DAVE'S DIARY - 29 APRIL 2006 - BONNIE OWENS OBITUARY

BONNIE OWENS RIP @ 76
REUNION WITH BUCK

BORN BONNIE MAUREEN CAMPBELL
BLANCHARD, OKLAHOMA - OCTOBER 1, 1932
DIED BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 25, 2006.

FROM CRYSTAL PALACE TO MYER MUSIC BOWL

When Bakersfield balladeer Bonnie Owens toured Australia in 1996 with her second singing spouse Merle Haggard she had no trouble with her lyrics. Bonnie was an integral figure with Merle and his star-studded support cast at the Myer Music Bowl concert in the shadows of a latter day fire zone on Kings Domain. Merle performed his smoke and mirrors magic show on a memorable train trip that embraced several states and left promoter Wally Bishop working for a Chinese circus.

But at a gig a few years ago with Bonnie's first husband Buck at his famed Crystal Palace nightclub her memory failed her.

Alzheimer's disease had taken its toll on the singer who made her radio debut in the forties and appeared in the 1968 movie Killers Three with Haggard and Dick Clark.

Ironically, Bonnie, who died at the same age of 76, was probably unaware Buck had pre-deceased her by 30 days.

She was coaxed on stage for a duet with Buck at a birthday bash earlier this decade.

"It was then that Buck realized that what was happening to her was for real," long time Buckaroos keyboard player Jim Shaw said of her illness.

"She got up there and didn't know the words to her own songs. She had the same radiant smile, the same sparkling eyes - she looked just like the Bonnie we'd all known but Buck was devastated."

When Bonnie died she was separated from third husband Fred McQuillen with whom she moved to Missouri in the eighties.

She returned to Bakersfield alone about three years ago.

According to Shaw, she belted out country songs even when living in a nursing home.

"I love to perform," she told an interviewer in 2000. "I'm a ham-and-a-half."

Owens died in a Bakersfield hospice and was cremated after a memorial service on April 28 at Greenlawn Southwest Mortuary.

FROM ARIZONA TO CALIFORNIA

Bonnie, one of eight children of a share cropping family, moved to Arizona at 12 and met Buck, then an orange picker, part time singer and DJ, at a roller skating rink.

The yodelling belle was just 15 when she first appeared on his radio show in the mid-forties with a group called Mac MacAtee and the Skillet Lickers.

Buck helped Bonnie later obtain exposure on KTYL in Mesa, Arizona in 1947.

Bonnie and Buck wed a year later when she was 18 and they had two sons - latter day Capitol Records singer Buddy Allan and Michael.

By 1951, they had settled in Bakersfield, but music triumphed over marriage.

They separated in the early fifties but couldn't afford a divorce so they continued to perform together in honky tonks and truck stops.

"We had one good thing in common," Bonnie told Bakersfield Californian in 1997.

"That was Buddy and Mike. We both wanted to make sure they had adjusted minds. It was a friendly parting."

MERLE HAGGARD

Bonnie worked as a cocktail waitress at the famed Blackboard music bar and wrote song lyrics on drink coasters and napkins. It was during this period that Bonnie met Fuzzy Owen and guitarist Roy Nichols - subject of her final recording in 1997. Roy and Fuzzy introduced Bonnie to latter day country legend Merle Haggard in 1961. At the time she was singing with Fuzzy and his band, the Sun Valley Playboys. It was Owen who suggested that she record a duet with Merle.

Released in 1964, their collaboration on Just Between the Two of Us spent six months on the country chart, peaking at #28.

After Capitol Records acquired their recording contracts, she had minor success as a solo artist.

Three of her Capitol singles charted from 1965 until 1969, and her career included six solo albums and two albums of duets with Haggard and the tribute disc to The Hag's late guitarist Nichols.

Bonnie is listed as Haggard's co-writer on Today I Started Loving You Again.

But she later claimed her only contribution to the song involved urging him to delete an extra verse he'd written.

BONNIE - BRIDE AND BRIDESMAID

Bonnie also wed former convict Merle, seven years her junior, in 1965 in a Mexican ceremony. Although they divorced in 1978 they continued touring together until 2000. She also served as a bridesmaid at his next wedding to fellow country singer Leona Williams. Bonnie continued working with Merle & the Strangers until 1991. She resumed touring with him in 1994 and continued her roadwork with him until the late '90s. In a 1999 interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Haggard praised her as performer and person.

"She's got a real unusual voice," he said.

"Once you hear her talk, you'd know her in the dark 300 years from now."

Haggard said his former wife "sort of dropped the torch of her own career to stoke mine."

SOLO CAREER

Bonnie was just 15 when she joined Buck as a member of Mac & the Skillet Lickers, a band that performed on radio station KTYL in Mesa, Arizona.

In 1951, the couple moved to Bakersfield, where she began singing on Herb Henson's local TV show, Cousin Herb's Trading Post Gang, in 1953.

The show's band included Fuzzy Owen and Lewis Tally, who would later establish Tally Records, the label that released Haggard's first singles.

Bonnie Owens' first recording was a duet with Fuzzy Owen, A Dear John Letter, for Mar-Vel Records.

Their collaboration did not hit the charts, but Jean Shepard and Ferlin Husky's version of the song spent six weeks at No. 1 in 1953.

Another single for Delphi Records also failed to chart.

But her first Tally Records single - Why Don't Daddy Live Here Anymore - hit #25 in 1963.

ROY NICHOLS TRIBUTE DISC

Owens last commercial recording was her 1997 tribute disc to Nichols. It included a brace of her original tunes she penned with Buck and Merle. They included Number One Heel - penned with Buck - Turn Me On and Today I Started Loving You Again (with Merle) and No Tomorrow with Melba Ellington.

She also cut her own compositions I'm Glad You're Coming Home, That's A Big 10-4 and Too Bad Charlie, Buck's tune I'll Take A Chance and the Merle-Little Jimmy Dickens classic Shopping For Dresses.

Bonnie chose well-known session serfs who have helped keep the Bakersfield sound alive.

They included drummer Don Heffington, bassist Paul Marshall, steel guitarist Doug Livingston, guitarists Jerry Donahue and Albert Lee, Skip Edwards, piano, accordion, and B-3 organ.

Others were James Intveld - acoustic guitar and vocals, Joe Manuel, guitar, David Vaught bass, Tommy Spurlock, guitar, Jim Goodall, drums, Jeff Ross, guitar, Brian Hofeldt, guitar, vocals Vic Gerrard, bass, Terry Kirkendall - drums, Chris Gaffney, piano and vocals, Rosie Flores, Annie Harvey and Kathy Robertson on vocals.

DISCOGRAPHY

SOLO ALBUMS

Don't Take Advantage Of Me - 1965
All Of Me Belongs To You - 1967
Somewhere Between - 1968
Lead Me On - 1969
A Hi-Fi To Cry By -1969
Mothers Favourite Hymns - 1970
Country Classics Vol. 1 - 1998

DUET DISCS WITH MERLE HAGGARD

Just Between The Two Of Us - 1966
That Makes Two Of Us - 1968

ROY NICHOLS TRIBUTE DISC

To Roy Nichols With Love - Cowgirl Records 1997

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