BUCK OWENS HADN’T HAD A No. 1 COUNTRY HIT IN MORE THAN FIFTEEN YEARS. THEN DWIGHT YOAKAM ASKED HIM TO SING ONE OLD BAKERSFIELD SONG — AND PUT HIM BACK ON TOP. By the mid-1980s, Buck Owens no longer needed another hit to prove anything. He had already built one of the defining catalogs in country music, taken the Bakersfield sound national, recorded with the Buckaroos, and spent years on television through Hee Haw. But his recording career had faded badly during the 1970s. By the time a younger Kentucky-born singer named Dwight Yoakam started making noise in Los Angeles, Buck was largely outside the center of country radio. Yoakam was not. His 1986 debut Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. helped bring hard-edged honky-tonk back into mainstream country. And the sound he was reviving owed a clear debt to Owens. Yoakam spoke openly about Buck’s influence and helped introduce Bakersfield country to listeners who had not been around for its original run. Then Yoakam reached backward. He wanted to record “Streets of Bakersfield,” a song Buck had already cut years earlier. This time, Yoakam asked Buck to sing it with him. Owens agreed. The pairing worked because neither man tried to make the record sound like a museum piece. Buck’s voice sat beside Dwight’s as if the fifteen-plus years between their chart peaks were not there. Released in 1988, “Streets of Bakersfield” went all the way to No. 1. It gave Dwight another major hit. For Buck Owens, it was something else: his first country chart-topper since the early 1970s, and a return to the very radio audience that had moved on from him years before. The success pulled Buck back into recording for a time. New albums followed, including Hot Dog! and Act Naturally. But the bigger consequence had already happened. A younger artist had not simply covered the Bakersfield sound. He had gone back to one of the men who built it, put him beside him at the microphone, and carried him back to No. 1.

“Scroll down to the end of the article to listen to music.”

BUCK OWENS HAD NOT HAD A No. 1 COUNTRY HIT IN MORE THAN FIFTEEN YEARS. THEN DWIGHT YOAKAM ASKED HIM TO SING ONE OLD BAKERSFIELD SONG — AND PUT HIM BACK ON TOP.

By the mid-1980s, Buck Owens no longer needed another hit to prove who he was.

He had already built one of the defining catalogs in country music. He had taken the Bakersfield sound national, cut sharp, bright records with the Buckaroos, and helped prove that country did not have to come through Nashville to change the whole business. His music had steel, Telecaster bite, driving rhythm, and a directness that cut through the smoother sounds around it.

Then came television.

For years, Hee Haw kept Buck in American homes, but his recording career faded badly during the 1970s. By the time a younger Kentucky-born singer named Dwight Yoakam began making noise in Los Angeles, Buck Owens was no longer near the center of country radio.

He was not forgotten.

But he was no longer current.

Dwight Yoakam Brought Bakersfield Back Into The Room

Dwight Yoakam arrived with a sound that did not hide its debt.

His 1986 debut, Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc., helped bring hard-edged honky-tonk back into mainstream country at a time when much of the format had grown smoother. Yoakam’s music carried California twang, country attitude, and the kind of rhythmic snap that pointed straight back toward Bakersfield.

And he said so.

Yoakam spoke openly about Buck’s influence. He helped introduce younger listeners to a sound many of them had missed the first time around. To those fans, Bakersfield was not just a place on a map. It was a feeling — leaner, tougher, brighter, and less polished than Nashville’s middle lane.

But Yoakam did not only borrow the influence.

He went back to the source.

The Song Was Already In Buck’s Past

Yoakam wanted to record “Streets of Bakersfield.”

Buck had already cut the song years earlier, but it had not become one of the records that defined him commercially. It was still sitting there, connected to his world, his city, and the country tradition Yoakam was helping revive.

This time, Yoakam asked Buck to sing it with him.

Owens agreed.

That decision changed the meaning of the record. It was not a younger artist simply covering an older style. It was not a tribute from a distance. Buck’s own voice was there, standing beside Dwight’s, making the connection impossible to miss.

The record did not sound like an antique.

It sounded alive.

The Old Voice Fit The New Moment

That is why the duet worked.

Neither man treated “Streets of Bakersfield” like a museum piece. Dwight did not soften the edge to make Buck seem safe, and Buck did not sound like a guest being handled gently by a younger star. Their voices sat together naturally, as if the years between their chart peaks had briefly disappeared.

For Dwight, the record confirmed his place in the hard-country revival.

For Buck, it did something more startling.

Released in 1988, “Streets of Bakersfield” went all the way to No. 1.

It gave Yoakam another major hit.

And it gave Buck Owens his first country chart-topper since the early 1970s.

After more than fifteen years away from the top spot, Buck was back on country radio with the very sound many people thought the business had moved past.

The Hit Reopened A Door

The success pulled Buck back toward recording for a time.

New albums followed, including Hot Dog! and Act Naturally. The comeback did not turn him into a young man again, and it did not need to. The important part had already happened. A new generation had not only found the Bakersfield sound — it had accepted one of its builders back into the conversation.

That gave the No. 1 hit a rare kind of beauty.

Country music often moves on from its older stars while continuing to profit from the styles they created. The influence remains, but the people behind it can get pushed to the side. Dwight Yoakam did something different. He did not just carry Buck’s sound forward.

He brought Buck with him.

That is why “Streets of Bakersfield” feels less like a comeback gimmick and more like a correction.

What “Streets Of Bakersfield” Really Leaves Behind

The deepest part of this story is not only that Buck Owens returned to No. 1 in 1988.

It is who opened the door.

Buck had already built the Bakersfield sound.

Dwight Yoakam had grown up loving it from a distance.

Then the younger singer reached back, chose an old Buck song, put the older man beside him at the microphone, and carried both of them back to the top of the country chart.

For Dwight, it was a hit.

For Buck, it was a return.

And for country music, it was a reminder that tradition is not kept alive by imitation alone. Sometimes it takes a younger artist with enough respect to say: this sound did not begin with me, and the man who helped build it should be standing here too.

Buck Owens did not need another No. 1 to prove his place in country history.

But “Streets of Bakersfield” gave him something sweeter than proof.

It gave him the sound of his own legacy coming back through the radio — with a younger voice beside him, not replacing him, but carrying him home.

Video

Country Music

TERRI CLARK MOVED FROM CANADA TO NASHVILLE AT 18 AND STARTED SINGING FOR TIPS AT TOOTSIE’S. SHE COULD SEE THE COUNTRY-MUSIC BUSINESS AROUND HER — BUT IT TOOK NEARLY EIGHT YEARS BEFORE ANY LABEL LET HER THROUGH THE DOOR. Terri Clark left Medicine Hat, Alberta, for Nashville as a teenager with little more than a guitar and a very clear idea of what she wanted. Soon after arriving, she walked into Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, the famous honky-tonk across the alley from the Ryman Auditorium, asked if she could sing and landed work performing for tips. It was her first professional Nashville gig. The location made the situation almost cruelly appropriate. Tootsie’s sat in the middle of country-music mythology, close enough to the Ryman and Music Row to make Nashville success feel physically nearby. Clark later remembered playing those clubs hoping that somebody from the industry might hear her voice drifting out and offer her a record deal. Nobody did. For years, she kept singing while taking whatever work helped pay the bills. She waited tables, worked as a secretary, painted houses, worked retail and tended bar. One contemporary profile put the wait at roughly eight years between her arrival in Nashville and the record deal she had come there to find. There were days when even Tootsie’s barely paid. Clark has recalled taking a city bus downtown with her guitar to work the daytime shift and occasionally walking out with only a few dollars in tips because almost nobody had come through the bar. Still, the years were doing something a demo tape could not. She was learning how to hold a room. A producer who heard Clark at Tootsie’s eventually passed a tape to manager Woody Bowles. She continued developing for several more years, and in 1994 Mercury Nashville finally signed her. Then the pace changed almost immediately. Her debut single, “Better Things to Do,” arrived in 1995 and climbed to No. 3 on the U.S. country chart. “When Boy Meets Girl” and “If I Were You” followed into the Top 10, while her self-titled debut album eventually went platinum. Clark had written or co-written almost the entire record herself. The following year alone, she spent more than 260 days on the road. That number says more about the turnaround than almost anything else. For most of her twenties, Terri Clark had been working Nashville bars while waiting for somebody in the industry to notice. Once they finally did, the problem was no longer finding somewhere to sing. It was finding enough days in the year to play all the places that suddenly wanted her.

Country Music

WHEN THE FIRST EDITION BROKE UP, KENNY ROGERS SAID IT FELT LIKE HIS LIFE HAD LOST ITS FOOTING. HE WALKED ONSTAGE ALONE, STARTED OVER — AND WITHIN TWO YEARS “LUCILLE” TURNED HIM INTO A SOLO SUPERSTAR. By the mid-1970s, Kenny Rogers was hardly an unknown. The First Edition had already given him major pop and country hits, including “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” and “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.” For years, Rogers had been surrounded by the same musicians, the same road routine and the security of belonging to a group. Then the band ended. The First Edition broke apart in the mid-1970s as its members moved toward separate careers. Rogers later admitted the split hit him harder than outsiders might have expected. “When the First Edition broke up,” he recalled, “it was like my life had just lost all the footing.” For the first time, there was nobody behind him to absorb part of the pressure. Rogers signed with United Artists and began making records under his own name. The first releases produced modest results, but nothing yet suggested that the 38-year-old singer was about to become bigger than he had ever been with a band. Then he heard “Lucille.” Written by Roger Bowling and Hal Bynum, the song told a simple story: a woman leaves her husband in a bar, and the man she leaves with later hears the husband’s side of what happened. Rogers recorded it in 1976. Released the following year, “Lucille” went to No. 1 country and No. 5 pop, won Rogers a Grammy and was named CMA Single of the Year. More importantly, it solved the identity problem. Rogers was no longer the singer from a psychedelic pop group trying to continue on his own. “Lucille” revealed exactly what would carry the next phase of his career: a rough, conversational voice and story songs about ordinary people making painful choices. “The Gambler,” “She Believes in Me” and “Coward of the County” followed soon afterward. Between 1977 and 1987, Rogers accumulated twenty No. 1 country hits. The First Edition had taught Kenny Rogers how to stand in front of an audience. Its breakup forced him to find out what would happen when he had to stand there by himself.

Country Music

BEFORE THE EAGLES HAD A NAME, GLENN FREY AND DON HENLEY WERE STANDING BEHIND LINDA RONSTADT. ONE SUMMER ON THE ROAD HELPED CONVINCE THEM THEY SHOULD HAVE A BAND OF THEIR OWN. Los Angeles in the early 1970s was full of musicians moving between country, folk and rock. Linda Ronstadt was already near the center of that world. Glenn Frey had come from Detroit and was playing with J.D. Souther. Don Henley had arrived from Texas with his band Shiloh. In 1971, Ronstadt hired both men for her touring band. Almost immediately, Frey heard something in the combination. Country instrumentation, rock energy and close harmonies were beginning to mix in a way that felt different. During the tour, Frey and Henley started talking seriously about forming a band of their own. They told Ronstadt. She did not try to hold them back. Frey later credited her with helping them make the new group happen. Two more musicians completed the lineup. Bernie Leadon brought deep country and bluegrass roots from the Flying Burrito Brothers. Randy Meisner had already played with Poco and Rick Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band. By the fall of 1971, Frey, Henley, Leadon and Meisner had become the Eagles. But a new band still needed a sound. One of the songs that helped define it was sitting unfinished nearby. Jackson Browne had been working on “Take It Easy” but had stalled on part of the song. Frey helped finish it, earning a co-writing credit. The Eagles recorded it with Frey on lead vocal and Leadon’s banjo pushing the track toward country without making it traditional country. In May 1972, “Take It Easy” became the Eagles’ first single. It was also their breakthrough. More hits followed, then Desperado, “Best of My Love,” “Lyin’ Eyes,” “Take It to the Limit” and eventually Hotel California. Within a few years, the band that had grown out of the Los Angeles country-rock scene had become one of the biggest acts in American music. But “Take It Easy” had already revealed the formula. A Detroit singer, a Texas drummer, a bluegrass-rooted guitarist and a bassist from California country-rock had taken pieces from different worlds and made them sound like they belonged together. That mixture became the Eagles.

Related Post

You Missed