Bonnie Owens - Queen of the Coast

Overlooked country gem gets the works

Laura Cantrell has a song about her, she had relationships with Buck Owens, Fuzzy Owen and Merle Haggard, was universally liked – and we haven’t mentioned her name yet. That, of course, is the point of Cantrell’s song: Bonnie Owens, a country music performer in her own right, got lost over the years. Bear Family set the record straight with a 103-track career retrospective box set. All of Owens’ recordings from 1953 to 1970 are here, along with a superb book full of original interviews tracing her history. Although the first few early 50s tracks sound wobbly (poorly preserved masters?), there is a fine body of solo work here (“She could keep a room alive/With the catch in her voice”). But, here’s the irony: put her together with someone else and a miracle happens. Bonnie Owens had the perfect voice for duets. You can hear it even when she is double-tracking herself. Everyone who sings with her, from Fuzzy Owen on her debut recording, A Dear John Letter, to “husband number two” on any number of tracks (but check out Looking Back To See, Disc One, Track 11), sounds the better for it. Let’s hope that Laura’s thrift shop gets a copy in soon.

Bear Family | BCD 16178 DK

Reviewed by Tim Holmes
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