Buck Owens

Buck Owens is a true legend in country music. Along with fellow performers Merle Haggard and Wynn Stewart, Buck helped popularize the Bakersfield Sound, or honky-tonk infused with electric instrumentation and rock influences. Growing up in Arizona, Buck picked cotton and learned to play the mandolin, the guitar and horns. He had his first radio program at age 16 and a year later, worked with the Mac's Skillet Lickers, whose lead singer was Bonnie Campbell. Bonnie soon became the first Mrs. Buck Owens; together, they had a son, Buddy. Buck and his young family moved to Bakersfield, California, in the early 1950s, where he worked as a session guitarist and played for a band called the Orange Blossom Playboys. After a few years of recording rockabilly songs (as "Corky Jones"), Buck signed a contract with Capitol Records in 1957. His first recordings floundered, and it wasn't until the spring of 1959 when he hit with "Second Fiddle." That song only reached No. 24 on Billboard magazine's co