The Steel Guitar Forum

Ok gang, I had a lengthy discussion with a fellow musician last night and he stated it was Buck Owens that played the lead part on the recording of Buckeroo...I had always thought that Don Rich was the culprit...does anyone know for sure?

Ray Riggs said that he played on one version of it.

I always thought it was Buck.

Jerry

The bass player (whoever that was) in Buck's group wrote the song.

Don Rich played the lead part on the original recording. And if you look at the intro to Buck's TV show (I saw it on YouTube somewhere) you can see Don fingerpicking the lead part on his Tele while Buck strums along on his acoustic.

I think Doyle Holly was the bass player at the time the song was released. Also, on the youtube posting where Buckaroo is used as a theme song, you can hear a twin part going on. I assume Tom Brumley since Buck is playing acoustic and Don Rich is playing the Tele.

Bob Morris wrote it, he played bass on many of the Buck Owens sessions.

In the box set, it lists the song as recorded May 5th 1965, 12:00 to 4:30pm. Capitol Records session #12360. The players were, Buck Owens-guitar, Don Rich-lead guitar, Doyle Holly-rhythm guitar, Red Simpson-rhythm guitar, Tom Brumley-steel guitar, Bob Morris-bass, and Willie Cantu-drums.
Written by Bob Morris.

I don't really know (surprise surprise). What I do know is that at one time, Buck was just a good a player as Don was, maybe even better. Buck played lead on some of Tommy Collins' early records that I have, and that playing (to me) is as good as anything Don Rich ever did behind Buck.

I think Buck played lead on 1 or 2 of the guitar polka's. To me it always felt like a mistake was immanent when Buck picked a lead but it never happened.
It did not matter though, when the original Buckaroo's were together everything they played was pure magic. To this date I personally have never heard a live group with arrangements and balance and a captivating presence that they had.

As I understand the Buckaroos' history, Buck taught Don how to play lead guitar and handed those duties over to him when he got good enough. I think Don was just a fiddle player when they met. Buck was probably a very impressive picker in his early days but let those skills lapse somewhat. He's doing some picking on the Austin City Limits show from the 80s which is neat to see. I would never under-estimate the importance of Buck and Don's understated picking style, no matter how fancy the latter day country rock pickers in the 60s and 70s got because they laid the foundation for the whole scene that followed.

I'm with Rick on this one as I think Buck & The Buckeroos were one of the best live bands there ever was. One of Bucks picking songs was Bucks Polka! Simple but great! I sure miss that West Coast sound. Ray

I was living in Tacoma WA when I first started gigging and got to know quite a few of the guys who had played with Buck in the md 50's when he was living up here. I've seen a few pictures of Buck from 1955 playing a live TV show with Don Rich on fiddle and he looks to be about 16 years old. Shotgun Red Hildreth was playing stand up bass. Shotgun is about 80 now and still plays some real fine Tele twang. And yes, Buck was known as one of the hot dog guitar pickers back then and Don Rich didn't play guitar at first. It didn't take him too long to figure it out, though. Grover Jackson played around that circle of people and gave me a few good stories from the day. He told me that there a number of players considered more likely to wind up with Buck than Don, but they either had "drinking problems or women problems". Grover now is not in good health. He has Alzheimer's but still has a million dollar smile. He used to play with Chubby Howard on steel and they had a local Saturday afternoon TV show. Another of the guys who used to play with Buck was Ty Willard. We lost Ty a couple of years ago, but he also told me some of the same stories about Buck's picking.

I still remember a story back in the late 60's that Don attributed a lot of his guitar style to Gene Breeden. Does anyone know if that is so? I think Gene is on this forum.
Gene, if you read this, did you used to live in Washington State and give those fabulous lesson's to Don....

That's a real possibility. Gene was living in Portland OR in the early 70's and used to play around the Seattle area from time to time.

Well this forum never lets me down...the wealth of knowledge here is second to none... perhaps if Tom Brumley sees this thread he might have an answer...anyways thanks to all again... I know that Buck was a great talent and I remember a picture posted on this forum a while back with Buck standing behind a non-pedal steel in his real early days...thanks again...

My conversations with Gene Breeden lead me to believe his association with Don Rich was more of an LA/Bakersfield connection, probably after the Tacoma, WA years. While Gene never talked about "teaching" Don, he did tell me about showing Don the signature lick on Ray Charles' "What'd I Say" adapted to a country beat and Tele twang. It is not too hard to pick out in some of those great old Buck Owens recordings.

Gene was/is a great player and I can't imagine anyone hanging around him very much for very long without taking away something. I certainly did.

Gene liked and respected Don Rich

I'm sure that Don crossed paths with Nokie Edwards and Big Bill Garland back in the 50's. All of us Tacoma pickers tried to learn everything we could from those two.

My fingers were going faster than my brain. Big Bill Garner. We lost him a couple of years back. Super picker and great guy.

Hello Dave Harmonson,You sure are right about our good buddy Big Bill Garner. We had the Band Crawfish in Bakersfield and met many times with these great guitar pickers in this Topic. If you really want to know the truth about Don Rich's pickin,Lawton Jiles can tell you! At Jiles-Beam Music Publishing BMI,(909) 981-0337. Sincerely in Country Music, Leo J.Eiffert,Jr.

LJ, thanks for the tip. We've had a bunch of good players that came out of that same circle of musicians. Larry Austin is one of my favorites. He bought his set up in 58. Fender bassman 4-10 with the tweed reverb and 58 Tele and can play and sing like Buck and Don. He and his brother Ray on drums used to pick around.

I know this topic started out about Buck and Don, but I can't resist telling a story about Big Bill. Bill was in a bad car accident and was paralyzed from the waist down for about the last 10 years of his life. He could still play great and was in a motorized cart. He came out to a gig of mine about 4 years ago and I was playing steel just in front of the stage due to lack of space. We were hosting a jam and had a bass player sitting in who couldn't follow s@#t. I was trying to give him hand signals for chord changes with no luck. Bill motored over to me in the middle of the song and asked me "do you want me to get you a brick to throw at him?" I just about fell off my stool laughing.

Dave,here is one on Big Bill Garner. Bill & Sam was living in Oxnard,California. and Bill would car pool to our gig at " Freddie's top of the hill" with our bass guitarist Leon Copass and I was living in Buena Park,California. We had a gig to do at Wally Tuckers Car lot on Saturday morning so we stayed at the Bakersfield Inn on Union Ave or old 99. You know how big Bill was and his little go-T. Out of no where about 3:30,maybe little after 4:00am we hear this big crash and a big oh, SHIP! Leon and I got up and turned on the lights. The bed broke in the middle of it and poor big got his little go-T some how caught on the bed frame and needless to say,he couldn't get up.It took Leon and I a while but we did it. I have some great memories with them guys and cool stories. LJ

Hell, Don was a decent guitar picker as a young'un, I once met a lovely lady who knew Don when he was Donald Ulrich and he played fiddle, Nokie Edwards and a bunch of others stepped in to play with Buck when he had gigs away from the TV show.
Legend has it that the Ventures' "Walk Don't Run" features a Don Rich lick that Nokie took a shine to, but that's a legend folks.. (maybe)

There is supposedly a Buck Owens album where he does all the lead guitar, I think from 1968, it has not been reissued.

Bob Morris was never actually a Buckaroo, it's an assumption that pops up now and then, he had his own band and career in the 60s, but was a regular contributor with Buck.
He did play with the Buckaroos at the big civic auditorium show in '63, the trading post gang (Roy Nichols, Merle) and a whole bunch of singers (Merle was just a bass player to Capitol at that point) were recorded onstage and a record was issued by Capitol.

Gene Breeden and Norm Hamlett were in a Californian band together in the 50s and even had a garage studio for a while, Gene seems to have lived in just about every point of the west before relocating to Tenn.

Larry, you are exactly right and so are you Jason. Bobby Morris, Muddy Berry,Al Petty and me were working together,It was Al's band, I can't remember the name of the little place but it was near Santa Ana Ca. or at least in that area. Bobby came out one nite and said that Buck and Don had recorded his song.Bobby used to play it all the time. When I first met Bobby, he and Glen Campbell were working with the Champs. They came out at an earlier time and picked with me at Georges Roundup #1 when I needed a bass and guitar. Bobby on bass and Glenn on guitar of course. Gosh what memories. Bobby even produced a little record on me with Dave Burgess but it was never released. Oh well it was fun. I sure enjoy you folks, thanks for the memories. db