Customer Reviews

Instrumental Hits

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3 star:		(1)
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Throughout their stellar career, Buck Owens and the Buckaroos were both a crack live outfit and a hit-making recording group. Their music resounded with the twin Telecaster guitars and harmony singing of Owens and his right-hand man, Don Rich, along with the ace instrumental talents of Tom Brumley (pedal steel), Doyle Holly (bass), Willie Cantu (drums) and others. Throughout the '60s, their studio albums usually contained an instrumental track or two, and this 1965 album anthologizes many of those tracks. It also introduces "Buckaroo," the hit instrumental single that would become Owens' theme song.

These tracks gave the band members a chance to stretch out, and gave listeners an extended opportunity to enjoy the players' instrumental abilities. Rich's fiddle playing on "Orange Blossom Special," "Faded Love," and "A Maiden's Prayer" show off the talent that attracted Owens to him in the first place, and his guitar lead on "Buckaroo" heads up one of the most memorable country instrumentals ever recorded. Tom Brumley's steel on "Bud's Bounce" and Leon McAuliffe's "Steel Guitar Rag" show off the West Coast style he developed, and the influence Ralph Mooney had on his playing. Owens himself, better known for his vocals (especially after relinquishing lead-guitar duties to Don Rich), flat picks a storm on his trio of polkas, "Raz-Ma-Taz Polka," "Country Polka" and "Buck's Polka."

Unlike bands that made their name as instrumental combos, The Buckaroos chops were equally key on their vocal tracks. Their instrumental recordings are certainly fine, but given what else the band was capable of, most of these tracks are better heard as album accompaniment. After a half-dozen, one begins to long for the harmonies of Owens and Rich to complement the instruments.

Sundazed's reissue augments the original dozen tracks with a pair taken from the 1966 release, "The Buck Owens Songbook," an album of hits re-recorded as instrumentals under the direction of Don Rich. Both tracks ("Act Naturally" and "I've Got a Tiger By the Tail") are fine, but greatly miss Owens vocals.

Ok, "Hee-Haw" was one of the oddest shows in television history, with the worst one-liners this side of Benny Hill. But the music--and keep in mind this is coming from a one-time Rock purist--the music on "Hee-Haw" was just about the best ever seen on American television.

The original hosts were Roy Clark--he of the syrupy slow songs and cheesey infomercial guitar course, but a consumate instrumentalist--and Buck Owens, who was a revolutionary country star before Dwight Yoakum or Wynona Judd were born.

This album, which finds its way to the top of my play pile more often than I admit to my old Rocker friends, is supurb from beginning to end.

It's a very good band, but the secret ingredient is the excellent guitarist, Don Rich, who combines melody and twang masterfully.

Awhile ago Bonnie Owens lamented to Eddie Stubbs, on his WSM Nashville radio show, that the problem with country music nowadays is that they have taken all the twang out of it. If you want twang get this album. I bought the 33 1/3 LP album when it came out in the 60's and was glad to recently get the CD. Still sounds good. You can't buy this sound on today's recording market.

They took a bunch of old favorites and put their style of music to work creating a nice CD-all songs are very well done-good listening!

Buckaroo and other tunes will remain in your mind for the rest of your life; they are so infectious and full of good feeling!

I had listened to this album when I was a child, unfortunately, the album was destroyed some years back. I had looked at other sites trying to find it and finally found it on Amazon.com. The service I received was excellent and within days of ordering, I was listening to my CD!

In 1965, Buck Owens and his Buckaroos released the first, and only, instrumental that ever went to #1 on the Country chart, "Buckaroo". It's a great, uptempo number featuring Buckaroo Don Rich on lead guitar. The record company decided to capitalize on the success of this #1 hit, and put together an album of "the instrumental hits" of Buck Owens and his Buckaroos, even though "Buckaroo" was really their only instrumental hit. 8 of the 12 cuts on the album had already appeared on previously released albums. You might think an album of country instrumentals would get rather repetetive, but it does actually have a rather diverse sound, since different tunes feature different lead instruments. There are four polkas with lead guitar work by Buck himself. There are four fiddle tunes played by Don Rich. There are two tunes highlighting Tom Brumley on steel guitar. And "Country Rag" gives all of these guys a chance to solo. The CD adds two bonus tracks, which are instrumental versions of Buck's hits, played by the Buckaroos on the album The Buck Owens Songbook. This is a solid album, despite it's somewhat "thrown together" nature.