Fabulous but inadequate

Buck Owens was more than simply the co-host for 17 or so years of HEE HAW. He was a dynamic songwriter, an effective singer and a terrific guitar player who played on sessions for many of Capitol's biggest stars of the 1950s. In a sense, he also "discovered" Loretta Lynn exposing her to TV audiences on a local program he had in Washington.

Owens was one of the first recording artists to record with his own band rather than utilizing a bunch of faceless session musicians - this he was able to achieve by staying away from Nashville and remaining on the west coast, where producer Ken Nelson allowed his artists to exercise their artistic vision. By mixing the treble way up (to allow for most listeners hearing his music on car AM radios) and speeding up the tempos, he influenced a wide range of rock (Byrds, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Poco, Pure Prairie League) and country acts (Merle Haggard, Hagers, Dwight Yoakum, Marty Stuart, Johnny Paycheck, Gary Allen)

Rhino as put together an excellent compilation, complete with one of the best booklets I've ever seen in a box set not put out by Bear Family. Virtually all of the biggest hits are hear along with key album cuts.

If there is a shortcoming to this excellent set, it is that it is too short. Owens was a dynamic live performer who had so many hits that he resorted to putting some of them into medleys in order to get to all the requests. No one ever was better at constructing medleys than Buck Owens and a few of these should have been added to the set - better yet a 4th CD with medleys and other live recordings plus a little better coverage of the Warner Brothers years

Another reviewer mentioned Sundazed's ambitious reissue program - try BUCK OWENS IN LONDON to get a feel for his live show