Live From Austin, TX

Album review

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.

© Mark Deming /TiVo