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America’s Great Depression wreaked havoc on most parts of the nation. In rural Texas and Oklahoma, impoverished to begin with, the effects were even more devastating. In response to the Depression and crippling dust storms that destroyed countless farms, thousands of Texans and Oklahomans, faced with starvation, uprooted and moved west. That event inspired John Steinbeck’s classic American novel The Grapes of Wrath.

Young Buck Owens saw no romance in the sharecropper’s life. “We were sharecroppers…we were a little bit of everything. We farmed and tried to make something. The landowner furnished seed and the land we furnished the labor. And you got a share of it, usually a 50-50 basis on the profit, and sometimes there wasn’t a lot of profit. In the ‘30’s, it wasn’t the desired thing. And along comes The Grapes of Wrath syndrome and blows everybody out.”

In November of 1937, when Buck was eight, the Owenses decided that their future also lay to the west. Alvis Owens built a trailer to hold the family’s belongings. He, his wife, and children, Buck’s Uncle Vernon and Aunt Lucille, their infant son Jimmy and Maicie Owens’ mother, Mary Myrtle – a total of ten people – piled into a 1933 Ford sedan and headed west. They only stopped to cook and sleep along the way.

The trailer hitch broke in Phoenix. Since they had relatives in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb, the family settled there, doing farm work as they had in Texas. They worked at Arizona dairy and fruit farms and occasionally traveled to the rich farming regions of California’s San Joaquin valley, harvesting vegetables around Tracy and peaches near Modesto, carrots in Porterville, cotton and potatoes in Bakersfield. Alvis Owens occasionally drove trucks and dug ditches, too.

This hardscrabble life left a lasting impression on young Buck Owens. The financial insecurity, discomfort, and suffering kindled a fire of determination within him. He had no idea yet how to achieve his goals. But he knew without question what he didn’t want.

“That was where my dream began to take hold, of not havin’ to pick cotton and potatoes, and not havin' to be uncomfortable, too hot or too cold. That in itself had driven me to try to find some better way of life. I remember as a kid being cold a lot, and hungry sometimes. We’d go to bed with just cornbread and milk, and I remember wearing shoes with holes in the bottom. I remember having twine for shoestrings: You take old black shinola polish and try to make ‘em look black, and that only makes ‘em look worse. I remember the hand-me-down clothes.”

“But most distinctly, I remember always saying to myself that when I get big, I’m not going to go to bed hungry, I’m not going to wear hand-me-down clothes. I’m not going to have homemade haircuts done by my mother; she cut our hair until we were about 12 or 13 years old. Just the fright of having to live a life through that…although even then, I was cognizant that half the people I went to school with were just exactly like me.”

The family’s work needs meant that Buck changed schools often. However, at least part of his dream of a better life took shape in school. He hated writing book reports or school papers, but found he could satisfy many of those requirements by singing or performing in small plays. He involved himself in such activities whenever possible. “I think even then,” he says, “I was looking to be somebody.”

Buck Owens turned 13. Having completed the eighth grade, he looked for work during his summer vacation and had no trouble finding it. So many men were in uniform during World War II that labor shortages plagued the nation; since Buck was six feet tall, he could do a man’s work for a man’s pay. He saved his money, but a couple of months after he began ninth grade that fall, his savings were gone. He decided to quit school, go back to work and earn some more money. Though he persuaded his mother to let him quit school by promising to return to school, he never went back. He was a Western Union messenger boy, washed and polished cars, and loaded and unloaded fruit.

Music became an even greater part of his life in Mesa. Alvis Owens played harmonica and two of Buck’s uncles played guitar. He heard bluegrass and string band music beamed into the U.S. on the megawatt radio “X” stations just across the Mexican Border, stations that boomed in on the family’s battery radio. Buck’s younger sister, Dorothy Owens, also recalls her brother listening to the music of Bob Wills, T. Texas Tyler, Moon Mullican, and Ted Daffan.
That Christmas, Buck received a mandolin as a present from his parents. His dad later gave him a Regal guitar.

According to Dorothy, Buck taught himself to play. “Music was always his interest,” she says. “Mother showed him a couple of chords on the guitar and he taught himself the rest. When he was 16 or 17 years old, he would have these musicians come to the house and play. He played with them, but he watched them. He was like a sponge. He absorbed from everybody, whether it was records, radio or whatever. “

Around 1945, 16-year-old Buck teamed up with 19-year-old guitarist Theryl Ray Britten. “Buck and Britt” landed a 15-minute show (for which they weren’t paid) over KTYL Radio in Mesa. Since the KTYL studio had a 30-foot-long glass window facing its parking lot, they often had a drive-in studio audience for their shows. They also played at any local honky-tonk whose bartenders let them pass the hat (in their case a soup bowl.) Eventually they took up residence at a Phoenix honky-tonk known as the Romo Buffet and added a trumpeter named Kelly, who was stationed at a nearby Air Force base. They got 10% of the take, which was usually around $100 regardless of the size of the crowd, and split $10 three ways.

Buck also branched out as a musician. When Buck got an electric steel guitar, Alvis Owens adapted an old radio into an amplifier so his son could teach himself to play it. His early guitar idols included Jimmy Wyble, the country jazz guitarist of Bob Wills’ 1944-1945 Texas Playboys. Later, he became a fan of Merle Travis’ playing.

Alvis and Maicie Owens had major misgivings about their son’s vocation, particularly since he was underage. “My mother and dad objected strenuously to me playing in the honky-tonks and they never thought I’d amount to anything,” says Buck. “They never realized – and I didn’t either, at the time – what a wonderful opportunity was presented to me to be able to make a living and pay my bills while I’m learning my trade. But those were their feelings about playing music where people were drinkin’.”

Buck saw it as on-the-job training. “I remember thinkin’ that I could probably make about $5 if I’d go out and pick cotton all day. And I could make $5 dollars bein’ in this honky-tonk – the guy will give me $5 a night, and I’ll be in here where it’s warm in the winter and cool in the summertime. That was my way of lookin’ at it.”

After a time, Buck met Mac MacAtee, a Mesa gas station owner who played country records for an hour each afternoon over a PA system; the music was broadcast simultaneously over local radio. MacAtee organized a live band, Mac’s Skillet Lickers, to perform at the station. Buck played steel guitar and eventually met Bonnie Campbell, an aspiring singer who became part of the Skillet Lickers. At the time they were married, on January 13, 1948, she was four months pregnant with their first son. Alan Edgar Owens, better known as “Buddy,” was born on May 22, 1948. Michael Lynn Owens, their second son, was born on March 8, 1950.

Buck was not yet supporting his family solely by playing music. He also drove trucks for a while. In the clubs, he became friendly with a fellow trucker and aspiring singer named Marty Robinson, who sang Eddy Arnold songs in area honky-tonks as Marty Robbins. When Buck played at Phoenix’s Astor Hotel, Marty, also a steel guitarist, sat in while Buck sang Hank Williams songs.

By May 1951, Buck and Bonnie decided they’d gone as far as they could in Phoenix, and moved to Bakersfield, California, a city 100 miles north of Los Angeles. Its oil industry and farmlands, much like Texas and Oklahoma made it a haven for Dust Bowl refugees in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s. Buck’s parents moved there later in 1951. Bakersfield also boasted a robust country music scene. Bob Wills worked there extensively during his years in California, and both The Maddox Brothers & Rose and singer Ferlin Husky (known also as Terry Preston) called it home.

After Buck arrived, he joined a band led by steel guitarist Dusty Rhodes. Within four months or so he joined Bill Woods & The Orange Blossom Playboys, the house band at the Blackboard, Bakersfield’s top country music nightclub. From September 1951 to May 1958, the Blackboard was Buck’s home base. Like most western bands, the Playboys, billed as “Central California’s Top Dance Band,” played country, rhythm and blues, polkas, pop music, and even rhumbas. Buck assumed he was hired as lead guitarist and was surprised to discover that Woods also wanted him to sing. With no monitor speakers to hear his voice over the amplifiers, Buck quickly learned to project his voice. “You would get right up in that microphone and sing as loud as you could, hopin’ you would be able to hear enough comin’ back.”

Dorothy Owens recalls that Buck, who had separated from Bonnie and moved home with his parents, was still trying to diversify musically. He taught himself to play saxophone, and she remembers his remarkable musical ear. “Mother and I used to play a little game with Buck,” she says. “He would be in another room and mother or I would hit one note on the piano and he would tell us what it was. Now that’s an ear.”

The new music led to a change of guitar. He replaced his electrified Gibson L-7 archtop with a solidbody Fender Telecaster, a revolutionary new guitar that Fullerton, California steel guitar-maker Leo Fender had originally introduced as the Broadcaster in 1950. Its sound, achieved by anchoring the strings in the body like those of a steel guitar, was trebly and biting. Buck paid $35 for that used Tele, originally owned by prominent local country singer Lewis Talley. The Telecaster would play a major role in Buck’s musical future.

The rise of another Bakersfield artist also created an opportunity for Buck. Local favorite Ferlin Husky, a Capitol recording artist, helped Bakersfield singer Leonard Sipe, better known as Tommy Collins, obtain a Capitol contract in 1953. Ferlin played guitar on Collins’ first session, but before the second session, Husky got his big break when “A Dear John Letter,” his duet with Jean Shepard, went to #1 nationally. Tommy needed a lead guitarist; Buck was playing at the Blackboard when Ferlin phoned and asked Buck to play the session.

On September 8, 1953, they were in Capitol’s Melrose Avenue Studios... in Los Angeles, recording the novelty "You Better Not Do That." Buck’s intro featured the raunchy twisted-note style that became his trademark. It was Collins’ first hit, peaking at #2 nationwide. Ken Nelson, Capitol’s head of country A&R, heard something special in the guitar picking. "Buck had tremendous rhythm and he had this little style that set Tommy off, in the introductions usually."

Buck and Bonnie Owens divorced in 1953 but remained friends (as they do to this day), sharing custody of son Buddy and Michael. Buck continued at the Blackboard with Bill Woods – and people began to take notice. Buck’s performances at the club inspired Town Hall Party guitarist Joe Maphis, who often played in Bakersfield, to write the honky-tonk ballad "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (And Loud, Loud Music)."

In 1954 Jack McFadden, who became Buck’s manager in 1963, was at the Blackboard with Tommy Collins discussing the singer’s first national tour when he took notice of Buck. He still savors the memory: "The place was just jam-packed full on a Sunday afternoon. Me and Tommy sat down and we watched, everybody in the band was doin’ their thing, and here comes Buck, to sing. And I watched and watched the way people reacted to what he was doing. Tommy wanted to hire Buck to take him on his tour as his guitar player. Buck Owens had that something. He was gonna be a star." Buck traveled with Collins to the Grand Ole Opry in 1954 when Collins performed "You Better Not Do That," but otherwise worked only briefly as Collins’ guitarist before returning to the Blackboard. The club had given him a leave of absence to work with Tommy.

Meanwhile, Ken Nelson began using Buck on other sessions at Capitol. At some times, he did little more than fetch coffee, strum a ukelele or pound on a pillow in the studio if Nelson needed that from him. Session work nicely supplemented his income from the Blackboard. For one date he could make as much as $110, a week’s earnings at the club. From 1954 to 1958, Nelson used him on recordings by Stan Freberg, Del Reeves, Gene Vincent, Tommy Sands, Wanda Jackson, Sonny James, Faron Young, and many lesser-known artists. Buck’s admiration for Elvis Presley and Little Richard made him a formidable rockabilly guitarist.

Impressed by Buck’s composing and singing, Fell tried unsuccessfully to get him signed to "X," but managed to interest Pico Rivera, California baker Claude Caviness in Buck – Caviness owned the tiny Pep label. Buck’s first Pep session, done in 1956 in L.A., yielded "Down On The Corner Of Love" and three other numbers. The records were well-received locally, though Pep’s lack of distribution hindered wider success. The songs themselves did better. Red Sovine, James O’Gwynn, and Bobby Bare all eventually covered "Down On The Corner Of Love."

At Lu-Tal in Bakersfield he cut four more songs for Pep: "Sweethearts In Heaven," "There Goes My Love" (covered by George Morgan, Pam Tillis, Highway 101, and The Wild Bunch) and, owing to his love of rockabilly, "Hot Dog" and "Rhythm And Booze." As much as Buck loved rock music, he feared a rockabilly single might harm his country music aspirations and he had it released under the pseudonym "Corky Jones." In 1957 the bluegrass duo of Don Reno and Red Smiley recorded "Sweethearts In Heaven" for Dot Records.

By 1956, Buck had remarried, and his third son, Johnny Dale Owens, was born May 9, 1956. Around the same time Buck met Michigan native, Harlan Howard, an aspiring songwriter who had moved to the West Coast, where he’d met his wife, singer Jan Howard, just beginning her country music career. When singer Wynn Stewart came to visit the Blackboard for the Sunday jam session, Harlan accompanies Wynn. The friendship between Buck and Harlan grew quickly. On weekends, Harlan often stayed at Buck’s tiny house in Bakersfield.

"I lived in a little old two-bedroom shack, and had these buck beds the two boys slept in," says Buck. "And on one of the corners, they got to playin’ and broke off one of the legs, and I just put – the only thing I had – a big ol’ concrete brick under the corner and he slept in that bed every time he came to stay all night with me. He’s never let me forget that. In later years, he’s said he’d come stay all night with me sometime if I still had that stone block."

Buck and Harlan started writing songs together, Buck putting Harlan’s lyrics to music. They also founded Blue Book Music to publish their songs. No one realized that Blue Book would play a major role in Buck Owens’ career.

In 1957 Town Hall Party performers Johnny Bond and Joe Maphis, both Columbia recording artists, played regularly in Bakersfield and saw Buck’s potential. They sent a demo of Buck’s recordings to their producer, legendary Columbia A&R man Don Law, who agreed that Buck belonged on Columbia. Law wired the two performers to "hold on to Buck Owens for me" until he could travel to California to sign him.

Terry Fell and Claude Caviness were trying to interest Ken Nelson in recording Buck, but despite his admiration for Buck’s guitar playing, Caviness felt Buck lacked a vocal style. Today, Buck says, "Ken seems to remember that I bugged him and bugged him and that finally he signed me out of self-defense. I guess in a way that could be true, if you reconcile the fact that I never spoke to him about recording, other people did." ---One day, however, would change everything.

Early in 1957 Buck was visited by the Farmer Boys, Bobby Adamson and Woody Wayne Murray, Capitol recording artists who worked in central and northern California. They were to record in L.A. on February 21, 1957 and asked Buck for some songs. He gave them four he’d written or co-written. He also was scheduled to play on the session. Buck found out – too late – that Ken Nelson had previously sent the duo four songs for the session. When Nelson found they had chosen Buck’s songs over his, he was furious – with Buck.

"Ken came out of the studio in the hallway and he was very angry," Buck says. "His exact words were, ‘I don’t appreciate people sluggin’ my artists with songs!’ I didn’t want to lose that gig with Ken Nelson, so I said, ‘Ken, they came to my house. I didn’t know I was doin’ anything wrong. They said they wanted these songs.’ And I don’t think he ever heard me, he was so angry."

The storm passed. After the session began, Nelson suddenly complimented Buck on the quality of the songs. With the session half over, he broached the subject of Buck recording for Capitol. When Buck told him of the pending Columbia contract, Nelson apparently realized that others saw potential in his guitarist that he’d overlooked. When the session ended, Nelson handed Buck a Capitol contract; he signed it on the spot.

Through the spring and summer, Buck continued at the Blackboard and in the studios. His first solo session for Capitol took place August 30, 1957, and though the songs were his, the results were another matter. "They were recorded with little doo-wahs…kinda pop-country with this big choral group, and I thought, ‘eeeee, God!’ But that’s what they were lookin’ for. They wanted to make the biggest hillbilly in Bakersfield something’ he wasn’t." He needn’t have worried. Both singles fizzled.

Source:  Buck Owens.Com

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound 1
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616),