Discussion
Buck Owens and George Jones
|
|
Patty created this thread 8 months ago
|
I just read George Jones autobiography 'I Lived To Tell It All'. In the book George does tell a couple of stories about his relationship with Buck.
In the 1960's George did an extended tour with Buck and every night George and Buck would get into a argument about who would go on last and thus get top billing. George tried to get Buck to agree that each one of them would take turns closing the show, to which Buck would not agree to. Buck's career, according to George, was "smoking hot" at this time. In Canada, George decided he was going to "fix" Buck, so he went out before Buck and decided to sing only Buck's songs. As George explained it, he did not leave Buck any of his own songs to sing. George walks off stage, passes Buck and sneers, "You're on". Buck went on and sang the exact same songs George had just sang.
1994, Faron Young weighed in on George and Buck's relationship by saying Buck was not overly fond of George. About a month later Buck explained that the friction between him and George came because Faron Young was paying Buck $25 more than he paid George, when they had both toured with Faron. Faron and Buck both argued with George that Buck deserved the extra $25 because Buck had to drive to Nashville from Bakersfield and George just had to drive from Texas to Nashville. George argued with Faron and Buck that it would just be simpler if Buck would just moved to east.
And one more story. Buck and George were playing in NC and Buck insisted on closing the show. So while Buck was singing a ballad, George put on some Bermuda shorts and did a jig behind the band. George said he looked like a "banty rooster". The audience was laughing and carrying on and Buck and the Buckeroos could not fiqure out what was so funny. According to Jones, by the time Buck turned around to look, he, George was gone. Buck did finally catch George and of course Buck was not too happy with George.
George goes on to write that in 1994, Buck contributed information for George's book and laughed about their earlier disputes. George writes that Buck had alot of good things to say about his music and career and George says he is so thankful that Buck could overlook some of the things George had said and done to Buck during those years.