiatus that lasted much of the 1980s.

Omnivore’s double disc set includes the A’s and B’s of all 21 singles that Owens released on Capitol from 1971 to 1975, both with the Buckaroos, and in duets with his son Buddy and his protege Susan Raye. The latter includes charting covers of the Browns’ “Looking Back to See” (with a twangy steel solo from Ralph Mooney) and Mickey & Sylvia’s “Love is Strange,” and a re-recording of “The Good Old Days (Are Here Again),” a song that Owens had released as a Buckaroos-backed B-side just two months earlier. The 16-page booklet includes liner notes by Scott Bomar, photos, picture sleeve reproductions, and detailed release, chart and personnel data. This is a worthy capstone to Owens’ monumental career at Capitol, and an essential volume for fans of his music. [©2019 Hyperbolium]

Dwight Yoakam: Live from Austin, TX

Dwight Yoakam at the peak of his commercial success

This October 1988 date found Yoakam headlining a bill with his hero and mentor, Buck Owens. Yoakam had rescued Owens from self-imposed retirement earlier in the year, and together they topped the chart with a remake of Owens’ “Streets of Bakersfield.” The day before the show, Yoakam’s third album, Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room, crested at #1 on the Billboard country chart, and it would go on to net Grammy, ACM and CMA awards. Owens opened the show with a tight 30 minute set (available on a companion volume), with Yoakam joining him for “Under Your Spell Again.” Owens returned the favor during Yoakam’s set to sing their recent chart topper.

Yoakam’s set combined selections from his first three albums, mixing original material with covers of songs by Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman (“Little Sister”), Homer Joy (“Streets of Bakersfield”), Johnny Cash (“Home of the Blues”), Johnny Horton (“Honky Tonk Man”), Lefty Frizzell (“Always Late With Your Kisses”) and Stonewall Jackson (“Smoke Along the Track”). His original material included nearly all of his hits to that point, as well as several album tracks. The band is superb, with Pete Anderson’s guitar and Scott Joss’ fiddle really standing out. Yoakam turns on the sex appeal as he introduces the sultry “What I Don’t Know,” the band turns up the heat for “Please, Please Baby” and “Little Sister,” and the audience joins in enthusiastically to close “Honky Tonk Man.”

As on the duet sung together in Owens’ set, the happiness shared by Yoakam and Owens in teaming up for “Streets of Bakersfield” is palpable – Owens reveling in the new artistic partnership that rekindled his interest in music, and Yoakam in working with his idol and mentor. Each has such a distinct voice, that the delight in hearing them sing together continues to rise as they swap verses and share the chorus. Flaco Jimenez joins the band onstage and stays to accentuate the sorrow of “Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room,” with Joss’ fiddle and Anderson’s low strings adding mournful notes. Yoakam tells several stories on the DVD that are elided on the CD, including an account of his first meeting with Johnny Cash.

The partnership between Yoakam and Anderson was incredibly fruitful, both artistically and commercially, but it wasn’t always easy to see past Yoakam’s charisma to Anderson’s immense talent as a guitarist. But here, even with Yoakam center stage, you can’t help but be drawn to Anderson’s licks as he solos on “Home of the Blues,” hot picks the closing “This Drinkin’ Will Kill Me,” and plays Yoakam on and off the stage with a twangy instrumental bumper. New West’s reissue combines the previously released CD and DVD, and it’s four-panel booklet provides credits, but no liner notes. It’s a terrific package that plays just as well on the stereo as it does on the screen. [©2017 Hyperbolium]

Dwight Yoakam’s Home Page

Buck Owens: Live from Austin, TX

The king of the Bakersfield Sound on the comeback trail in 1988

There is no shortage of live Buck Owens recordings, but nearly all of them date to his record breaking run in the 1960s. Owens was not only a terrific songwriter, guitarist, singer, bandleader and businessman, but a gifted stage performer whose personal magnetism drew fans to his tours and to his dying day, to his beloved Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. By the time of this 1988 performance on Austin City Limits, it had been more than a decade since Owens had recused himself from his music career. The 1974 death of Don Rich had drained his enthusiasm, and with his energy focused on the radio stations he’d begun buying in the 1960s, it took an insistent Dwight Yoakam to pry Owens out of his self-imposed exile.

This October 1988 date found Owens and Yoakam on the same bill, each playing a full set and guesting on the other’s. Yoakam’s Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room had just crested at #1 on the album chart, the lead single, a duet with Owens covering “Streets of Bakersfield,” had topped the singles chart in June, and the title single from Owens’ own return to the studio, Hot Dog, would be released the following week. So there was a lot to celebrate on this Sunday night in Texas, as Owens showed that the layoff hadn’t impacted his musicality or showmanship, and that the latest edition of the Buckaroos, including keyboard player Jim Shaw, bassist Doyle Curtsinger, guitarist and steel player Terry Christofferson and drummer James McCarty, was sharp and powerful.

With sixty Top 40 hits (and more than twenty chart toppers!), Owens could barely graze the highlights of his catalog in this thirty minute set But in only 11 songs he manages to touch on classic hits, album cuts, covers of his hero Chuck Berry, and material from his upcoming album. And he does it without resorting to the medleys that had helped him squeeze more fan favorites into his live sets of the 1960s. The jangle of Owens’ silver sparkle Telecaster (which may very well have been Don Rich’s ‘66) kicks off “Act Naturally” and the band falls in behind him. Curtsinger provides the harmony foil once supplied by Don Rich, and Christofferson echoes Tom Brumley’s steel solo on “Together Again.”

Owens is in terrific voice, and his enthusiasm belies the number of times he’d performed “Love’s Gonna Live Here,” “Crying Time,” “Tiger By the Tail” and “A-11,” each remaining fresh and potent decades after they’d been introduced. Even more enticing is a duet with Yoakam on “Under Your Spell Again.” The pair don’t lock their vocals together as seamlessly as had Owens & Rich, but the joy in their voices – Owens rediscovering the joy of a singing partner, and Yoakam singing with his hero – is palpable. The single “Hot Dog,” a cover of Owens’ 1956 turn as Corky Jones, gives the band a chance to rock, as does the closing cover of “Johnny B. Goode.”

This set combines the previously released CD and DVD into one package, with the same song list shared by both formats. The four-page booklet includes credits, but no liner notes, and no remembrances from anyone involved as to how this show came together or what it meant to the participants. For the second half of the bill, including “Streets of Bakersfield,” check out the companion volume on Dwight Yoakam. Owens took this band on the road, producing the belatedly released double-disc Buck Owens Live In San Francisco 1989, but it’s hard to top a Sunday night in Texas with Buck & Dwight! [©2017 Hyperbolium]

Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace

Buck Owens and the Buckaroos: The Complete Capitol Singles 1957-1966

buckowens_completecapitolsingles5766The towering Capitol singles of Buck Owens

Having already been feted with exhaustive box sets, multidisc anthologies, vault finds, tribute albums, a posthumous autobiography, and dozens of original album reissues, one might ask: what’s left to say? As it turns out: plenty. Collecting Owens’ A’s and B’s from his most commercially fertile years, this generous two-disc set replays Owens’ emergence and dominance as both a country hit maker and a maverick artist. Recording in Hollywood, two thousand miles from Nashville, he added a new chapter to the country music playbook with the driving, electric Bakersfield sound, and established himself as an iconoclastic force on the both the singles and album charts. Among the fifty-six tracks collected here are twenty-two Top 40 hits, including an astonishing string of thirteen consecutive chart toppers.

While the hits will be familiar to most, and the B-sides to many, only the most ardent Owens fans will recognize the earliest Capitol singles. This quartet of originals, waxed in 1957, sounds more like Buddy Holly-styled rock ‘n’ roll than the Bakersfield sting Owens would later develop. The low twanging guitar, sweetly phrased lead vocal and backing chorus of “Come Back” is more doo-wop than country, and its waltz-time B-side “I Know What It Means” sounds like Nashville going pop. “Sweet Thing,” co-written with Harlan Howard, has rockabilly licks supplied by guitarists Gene Moles and Roy Nichols, and its ballad B-side, “I Only Know That I Love You” has a lovely guitar solo to accompany its double-crossed lyric.

Owens returned to Capitol’s studio in 1958 with a reconstructed backing unit that included fiddler J.R. “Jelly” Sanders and Ralph Mooney on steel. It was from this session that “Second Fiddle” launched Owens onto the country chart. The same group, which also included pianist George French, Jr., bassist Al Williams and drummer Pee Wee Adams, cut a 1959 session from which “Under Your Spell Again” climbed to #4. By year’s end, Sanders was out and Don Rich was in, Harlan Howard’s “Above and Beyond” carried Owens one notch higher, to #3, and Howard and Owens’ “Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got a Heartache)” then reached #2. The B-sides include the charting “I’ve Got a Right to Know,” and the ironic “Tired of Livin’.” Ironic, because the song’s sad-sack complaint about a lack of success was fronted by a Top 5 hit!

1961 found Owens paired with Rose Maddox for the double-sided hit “Mental Cruelty” b/w “Loose Lips,” and he just missed the top slot twice more with “Foolin’ Around” and “Under the Influence of Love.” The success of his A-sides dipped slightly in 1962, though he was still charting regularly, minting staples like “You’re For Me,” and the B-side “I Can’t Stop (My Lovin’ You).” Owens turned out an incredible amount of high quality, original material throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, winningly vacillating between sunny elation and sorrowful heartbreak. He also had an ear for other songwriters, recording albums dedicated to Harlan Howard and Tommy Collins, and charting covers of Pomus & Shuman’s “Save the Last Dance for Me” and Wanda Jackson’s “Kickin’ Our Hearts Around.”

Owens finally topped the charts in 1963 with Johnny Russell’s “Act Naturally,” kicking off a string of #1s that stretched into 1967. Incredibly, all of disc two’s singles topped the chart, except for a return duet with Rose Maddox that stalled at #15 and a 1965 Christmas single. The A-sides from this era are among the most iconic of Owens’ career, including “Love’s Gonna Live Here,” “My Heart Skips a Beat,” “I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail,” “Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line,” “Open Up Your Heart” and Don Rich’s “Think of Me” (which became a staple for the Mavericks). The B-sides include the chart-topping “Together Again,” the stalwart “Don’t Let Her Know” and the woeful “Heart of Glass.”

The classic lineup of the Buckaroos had come together in 1964, with Owens and Rich joined by bassist Doyle Holly, drummer Willie Cantu and steel player Tom Brumley. Their chemistry was immortalized on Live at Carnegie Hall, and their instrumental skills carried “Buckaroo” to the top of the country chart. More importantly, it was this lineup that doubled down on Owens’ rejection of the Nashville Sound. The polite drum accents of 1961’s “Foolin’ Around” might have alarmed Music City’s gentry, but it was only a prelude to the more insistent tom-toms of “My Heart Skips a Beat,” Don Rich’s twangy fills and solo on “Act Naturally” and Willie Cantu’s full-kit drumming on “Before You Go.”

While Nashville was busy courting pop fans with syrupy layers of strings and choruses, Owens was stripping his sound down to guitars, bass, fiddle and drums, and riding the beat. He also bucked another Nashville standard by recording with his band, rather than picking up session players. Red Simpson sat in for a few sessions in ‘65 and ‘66, and James Burton provided the sputtering electric lead on “Open Up Your Heart,” but what you hear on all the singles from ‘64 onward are the Buckaroos. The set ends with Owens’ last hit of 1966, “Where Does the Good Times Go,” two singles shy of the end of his continuous string of #1s, and well short of the success that ran up to Don Rich’s 1974 death. Owens moved on from Capitol to Warner Brothers, and returned again in the late ‘80s, but mostly retired from the studio to run his businesses and perform on the weekends at his legendary Bakersfield club.

The singles are presented in the order of their release, and remastered in mono from the original reel-to-reels. The brightness that Owens laid into the masters remains, but with more bottom end than you likely remember from AM radio. Owens emerges from these sides as a pioneering artist who wrote, sang (often doubling himself on harmony), picked guitar and led a band that was both revolutionary and commercially successful. And with the masters having come from the Buck Owens’ estate, you can add top-flight businessman to his resume. The CD package includes a 20-page booklet highlighted by Dwight Yoakam’s introductory notes, excerpts from Owens’ autobiography, detailed personnel and session data, and label and picture sleeve reproductions. All that’s missing is ‘67-’75, so here’s hoping for a sequel! [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Buck Owens’ Home Page

Buck Owens: Buck ‘Em! Volume 2 – The Music of Buck Owens (1967-1975)

BuckOwens_BuckEmVol2A stellar second chapter of the Buck Owens catalog

With the wealth of terrific material included on the first volume of Buck ‘Em!, a second volume had a high mark to reach. But by splitting the sets by era – 1955-67 for the first set, 1967-75 for this set – this second collection is no second helping. Volume one established Owens’ Bakersfield legacy, while this second chapter shows how he extended his reach, responded artistically to changing times, and used his commercial success to free himself of commercial restrictions. As on the first set, these two discs include hit singles, well-selected album cuts, and a sprinkling of tracks previously unreleased in the US. And also as with the first set, the liner notes are cannily drawn and craftily assembled from Owens’ like-titled autobiography, giving the artist an opportunity to expound on his own work.

By 1967 Buck Owens was one of country music’s biggest stars, having landed eight albums and twelve singles at the top of the charts in only four years. He kicked off 1967 by expanding his fame internationally with a concert in Japan and its subsequent chart-topping album. This set picks up later in the year with sessions that produced “Sweet Rosie Jones,” the like-named album, and the title track of what would become 1970’s You Mother’s Prayer. For the first time since Owens began his streak of hitmaking, the drummer’s throne was occupied by Jerry Wiggins, in place of the departed Willie Cantu. “Rosie,” “Let the World Keep On a Turnin’” (sung with Owens son, Buddy) and “I”ve Got You on My Mind Again” all charted Top 10, but it took “Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass” to get Owens back to the top spot.

Throughout 1968, Owens expanded his reach, recording the Latin and polka-styled instrumental album The Guitar Player (represented here by “Things I Saw Happening at the Fountain on the Plaza When I Was Visiting Rome or Amore”), adding Don Rich’s fuzztone guitar to “Who’s Gonna Mow Your Grass,” and teaming up with Susan Raye for “We’re Gonna Get Together.” The latter, recorded in 1968 wasn’t released for two years, which hints at Owens’ incredible productivity. 1968 found Owens playing a command performance for President Johnson at the White House, represented here by “Tiger By the Tail,” and also marked the departure of steel player Tom Brumley, who was replaced early the next year by JayDee Maness. Maness would leave by year end, leaving Owens without a steel player in the band.

1969 started similarly to 1967, with an international tour that yielded the live album Buck Owens in London and the chart-topping single “Johnny B. Goode.” Live recording continued to be a regular feature of Owens’ catalog, with “Big in Vegas” (a rewrite of Terry Stafford’s “Big in Dallas”) and “Las Vegas Lament” recorded live in Las Vegas, and “Tall Dark Stranger” recorded in Scandinavia. 1969-70 saw many more changes for Owens, including a move from Capitol’s famed Los Angeles studio to his own place in Bakersfield, the arrival of keyboard player Jim Shaw (who’s terrific live piano playing can be heard on “I’ll Still Be Waiting for You”), and perhaps most importantly, Hee Haw. The latter, initially a CBS network show, provided the sort of financial compensation that records rarely did, and it freed Owens to chase his musical muse without lashing it to commercial considerations.

1970-71 saw Owens in the Top 10 with “I Wouldn’t Live in New York City (If They Gave Me the Whole Dang Town),” a cover of Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and the title track from the bluegrass album Ruby, but it wasn’t until 1972 that he returned to the top of the charts with “Made in Japan.” Musically, Owens had moved well beyond his Bakersfield Sound, but his writing and voice, particularly the latter, provide a surprisingly straight line through his entire catalog. The twang of steel guitar rejoined the band in 1972 with the arrival of Jerry Brightman, but before he came on board, Ralph Mooney added his stellar playing to “Arms Full of Empty” and “Ain’t It Amazing, Gracie.”

Owens’ records through the mid-70s never regained the chart performance of his earlier releases, but there were still plenty of excellent albums and singles, including Gene Price’s “Something’s Wrong” and Owens’ “In the Palm of Your Hand,” the latter highlighted by Don Rich’s fiddle. Even more important was an album track that would be remade into a huge hit fifteen-years later, Homer Joy’s “Streets of Bakersfield.” The original is more sedate than the chart-topping remake Owens recorded with Dwight Yoakam, but it provided the template for the hit. Owens returned to the Top 10 in 1973-74 with a string of upbeat novelty songs, “Big Game Hunter,” “On the Cover of the Music City News” and “Monster’s Holiday,” but his mirthful side was about to go into hibernation.

In July, 1974, Don Rich, was killed in a motorcycle accident, and Owens fell into a deep depression. He’d continue to record and release records, but the latter-half of the ‘70s found his singles failing to make much of an impact on the charts. His last Top 10 single for Capitol, “Great Expectations,” was also the last to feature Don Rich. By 1981, Owens had turned his attention to his many successful business ventures, and he began a hiatus from the charts that lasted until “Streets of Bakersfield” and Dwight Yoakam reinvigorated his interest in recording and performing. In the mid-90s he built the Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, where he’d regularly perform to enthusiastic crowds and broadcast live over his own KUZZ radio.

Omnivore’s 2-CD set was remastered by Michael Graves, making this both a well-curated collection and the best reproduction of these tracks yet on CD. The 28-page booklet includes full-panel photos (including a great shot of Owens laying down the vocal for “I Wouldn’t Live in New York City” on a New York City sidewalk), and album cover reproductions. The track list includes eight recordings previously unreleased in the US: an alternate take of “Darlin’, You Can Depend on Me,” a stupendous outtake of Owens singing “Today I Started Loving You Again” with soul singer Bettye Swann and members of the Wrecking Crew, an early version of “Down in New Orleans,” and outtakes of “He Ain’t Been Out Bowling With the Boys” and “A Different Kind of Sad.” This is an essential companion to the volume one, and a must-have for any Buck Owens fan. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Buck Owens’ Home Page

Moot Davis: Goin’ in Hot

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MootDavis_GoinInHotFine Nashville twang born of a broken heart

Davis’ fourth album, his second in partnership with producer Kenny Vaughan, expands upon the Nashville twang of 2012’s Man About Town. The influences are similar – Dwight Yoakam, Big Sandy and Raul Malo – but there’s also a helping of the Derailers’ Bakersfield hybrid and NRBQ’s irreverence. Guitarist Bill Corvino and steel player Gary Morse add plenty of twang to Davis’ songs of marginal finances, slender experience, waning sobriety and wounded hearts. Especially wounded hearts, as Davis wrote the album in the aftermath of an emotional breakup that brought forth tears, regrets and painful reminders. He croons with Nikki Lane on “Hurtin’ for Real” and struggles with the painful aftermath of “Love Hangover” and unfulfillable desires of “Wanna Go Back.” The band, which also includes bassist Michael Massimino and drummer Joey Mekler, moves easily between mid-tempo blues, country two-steps and second line shuffles, and really tears it up for the roadhouse rock of “Midnight Train” and “Ragman’s Roll.” Their flexibility recalls Commander Cody’s Lost Planet Airmen, and is a perfect match for Davis’ broadened songwriting. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

Moot Davis’ Home Page

Buck Owens: Buck ‘Em

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BuckOwens_BuckEm50 prime hits, B-sides, alternates, live tracks and rarities from 1955-1967

Proving himself as savvy in business as he was innovative in music, Buck Owens wrested control of his masters from Capitol Records in a 1970s legal battle. His ownership led to a CD reissue program on Sundazed that stretched from 1995 through 2005 and encompassed nearly two dozen original albums. Add to that multiple box sets [1 2 3 4], greatest hits discs, pre- and post-Capitol anthologies [1 2 3], and a collection of tunes recorded for Hee Haw, and you have to wonder if there’s anything left to say. The answer provided by this new double-disc set is a definitive yes. Compilation producer Patrick Milligan has done an expert job of assembling singles, album sides and rarities into a compelling fifty-track exposition of Buck Owens’ key years before and with Capitol. The set tells a familiar story, but with an idiosyncratic selection of tracks that deftly balances the many elements of Owens’ extensive catalog.

Starting with a few mid-50s sides for Pep, the collection traces Owens’ rapid evolution from a country singer with steel guitar, tinkling piano and fiddle to the king of an exciting new Bakersfield Sound. As Owens developed his unique brand of country music, the Buckaroos grew into one of the world’s premiere bands and live acts. With so many sides to their commercial success, it’s tricky to find a compelling point between the shorthand of a single-disc hits collection and a Bear Family-length box, but Omnivore’s done just that. The set succeeds by combining a well-selected helping of singles (both charting and non-charting), B-sides, live performances, duets, alternate and early takes, previously unreleased, unreleased-in-the-US and unreleased-on-CD tracks, stereo album cuts and appearances on rare compilation albums.

In addition to well-known hits rendered in their original radio-ready mono, the set includes the non-charting “Sweet Thing,” the B-side “Til These Dreams Come True,” and a sprightly early version of “Nobody’s Fool But Yours” that stands side-by-side with the better-known master. Other early versions are closer to the masters, but tentative and not yet fully gelled. It’s a treat to hear the works-in-progress and compare them to the refinements of the final takes. The early version of “My Heart Skips a Beat” is already a great song, but without Owens’ opening lyrical cadence and Mel Taylor’s tom-tom rolls, it’s not yet an indelible hit record. The alternate arrangement of “Where Does the Good Times Go” includes a happy-go-lucky string chart (courtesy of future Bread main man, David Gates) that was dropped from the final release.

By 1964 the classic Buckaroos lineup had solidified around Owens, Don Rich, Doyle Holly, Tom Brumley and Willie Cantu, and it’s this group that powers the last three tracks of disc one, and all of disc two. The quintet punched up the beat for “Gonna Have Love,” “Before You Go” and “Getting Used to Loving You,” with guitars and drums that no longer held the line on “Opry polite.” The group’s live sound has been documented across more than a half-dozen live albums (including the legendary Carnegie Hall Concert, represented here by “Together Again” and “Buckaroo,” and In Japan! represented by “Adios, Farewell, Goodbye, Good Luck, So Long” and “We Were Made For Each Other”), but Omnivore’s dug deeper to pick up a 1963 Bakersfield performance of “Act Naturally” from the rare Capitol release Country Music Hootenanny, recorded in surprisingly clear stereo.

The song list is given mostly to Owens’ terrific originals (including the instrumental “Buck’s Polka,” with Owens picking lead), but adds a good helping of gems he selected from other songwriters’ catalogs, including Eddie McDuff and Orville Couch’s “Hello Trouble,” Tommy Collins’ “Down, Down, Down,” Red Simpson’s “Close Up the Honky Tonks,” Eddie Miller and Bob Morris “Playboy,” and Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison’s “Act Naturally.” Owens’ work as a duet singer is touched on briefly with Rose Maddox on “Sweethearts in Heaven,” but his more extensive collaboration with Susan Raye fell beyond the set’s designated ending point in 1967. The end of that year saw Willie Cantu leave the fold, and the classic lineup of the Buckaroos come to an end.

Owens and the Buckaroos continued to have both commercial and artistic success well into the mid-70s, when the death of Don Rich seems to have sidelined Owens’ initiative. With a wealth of post-67 hits and ever more far-reaching albums left to sample, hopefully Omnivore has a second volume up their sleeve. For the period they’ve selected, however, they’ve created a fresh view that expands upon shorter hits anthologies, but abbreviates the full albums into a compact telling of Owens’ most successful commercial period. There are too many essential hits missing for this to be a complete view of Owens’ genius, but as an introduction to his plain-spoken, naturally brilliant and stylistically diverse brand of country music, it’s a winner.

Those new to Owens’ catalog will be entranced by the ease with which he moved from tearful heartbreak to light-hearted humor. The album tracks don’t always match the “wow” of the missing hit singles, but they help paint the picture of an artist whose well of creativity was a great deal deeper than the two-and-a-half minutes radio would play. The accompanying 28-page booklet includes liner notes excerpted from Owens’ posthumously published, like-titled autobiography, along with several full-panel photos and cover reproductions. All of Owens other reissues – the hits collections, the box sets, the album catalog – are worth hearing, but if you want an affordable, compelling overview of his prime years, this is a great place to start. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

Hypercast #1: Americana

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A collection of recently released country, Americana, rock and folk, plus a few catalog items for good measure. Click the artist names below for associated album reviews.

Tim O’Brien & Darrell Scott “Just One More”
Vince Gill and Paul Franklin “Nobody’s Fool But Yours”
Brian Wright “Over Yet Blues”
Escondido “Bad Without You”
Merle Haggard “The Fugitive”
Left Arm Tan “69 Reasons”
The Band of Heathens “Records in Bed”
One Mile an Hour “Sunken Ships”
Hall of Ghosts “Giant Water”
Greg Trooper “All the Way to Amsterdam”
Rick Shea “Gregory Ray DeFord”
The Barn Birds “Sundays Loving You”
Mando Saenz “Breakaway Speed”
Stewart Eastham “Crawl Up in Your Bottle”
Kris Kristofferson “Why Me”
Dwight Yoakam “Two Doors Down”
Nick Ferrio & His Feelings “Half the Time”
Kelly Willis “He Don’t Care About Me”