God Bless The Rebels!

Where would we be without the rebels of Country? With the passing of Buck Owens, we have one fewer.

Far too many people only knew Buck as a buffoon from the Hee Haw TV show. Buck Owens was one of greats in Country music, and his death reminded many of us who needed to be reminded.

Buck's twangy honk tonk guitar was an antidote to the slick syrup poured from Nashville during those years. I was into pop music myself, and Nashville Country to me could not have been more uninteresting. Bob Wills yes … Roy Acuff NO. The western swing and cowboy music was cool. It was always amazing how the same Nashville studios that could produce raw Elvis and Roy Orbison did put out a lot of music that sounded McDonald's franchised. Ultimately, when you mated Bob Wills, Buck Owens and the Nashville Sound of Chet Atkins, you had a great mix that made up some of the best music ever made.

Jim Reeves and his distinctive vocals. Patsy Clines burning your ears, never letting you forget her.

Buck Owens is a symbol of doing it YOUR way. Playing the guitar with too much treble. Honky tonky and not just falling in line with what the bosses wanted. True to yourself. Buck was all that and more.

Owning your masters was the advice he gave to Garth. Lord knows what he told Dwight Yoakam over the years. Buck was pompous and cocky and a man of integrity. He knew how to make a "Buck." Stubborn at times as the mule he was named after back in Texas. All qualities that we still admire. Or some of us do.

He didn't let the CMA run all over him. That's why the ACM was created. The Opry mafia of the 50's and 60's either. Good! Willie, Waylon, Johnny, and Merle were all cut from that cloth. What would Country music have been without that Mount Rushmore of names? All Rebels. Pains in the ass for their labels and trade associations. They just did not fit in the box right. They did things THEIR way.

Hank Jr. is a more modern version of this crowd. Brad Paisley has a bit of it in him and so does Dierks Bently. Shania sure does.

Playing within the system is safe. If everyone skated out of bounds we would have chaos. Still, what would we do without the men and women who cannot be sheep? Same thing can be paralleled to the radio and broadcast world where Buck Owens was also a major leader. Just today I heard of some programmers who have so much free time that they can tell how long each jock talks and times every break. God knows we don't want anyone talking other than a liner card or time and 2 sentence weather like the robots at the Cox radio stations.

You wonder why terrestrial radio is going down? Just look in the mirror or listen to a lot of the radio you make a living on. No one seems to understand the concept of a Gerry House or Don Imus or Howard Stern. Mancow, once upon a time Rick Dees, Robert W Morgan, The Real Don Steele. It was their TALKING with the other elements that made great radio. Not just the music.

The overly-researched and focus-grouped world of radio today is choking the medium to death. The fact that the overly-researched and pre-chewed music is never anything but safe is killing the medium we all once loved.

Not back announcing songs. Not doing local news. Playing 25 minutes of commercials in an hour (at least that's been better lately). Playing the good songs to death. Letting people who have no idea what they want make decisions. Ridiculous.

Aren't we glad we never focus-grouped Buck and Willie and Waylon and Johnny and Bob Dylan and Neil Young, early Elvis, James Brown, Ray Charles … I could go on and on and on. Anyone you ever gave a crap about was a Buck Owens kind of act. Frank Sinatra, John Lennon, Bill Drake, Ron Jacobs, and on and on. If you don't the names of all the people I just named, you need to hit the books and figure out how we got to where we are in the first place.

God bless you, Buck. Some of us know you were a hell of a lot more than just a co-host of Hee Haw!