RSS Feed
Print Story
E-mail Story
BENHAM: Buck was master of his own biography
| Thursday, Mar 30 2006 8:25 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Mar 31 2006 1:59 PM
Early Saturday morning around 2, Bev, my mother-in-law, woke up to a radio station she was not used to listening to and a song she was not used to hearing.
BAKERSFIELD.COM HOT TOPICS:
Loading Stories
Advertisement
It was Buck Owens' "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail." Owens, who died that Saturday morning, proved the theory of osmosis. If you lived in Bakersfield, eventually Buck Owens would work himself through your pores and enter your bloodstream.
Every town has its calling card, the one or two names you can drop anywhere and get a nod of recognition. Bakersfield had at least two, Merle Haggard and Buck Owens.
Eleven years ago, I did a magazine article on Buck Owens. I knew him mostly by reputation: that of the crackerjack businessman, the generous boss who gave his employees sacks of cash at the Christmas party and the country star who was careful about how he appeared in print.
Our first interview took place in his office, and I remember three things about it. First, I was 10 minutes late and he was not amused. Second, the batteries in my tape recorder died about 30 minutes into the interview. He must have thought he was dealing with the junior varsity, and who could have blamed him. The third thing was he had one of those bigger-than-your-whole-house bathrooms.
I hit my stride in the second interview. I put an extra spoonful of country into my Okie accent and I really had Buck going. He told me stories about growing up in Sherman, Texas, population 1,500, and walking out of a matinee showing of "The Grapes of Wrath," in Mesa, Ariz., because "I'd lived that damn thing."
After 10 hours of interviewing Buck Owens, the singer with more than 20 No. 1 singles, two things were clear. He was fascinating, and I was the greatest interviewer in the history of print journalism. No one had done a definitive biography on him yet and I had to be the front-runner.
I turned in the article and went to San Diego for vacation. The next day, Jim Shaw, Buck Owens' consigliere as well as band member, called.
"Buck wants to see you," Shaw said. "In person, to talk about the article."
I am day one into my vacation and you want the official biographer to drive 10 hours round trip? You have to be kidding?
He wasn't. I drove home radioactive with resentment. The meeting took less than half an hour. Buck just wanted to make sure I was being accurate about his finances. After the incident with the dead battery in my tape recorder, he also probably wanted to be reassured that I owned a working vehicle.
Before writing an article like this, most professionals do their homework by reading what else has been written about their subject. I hadn't done that with Buck because I wanted to go in fresh.
After the article appeared, I went back into the archives to see how I had done against the competition.
What the heck? Turns out my exclusive was less exclusive than I imagined. Almost every article had the walking out of "The Grapes of Wrath" story, as well as the one about how his daddy owed the grocer in Sherman money and paid him back years later.
I learned something about Buck Owens that day. Had he not been a musician, he could have been president. He knew how to manage a story better than Jeb Bartlett.
After I heard about his death, I took out our Buck Owens collection. It was easy to forget he had this high, sinewy tenor in his early days. I played "Loose Talk" and "Mental Cruelty," the duets with Rose Maddox, for our 16-year-old, who hadn't been that familiar with his music.
I finished with "It Takes People Like You, (to Make People Like Me)." It's his sweetest song and the one that would be appropriate at his funeral because Buck was surrounded by people in Bakersfield who had lived the same life in Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas.
Without them, Buck Owens would have been playing to empty seats and without him they would have missed a storyteller who put their lives to music.
A couple of days ago, I wanted to hear "It Takes People Like You," (it's the research thing, Buck) before writing this column. I couldn't find the CD anywhere until I went up to Thomas' room. He had the Buck Owens collection on his bedside table.
That's the upside to dying. Sometimes grandmothers and grandsons discover your music all over again.