Country music is slowly becoming more popular in Sweden and I feel I am on a mission to make it even more popular. Sadly, to many people in this country, country music is Dolly Parton (by whom they mean Jolene) and Johnny Cash (by whom they mean Hurt), then little more.
Today, my mission means opening my fellow countrymen's ears for the little known Bakersfield sound and one of the top acts of that sound, that is Buck Owens.
The Bakersfield sound is a favourite of mine, I really, really love Buck Owens song Act naturally, it's definitely on my top ten of all times. What makes it special is the crude guitar sound. I am a former skinhead and have listened to pretty brutal music in my days, but I've never heard anyone play that melodic and upbeat tunes like Buck Owens can and then throw in some guitar chords as simple, yet brutal as that. It's undescribable, you'll only know what it sounds like once you've heard it yourself.
The music is upbeat most of times, but lyrics are not always that positive, although there are exceptions. If you want to criticise Buck Owens, one could say that he got stuck in the 50's and pretty much learned his wordsmithery from Hank Williams sr, cos there's quite a few number about heartaches. The closing track though, made famous to my generation from the version Buck cut with Dwight Yoakam, Streets of Bakersfield contain som social commentary.
Buck is good at playing good tunes (dunno whether he wrote them himself or not) and has a voice good for singing. He's by no means no Pavarotti, but he can sing allright. That means that this album, maybe with the exception of the Tall dark stranger tune, is worth buying. There's no reason not to like this record and I give it two thumbs up.
A good, but by no means flawless album gets 97,3% in level of satisfaction.
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