Omnivore has served up one of the year’s most festive treats with the first-ever CD reissue of A Merry “Hee Haw” Christmas from Buck Owens and The Buckaroos. The 1970 Capitol release collected both of Buck and his band’s Christmas albums – 1965’s Christmas with Buck Owens and His Buckaroos and its 1968 follow-up, Christmas Shopping – as a double-album tie-in with Owens’ starring role on television’s Hee Haw. The country-themed variety show was midway through its 1969-1971 run on CBS-TV; it would then move to syndication for a remarkable run through…
Short Takes, Christmas Edition: Collections Coming from Peggy Lee and Buck Owens
This Friday, Capitol Records and UMe will release Peggy Lee’s Ultimate Christmas on CD and vinyl as part of the Peggy Lee 100 celebration. This yuletide follow-up to Ultimate Peggy Lee brings together 22 holiday favorites from the late artist including selections from her Capitol albums Christmas Carousel (1960) and Happy Holiday (1965) – the latter an anthology of old and new material – as well as Decca and Capitol single releases and more. Ultimate Christmas includes a number of songs written or co-written by Lee including “Christmas Carousel,” “Don’t Forget to…
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Get a Tiger By the Tail: Omnivore Offers Sealed, Original Buck Owens LPs from Buck’s Own Collection
Tomorrow, May 31, Omnivore Recordings releases the third and final volume of country legend Buck Owens’ Capitol Records singles – the most recent in a long-running series of releases on Omnivore from the late Bakersfield, California-based artist, songwriter, musician, and bandleader. Now, the label is teaming with Owens’ estate for a special initiative also beginning Friday. Forty original, vintage, sealed Buck Owens LPs will be made available for sale exclusively through Omnivore’s webstore. The records come directly from Owens’ own vaults at the Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. These original-pressing LPs span the…
Acting Naturally: Omnivore Collects Buck Owens’ Capitol Singles, Anthologizes Don Rich
Buck Owens changed the face of country music, and all he had to do was “Act Naturally.” With his back-to-basics, honky-tonk approach, Alvis Edgar Owens defined the Bakersfield Sound, an antidote to the slick, guitar-and-choir-laden style coming out of Nashville in the 1960s. Omnivore Recordings, the label home of a number of stellar Owens-related projects, is about to issue a definitive 2-CD collection from his prime era – The Complete Capitol Singles 1957-1966 – as well as a compilation dedicated to Buck’s right-hand guitar man: Don Rich and The Buckaroos’ Guitar Pickin’…
Reviews: Buck Owens, “Honky Tonk Man: Buck Sings Country Classics” and Don Rich, “Sings George Jones”
With its two latest releases, Omnivore Recordings continues its great Bakersfield rescue mission. Texas-born and Arizona-raised, Buck Owens made his mark in that California city, answering the prevailing “countrypolitan” style with a return to a pure and unadorned honky-tonk sound. But that “natural” sound had roots that ran deep in Bakersfield. Yet Owens’ parallel career as the avuncular, perpetually joking co-host of television’s cornpone Hee Haw may have caused audiences to take his once-adventurous brand of music less seriously, a fact that reportedly wasn’t lost on Buck. Owens eventually was recognized for his towering…
