Customer Reviews

Tender Loving Care

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Although these tracks weren't originally recorded with an album in mind, the mid-60s Buckaroos were generating so much great material that just putting a paper clip on a dozen tunes resulted in an excellent album. This 1967 release is composed of tracks waxed in '65 and '66, and spearheaded by the singles ""Your Tender Loving Care" and "Sam's Place," the latter of which originally turned up as an album track on 1966's "Open Up Your Heart."

The band hits the ground in full stride with the title track - one of the finest recordings in Owens' catalog. Tom Brumley's dripping pedal steel is beautifully complemented by the gut string guitar playing of Don Rich, all in support of one of Owens' best songs and best vocals. Similarly, Owens' "Only You" plays his forlorn vocal against Brumley's magic steel, augmented by a touch of mandolin, as does a cover of Merle Haggard's "House of Memories." Rich's fiddle is featured on the Owens-Red Simpson waltz, "Don't Ever Tell Me Goodbye."

Though the ballads are exquisite, the album also offers the band's patented twanging telecasters. Owens' "Song and Dance" shows off the seemingly effortless magnetism with which he and Rich sang harmonies, and "Sam's Place" fires up some classic Bakersfield picking for the perfect hometown hangout. Rich's gut string guitar takes an upbeat Mexicali turn for R.J. Wooten's "Only You and You Alone" and though the lightweight closer, "You Made a Monkey Out of Me," doesn't match up to the album's other tracks, that's but a quibble.

This CD reissue adds the mono single versions of the hits, a nice treat for completists, but the original album is five-stars on its own.

This Buck Owens album was originally released on August 7, 1967. It features tracks recorded between May, 1965 and November, 1966. It features 3 #1 hits, those being "Your Tender Loving Care", "Only You" and "Sam's Place". Those are great songs, and the rest of the songs on the album are good, too. Another typically solid Buck Owens album.