Buck Owens - All Time Greatest Hits

As I have said, I am only recently starting to appreciate C&W music and have been exploring some of the music of the bigger stars in the field. Buck Owens was a pioneer of the "Bakersfield Sound", the r'n'r influenced country music emanating from the California city of the same name. As Wikipedia says "His signature style was based on simple storylines, infectious choruses, a twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a drum track placed forward in the mix, and high two-part harmonies featuring Owens and his guitarist Don Rich."

This collection starts with the song most known by rock'n'rollers due to the Beatles covering it early on (with a goofy Ringo Starr vocal), "Act Naturally". Truthfully, I don't know many of the other songs here, although many of them were #1 C&W hits for Buck.

Due to the harmony vocals, there is a similarity - to me, at least - between some of these numbers and the Everly Brothers - a good thing, for certain! There are plenty of traditional, twangy guitar solos, some nice pedal steel guitar and good pop songwriting. The production is pretty slick - I generally like a little more grit in my music - but I suppose that is standard for most C&W.

I would say that this would be a good place for rock'n'rollers looking into good, traditional country music. And thankfully, he avoids the overt corniness of some C&W - despite being the host of Hee Haw for a number of years! Nice stuff.