On the last night of his life, Buck Owens was ready to go home. He was 76, he did not feel well, and he had already told his band they would have to play without him. Then, somewhere between the door of his club and his car, a few strangers changed his mind.
The Fans in the Parking Lot
It was Friday, March 24, 2006, at Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace, the Bakersfield dinner club, concert hall and museum he had opened in 1996. Buck had played there with his Buckaroos almost every weekend for nearly ten years.
That night, he told the band he was not up to it. He was skipping the show and heading home. But as he made his way toward his car, a group of fans stopped him and introduced themselves. They told him they had traveled all the way from Oregon to see him perform.
According to Jim Shaw, his longtime keyboard player and the family’s spokesman, Buck’s answer was pure Buck Owens:
“I might groan and squeak, but I’ll see what I can do.”
He turned around and walked back into the Crystal Palace.
His Favorite Meal
Earlier that evening, Buck Owens had come to the club ahead of time to eat his usual dinner, a chicken-fried steak. Jim Shaw later told the Los Angeles Times that Buck had bragged that it was his favorite meal. His nephew Mel Owens would later recall sitting with him at the Crystal Palace that evening while he ate it.
It was the kind of simple, homegrown meal you would expect from a man who was born in Sherman, Texas, came west with his family during the hard Dust Bowl years and once worked in the cotton fields before music gave him another way to live.
A Man Who Was Not Feeling Well
Buck Owens had been through a lot by then. He had survived throat cancer surgery in 1993 and had been hospitalized with pneumonia in 1997, and later health problems had forced him to cut back on his regular performances. So when he said he did not feel well that night, the people around him knew he meant it.
He went on anyway. By the account of the local paper, he groaned and wheezed his way through the set, but he gave those fans from Oregon, and everyone else in the room, a Buck Owens show.
The Next Morning
After the show, Buck went home. Sometime around 4:30 in the morning on Saturday, March 25, 2006, he died in his sleep at his home in Bakersfield.
When Jim Shaw spoke to reporters that day, he summed it up in one sentence that fans have repeated ever since:
“So he had his favorite meal, played a show and died in his sleep.”
Years earlier, in 1992, Buck Owens had been asked how he hoped to be remembered. Among other things, he said he wanted people to know he showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job. On his very last night, feeling poorly and already on his way out the door, he did exactly that.
Bakersfield Says Goodbye
Before the funeral, family and friends gathered at the Crystal Palace, where his casket rested among flowers on the very dance floor where fans had two-stepped to his music for years.
On Sunday, April 2, about 2,000 friends, family members and fans filled Valley Baptist Church in Bakersfield. Garth Brooks was among the mourners. Dwight Yoakam, the young singer Buck had teamed up with on “Streets of Bakersfield,” sang for him, along with Trace Adkins and Brad Paisley. Buck’s three sons spoke about their father as a stern but loving man who always had good advice.
The Last Encore
Nobody knows the names of those fans from Oregon. But they saw something no one else ever would again: Buck Owens on stage one final time, playing a show he almost did not play, because he could not stand to send them home disappointed.
Did you ever see Buck Owens perform, at the Crystal Palace, on Hee Haw or anywhere else? Share your memories in the comments.