Buddy Alan, or Buddy Alan Owens as he was also known, was the son of West Coast country music legend Buck Owens and Buck's first wife, singer Bonnie Owens. Buddy Alan joined his dad's entertainment empire when he was a young man, released a handful of albums in the early 1970s, met with middling success, and appeared regularly on the Hee Haw TV show. After a while, he decided to move into the background and retire from the music business, but reemerged a few years later as a radio station music director. Here's a quick look at his work...
Buddy Alan "The Best Of Buddy Alan Owens" (Sundazed, 2007)
Probably the best best-of we'll ever see of his work, a good sampling of what are generally considered a string of so-so albums, on a par with folks like -- oh, I dunno, The Hagers, or someone like that. Anyway, if you want to check out this guy's work, here it is! Includes duets with Buck and Don Rich, and Buddy's handful of chart hits, as well as some of his work for indie labels later on...
Buddy Alan "The Best Of Buddy Alan" (Capitol, 1972) (LP)
Buddy Alan "Wild, Free And Twenty-One" (Capitol, 1970) (LP)
It should be mentioned that the album's title is a nicey-nice version of an old Southern saying, "free, white and twenty-one," which my stepfather who grew up in Florida assures me was a consciously racist term. I'm not saying that Buddy Alan was a racist, but I guess this album does help us pinpoint the moment in time when saying those sort of things in public wasn't considered okay anymore. Anyway, this was Buddy Alan's debut, and it's got some good stuff on it, including "When I Turn Twenty-One" and "I Wanna Be Wild And Free," although not his hit duet with his dad, "Let The World Keep A'Turning," which I guess officially counts as a Buck Owens song, appearing on Buck's 1968 It Takes People Like You To Make People Like Me album...
Buddy Alan "A Whole Lot Of Something" (Capitol, 1970) (LP)
Buddy Alan & Don Rich "We're Real Good Friends" (Capitol, 1971) (LP)
(Produced by Buck Owens & Lee Furr)
A relentlessly novelty-oriented album, with bland uptempo pop arrangements and uninspired vocals. This includes a bunch of originals, with several by Don Rich and Buck Owens, a couple by Buddy Alan and two covers of oldies by Bill Carlisle ("No Help Wanted" and "Too Old To Cut The Mustard," a song that Alan re-recorded as a duet with dad on his next album...) There's stuff on here like "Cowboy Convention," "Wham Bam" and "There Ain't Nobody Chickener Than Me," all pretty hokey and forgettable. This kind of comedic material might have played well on Hee Haw and in Buck's road show, but listening to a whole album of it is a pretty gruelling chore. For hardcore fans, only. Honest.
Buddy Alan & Buck Owens "Too Old To Cut The Mustard?" (Capitol, 1972) (LP)
This version of Bill Carlisle's "Too Old To Cut The Mustard" was a duet with Buddy and his dad that cracked into the Top 30, one of Alan's few significant chart hits...
Buddy Alan "Chains/Another Saturday Night" (Capitol, 1975) (LP)
