Best known as the smiley co-host of “Hee Haw,” Buck Owens (1929-2006) had a thriving career long before his on-camera debut. As the frontman for his eponymous band, based in California’s San Joaquin Valley, he pioneered the “Bakersfield sound” while touring bars and honky-tonks from Phoenix to Tacoma, Wash., putting the western in country and western, as the genre emerged into the music mainstream.
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