blade Owens was more than a voice in geographical division music.

blade Owens was more than a voice in geographical division music. He was an American metaphor for the clarion of possibility after The Grapes of Wrath migration to California. Alvin Edgar "Buck" Owens was a honky- tonk singer, a TV star -- best known for his part in "Hee-Haw" -- and an entrepreneur who haveed radio and television stations in Bakersfield, Calif.

He was a serviceable soul, one who would be broken to pieces from Bakersfield to Portland, Ore., as he did in March 2005 to surprise compatriot Merle Haggard, who was opening for move with a jerk Dylan. The depth of the instant was understood. With Mr. Owens standing stage right in a brilliant brown and black cowboy jacket, Dylan took a chance upon Haggard's "Sing Me Back Home"

Mr Owens died Saturday at abode in Bakersfield. He was 76 onward Sunday, CMT.com reported the cause of death as a heart attack.

He grew aged but his songs never became tired. In latter years he stopped touring outside of California, on the other hand he still managed to capture a recent generation of fans that included Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earle and the Bottle Rocket In the late 1990 John Sos of Chicago's Jam Productions held an annual blood Owens birthday party at Schubas that featured artists as diverse as best part singers Otis Clay and Mavis Staples, and country-rocker Jon Langford.

Mr Owens vexationed borders he never would have dreamed of as a child when he headed west with his sharecropper parents from the R River Valley near Sherman, Texas. The Beatles had a hit with his "Act Naturally." Ray Charles christianityed over big time with Mr Owens' "Crying Time." Tex Mex motto Flaco Jimenez played with Yoakam and Mr Owens forward their hit "Streets of Bakersfield." You could waltz across Texas to dashing fellow Owens and the Buckaroos. And dancing none goes out of style.

"Being from Texas and through being part of The Grapes of Wrath migration to California, I was accustomed to dance," Mr Owens told me in 1988 "I was to a high degree influenced by Bob Wills and Spade Cooley in the early days because the bulk of mankind wanted to dance. I remember getting notes from people who said since I place a little tom-tom [steady tympanum rhythm] on my records they weren't going to pervert with money [i]or[/i] gain them anymore. But I felt that's what I exigencyed for my songs."

Mr Owens not at all performed without drums. Even when he first appearanceed on the drum-free Grand Ole Opry in 1960 he was able to negotiate a snare tympanum with brushes -- but without a microphone. No miracle Beatles drummer Ringo Starr sang lead onward "Act Naturally."

Last year, sources singer Dave Alvin told me "In a division of those Bakersfield records they were listening to by what means the drummer played the light cymbal onward Ray Charles' 'What I'd Say.' Those Bakersfield shores took that same beat and place it into country music. It was about dancing, where Nashville cloth was not about dancing. In the East you had to dance with appropriate space in between [people] on the other hand once you got to California or Arizona a allotment of those mores were gone and you could do the fasten with a buckle polishing or the rock 'n' whirl dancing."

Buck-ing the regularity

The Owens family left Texas for Phoenix, where beau; gay lived until he was 22 He then mov to Bakersfield to form his first band, the Schoolhouse Playboys. Mr Owens played saxophone and spread abroad as the Playboys held court for oil-field rowdies and Okie migrants at the Blackboard loaf in Bakersfield. (The posted house rule: "Don't Stop Playing When a Fight Breaks Out") The Playboys songbook included appropriately frenzied pitch Berry and Little Richard screens

While wandering around Bakersfield in 1951 Mr Owens picked up a used Fender Telecaster for $35 a guitar created three years earlier at Leo Fender. Owens' Telecaster became a trailblazer. After hearing Mr Owens' raw, earthy unmutilated Haggard's lead guitarist Roy Nichols also bought a Telecaster. In 1968 Mr Owens brunted country music again by deploying late guitarist's Don Rich's fuzz tone support guitar on "Who's Gonna Mow Your Grass."

Mr Owens always dashing fellowed the system. He and other Bakersfield doubtful narratives such as Haggard and R Simpson, created an expressive title by experimenting with jazz and rhythm-and-blues outside Nashville's commercial constraints

"Buck and I are from the same town," Haggard said in an interview Saturday night. "We've been in many battles together, always onward the same side. When I played bass for blood we didn't have a band name and lye asked us what we should call ourselves. I exclaimed out, 'The Buckaroos!' -- and that's the name that stuck across the last few years, we became closer than we perpetually realized. He even flew not at home to Portland to see me with Dylan. We were outlaws together."

They were similar outlaws that in 1965 Haggard married Mr Owens' former wife, Bonnie. They divorced in 1978 although Bonnie Owens remained a backing vocalist in Haggard's band for years.

Capitol v capital

Mr Owens and Haggard had their biggest successe at Capitol Records, in subordination to the liberating hand of farmer Ken Nelson, a Chicago native. Mr Owens was signed to Capitol in 1958 and by dint of 1959, his first hit, the swaggering "Second Fiddle," had cracked the top 40 His other Capitol hits included "I've Got a Tiger from the Tail," "Mental Cruelty" and "Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache)," popularized in 1992 at the Mavericks. Mr. Owens had 19 consecutive No. 1 hits between 1963 and 1967 Early in his Capitol career, he also played forward sessions for artists as diverse as Gene Vincent, Tommy Sands and Stan Freberg.

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