Buck Owens

There's been a continuing fascination with what's known as "The Bakersfield Sound" of Country music ever since Buck Owens and Merle Haggard created it in the early 60s.

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville has dedicated an entire exhibit to this popular music movement during the past year. Vince Gill and Paul Franklin recorded the critically acclaimed "Bakersfield" album earlier in 2013 as well..

Now, we'll get to hear the story of Buck Owens - as told by Owens - in his just-published autobiography, "Buck 'Em!" from Backbeat Books. The book was released November 5th and comes seven years after Owens' 2006 passing, but was years in the making. In the latter 1990's, Owens began dictating his lifetime of recollections into a cassette recorder, compiling more than 100 hours of personal stories.

Owens had a famously photographic memory and "Buck "Em!" traces these, from his birth in Texas, early years in Arizona and his eventual setting down of roots in Bakersfield, California, where his Country superstardom, radio and publishing empire was headquartered.

Owens' superstardom status and insistence on keeping his business interests in Bakersfield were perhaps the most ironic parts of all, as explained by Brad Paisley in the book's forward: "To this day it still baffles me that the 'twangiest,' 'honkey-tonkinest,' 'countryest' music made in the '60s was not made anywhere near Nashville, but in California by a Texan, actually."

"Buck 'Em!" is co-authored by Randy Poe, President of Leiber & Stoller Music Publishing in Los Angeles. He is a Grammy-nominated record producer and an award-winning author whose books include the bestseller "Skydog: The Duane Allman Story" and "Stalking the Red Headed Stranger."

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