Live in Texas: Buck Owens – Live From Austin and Charley Pride – In Person 7-15-21

Buck Owens had been out of music for close to a dozen years when, prompted by the success of friend and fan Dwight Yoakam, he made a vocal cameo on Yoakam‘s cover of “Streets of Bakersfield” and cut a new album, Hot Dog!, in 1988. But to listen to this set, which Owens recorded warming up for Yoakam at a taping of the PBS series Austin City Limits in the fall of 1988, you’d never guess the man had been away from the stage at all. Live from Austin TX captures Owens in great, energetic form, and if his voice is just a bit less strong than it was in his youth, there’s no doubting he was having terrific fun playing before an audience in his home state of Texas. There aren’t a lot of surprises in the set list, but Owens and his band tear into “Love’s Gonna Live Here Again,” “Tiger by the Tail,” and “Act Naturally” as if they were still storming up the charts, and Buck indulges his passion for rock & roll with high-spirited runs through “Johnny B. Goode,” “Memphis,” and “Hot Dog.” Owens had lost none of his gift with a weeper, either, as “Crying Time” and “A-11” prove beyond a doubt. If there’s a flaw to this set, it’s that Owens performed only a bit longer than 29 minutes this evening, with Yoakam waiting in the wings to play his own set. But what Live from Austin TX lacks in quantity, it certainly has in quality; this isn’t a revelation like the amazing 1966 Live at Carnegie Hall album, but it does show that Buck Owens never lost his love for great honky tonk music, and he always made sure to deliver the goods for his fans, which he unquestionably did this evening.

Charley Pride‘s 1969 album In Person is that rare live album that rates right alongside the artist’s studio long-players. Recorded at Panther Hall in Fort Worth, TX, it features impeccable sound and captures Pride at his most genial — he shows an amazing sense of humor about his unusual status in the country music pecking order — as well as in excellent voice, as he offers up concert renditions of his own hits (“Just Between You and Me,” etc.) as well as classics by Hank Williams (“Lovesick Blues,” “Kaw-Liga”), Conway Twitty‘s “The Image of Me,” and Dave Dudley‘s “Six Days on the Road,” among others, and closes with an extraordinary rendition of “Cotton Fields.” His singing is wonderful, his yodeling superb, and the whole vibe of this show is so positive as to make it the perfect introduction to Pride‘s work. Indeed, if there is any flaw to this album at all, it’s the 28-minute running time, but what’s here is so good that it’s substantial regardless of the brevity.