Country music legend Buck Owens dead at 76

Flashy singer Buck Owens, who helped bring country music to TV on the long-running variety show Hee Haw, died Saturday at 76.

Owens had a series of over 20 No. 1 records, most released between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s. His hits included "Act Naturally," which was covered by the Beatles. Over 16 million of his discs were sold.

He guested as the voice of Chalk Dad in "The Skrawl/Pie Day/Secret Passages," a 2002 episode of the Nicktoons Productions/Frederator Incorporated series ChalkZone.

Owens died at his Bakersfield, California home, family spokesman Jim Shaw said.

The cause of death was not immediately known. In 1993, Owens underwent throat cancer surgery. He was hospitalized with pneumonia in 1997.

Owens, whose flashy suits were bedecked with rhinestones, recorded his tunes with a honky-tonk twang that became known as the "Bakersfield Sound," named for the city 100 miles north of Los Angeles where he lived.

Owens played a red, white and blue guitar.

"I think the reason he was so well known and respected by a younger generation of country musicians was because he was an innovator and rebel," said Shaw, a keyboardist in Owens' band, the Buckaroos. "He did it out of the Nashville establishment. He had a raw edge."

Other major hits included "Together Again" (also recorded by Emmylou Harris), "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail," "Love's Gonna Live Here," "My Heart Skips a Beat" and "Waitin' in Your Welfare Line."

"Act Naturally," by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison, was recorded twice by Ringo Starr -- first as a lead singer on the Beatles' 1965 version and then in 1989, recording it as a duet with Owens.

From 1969 to 1986, Owens co-hosted Hee Haw with guitarist Roy Clark, bringing country music and cornball comedy to millions.

"It's an honest show," Owens told Associated Press in 1995. "There's no social message -- no crusade. It's fun and simple."

He was born Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. on August 12, 1929 outside Sherman, Texas, the son of a sharecropper. When he was 8, the family moved to Arizona to seek better luck during the Depression.

At age 13, he quit school to haul produce and harvest crops. He was playing music in taverns by age 16.

In 1951, he moved to Bakersfield to seek work in the juke joints of Highway 99, between Los Angeles and the Bay area.

"We played rhumbas and tangos and sambas, and we played Bob Wills music, lots of Bob Wills music," he said, referring to the Western swing king. "And lots of rock 'n' roll."

Although Owens began recording in the mid-1950s, he had little success until "Act Naturally," his first No. 1 single, came out in 1963.

"When I was a little bitty kid, I used to dream about playing the guitar and singing like some of those great people that we had the old, thick records of," he once told an audience.

Owens stayed out of the recording studio for a decade, returning in 1988 to record "Streets of Bakersfield" with Dwight Yoakam. It was another No. 1 hit.

In the meantime, he pursued his business interests, including a Bakersfield TV station and radio stations in Bakersfield and Phoenix.

He had two sons with his first wife, Bonnie, whom he married in 1943. She sometimes performed with him; after their 1955 divorce, she became a leading backup singer and had occasional solo hits, as well as duets with Merle Haggard, her second husband.

One of their sons also became a singer, using the name Buddy Alan. He recorded several duets with Owens and had a Top 10 hit in 1968, "Let the World Keep on a-Turnin.'"

Owens was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996.

"I'd like to 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," he said in 1992.

He had a son with his second wife Jennifer, with whom he was married from 1967 until their divorce in 2001.

As well as Buddy, Buck Owens is survived by two other sons, Michael and John.