Buck Owens - “Live” In Scandinavia

One-time country pioneer goes slickly Nashville

Why the quote marks around live? This disc couldn’t be more live, recorded in front of a roaring Norwegian audience clearly starved of country music for a long, long time. Maybe the commas should go around “country”, though, because this 1970 performance displays all the hallmarks of slick Nashville professionalism, but not much of the grit that defined the genre.

The concert was one of the so-called Capitol Caravan tours that packaged the label’s artistes into a roadshow. Thus, Owens is preceded by The Buckaroos, led by fiddler Don Rich and stealing shamelessly from The Band’s songbook, Buddy Alan Owens (son of Buck and Bonnie Owens) and The Hagers, who, despite their “long hair” rebel image, come over more like the Barron Knights might had they come from Tennessee rather than Leighton Buzzard.

Buck’s big hits are compressed (or, rather, awkwardly squashed together) into a couple of medleys, there’s a short stab of Orange Blossom Special, a couple more Owens hits and a finale of Johnny B Goode. It doesn’t quite match Tom Petty’s description of corporate country (“A bad rock band with a fiddle”) but you can see that’s the next campsite for this caravan.

Sundazed | SC 11166

Reviewed by Tim Holmes
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