Buck Owens' Crystal Palace Draws Country Music Bands and Fans

Passing by or through Bakersfield on our way to Mexico each year I asked my husband, Anything there we want to see? His answer for seven years had been No!

Since he served two tours of duty at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert many years ago, I thought he should know. However, much to our surprise, last year we discovered the Buck Owens' Crystal Palace on Buck Owens Drive, off Hwy. 99.

I vaguely remembered the name, associated with the Buckaroos band, the Buck Owens' Ranch and Hee Haw TV shows, as well as a few Capitol records hits such as Act Naturally, Hot Dog, Love's Gonna Live Here, My Heart Skips A Beat, and I've Got A Tiger By The Tail.

On October 27, 2006, less than a year after the passing of Buck Owens on March 25, we were staying at the Best Western Motel and went next door to the Crystal Palace for the early show. When they told us Buddy Alan Owens was the featured performer it still hadn't registered with me that we were in for a special treat, seeing and hearing the son of the man himself, and the Buckaroos themselves.

The two-story tiered and balconied interior of the Crystal Palace is a restaurant, concert stage, dance hall, and museum. In response to my questions Terry Christoffersen, general manager said:

"Buck had the Crystal Palace built so he could share his experiences and memorabilia from around the world with his fans. He also wanted a place where he could comfortably perform his music without having to travel like he had done in his younger days. We opened on October 23, 1996 and haven't slowed down yet.

Inside the entrance of the Crystal Palace visitors may view and pose for photos with one or more of the 10 larger-than-life statues of country stars Buck Owens considered to be legends of country music - Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Sr., Willie Nelson, George Jones, George Strait, Garth Brooks, Merle Haggard, Elvis Presley, Bob Wills, and of course, himself.

According to Christoffersen, Owens had planned on commissioning some female stars to the collection in the future, but he didn't have time to make that happen, and the Crystal Palace continues to be a world-class entertainment venue, restaurant and tribute to the life of Buck Owens.

We stopped at the Crystal Palace again this year to feast on baby back ribs, listen to some good country music, and dodge the other dancers.

How Bakersfield Became Buckersfield

Alvis Edgar Owens, Jr. was the firstborn child, on August 12, 1929, to sharecropper Alvis and his wife Marcie Owens, on the land they tilled outside Sherman, Texas. When Alvis Jr. was three or four years old he announced that he was renaming himself Buck after a mule on the Owens' farm.

Buck's mother played piano and exposed her children to gospel music. Buck said he knew without question "what he didn't want. He had a dream of a better life of not going to bed hungry, or wearing hand-me-down clothes. When he was 16 he teamed up with a 19-year-old guitarist. They became Buck and Britt and played on local radio and at honky-tonks, where they passed the hat for pay, before moving west to Phoenix.

Buck married Bonnie Campbell in 1948, and their first son Alan, Buddy, was born to follow in his father's musical footsteps. In 1951, Buck and Bonnie moved with their two sons to Bakersfield, where the oil fields and farmlands had become home for refugees from the Dust Bowl of Texas and Oklahoma. Buck joined a band led by guitarist Dusty Rhodes, and then went with the Orange Blossom Playboys at the Blackboard, Bakersfield's top country music nightclub, until 1958.

Owens played and sang harmony at the LuTal Recording Studio in Bakersfield, and later signed with Capitol for solo recordings. In 1958, Owens moved to Puyallup, Washington to take over 250-watt radio station KAYE, and began his own live TV show over KTNT in Tacoma. By June of 1960 his recordings were hitting the charts and he divested himself of the Washington holdings and returned to Bakersfield, permanently.

For the next several years Buck Owens traveled to gigs around the country in an old Ford, then thousands of miles in an old Chevy camper, and finally a bus with the band, until he quit the road in 1980. He boasted that he never missed a date, playing at clubs from 9 at night until 1 in the morning, without leaving the stage.

In the mid-sixties, Owens branched out with a booking agency and a progression of radio stations, KUZZ-AM, and then KKXX-FM in Bakersfield, then KTUF-AM, and KNIX-FM in Phoenix, all consolidated under Buck Owens Productions.

By 1966, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Tommy Collins and Wynn Stewart, each with his own style on Capitol records, defined what was then referred to as the Bakersfield Sound, reminiscent of the honky-tonk days. Owens finally made a pledge to his fans, "I refuse to be known as anything but a country singer. I am proud to be associated with country music."

Buck Owens and the Buckaroos played Grand Ole Opry, Carnegie Hall and for Lyndon Johnson at the White House, dressed in their rhinestone studded Nudie outfits, and with steel guitars and musical instruments painted red, white and blue.

Owens bought an old movie theater in downtown Bakersfield and opened his own recording studio, and the media started referring to Bakersfield as Buckersfield." His national exposure, however, came from the Buck Owens's Ranch TV show and, Hee Haw the CBS cornball country music show fashioned after the popular Laugh-In show on NBC.

Although Owens left the Hee Haw show to Roy Clark in 1986, he returned for their 20th anniversary show, and also retained his 400 episodes of Buck Owen's Ranch. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. His parent company still owns radio stations in Bakersfield, has two weekly publications, and the legend lives on at the Buck Owens's Crystal Palace.

Prior to his death March 25, 2006, Owens said he would be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs, and had a hell of a time.

For information about Crystal Palace concerts, restaurant, museum, or Buck Owens's biography by Rich Kienzle go to: www.buckowens.com.