Buck Owens and His Buckaroos Live Album at The Bellevue Theater

by Stephen McCarthy 03.2025

Later this month, Omnivore Records will release a vinyl album of a unique concert that was recorded in the Bellevue Theater about 60 years ago and featured one of the premier musical groups of the era—Buck Owens and His Buckaroos. The Exciting Sounds Of Buck Owens And His Buckaroos Live From Richmond, Virginia, 1964 is the earliest full-concert recording of The Buckaroos onstage. In this concert, the band illustrates how their presence and performance in front of a live audience cemented their status as one of the greatest acts of all time—in person and on record.

Painstakingly restored and mastered by Grammy-winning engineer Michael Graves, this album portrays a band ready to take over the world. Buck Owens and His Buckaroos enjoyed an unprecedented hot streak during this period. From 1963 through 1972 they placed 20 singles atop the country charts. The only apt comparison would be to their label mates at Capitol Records—The Beatles. The Fab Four also had 20 number one hits on the pop charts and they were big fans of Buck Owens. This was abundantly clear when they covered his first chart topping single Act Naturally in 1965. Ringo sang it and it was placed as the flip side to their smash hit, Yesterday.  Paying homage to The Beatles, Buck and His Buckaroos did a cover of Twist and Shout at the Bellevue Theater concert which is included on this album.

Buck and his band were touring behind their latest release, Together Again/My Heart Skips A Beat when they pulled up to the understated art deco movie theater at 4028 MacArthur Avenue on Richmond’s Northside. It was September 14, 1964 and both shows—one at 7:30, the other at 9:30—were sold out. Tickets were two dollars.  This was the classic version of the Buckaroos with Buck on lead vocals and acoustic guitar; Don Rich: on vocals, fiddle, and electric guitar; Doyle Holly on vocals and bass guitar; and seventeen-year-old Willie Cantu on drums. 

Prior to the discovery of this recording last year, the earliest known live recording of the band was from the famous, award-winning Live at Carnegie Hall album that was taped in March 1966.  The Richmond concert was performed eighteen months earlier. 

The Richmond concert benefited from the professional recording equipment that was used in the Bellevue Theater for its weekly live broadcasts of The New Dominion Barn Dance. In those days, most venues did not possess that kind of equipment.  

Side one of this album is stacked with no less than five number one hits, incredibly the first four tunes performed were all chart toppers. Buck asks before the first note is played, “Is that going to work alright for your tape machine”? They then launch into Act Naturally and it’s evident from the first downbeat how well Buck and Don harmonize together. It’s no wonder that when he spotted the fiddle-playing Don Ulrich in Tacoma, Washington in the late 1950s he would want to hire him. At the age of 19 this young man would soon become the band leader of The Buckaroos until his tragic motorcycle death in 1974. 

The group then breaks into Love’s Gonna Live Here, which remained number one on the country charts for 16 weeks, a record that wouldn’t be broken for 49 years. Don’s telecaster is so crisp and clean, it sounds as if it were recorded last week, not 60 years ago.

Together Again follows, featuring the great pedal steel guitarist Tom Brumley.  A stellar musician, his solo on this tune is revered by steel guitar players everywhere for its beauty and inventiveness. The song has been covered numerous times by such artists as Ray Charles, Emmy Lou Harris and Vince Gill.

Next up is the Buck original, My Heart Skips A Beat. The group continues with Orange Blossom Special, and Don rightly gets the spotlight here. Doyle Holly summons his fine baritone for the cowboy ballad Streets Of Laredo. The band then fires up their then-current single which was heading toward the top spot on the charts--I Don’t Care (Just As Long As You Love Me.) More great harmonies and guitar work from Don. They close out side one with the classic Red Simpson number, Close Up The Honky Tonks. 

Side two is equally impressive with such hits as A-11 and Hello Trouble. The boss’s impressive guitar skills are featured on the medley Mexican Polka/Buck’s Polka. Tom Brumley gets another spotlight on an instrumental version of Release Me. A few more numbers are played and then the album closes out with a corny, but funny, take on the Phil Medley/Bert Berns song Twist and Shout. The Beatles are mentioned as they were taking America by storm at that point and had cut the rocking number the previous year.

This live album features an abundance of great songs and performances, along with occasional cornball humor that surfaces during a few tunes, or even as stage patter between songs, and the audience loves it. This became big part of the barn dances held in this same theater on Saturday nights. It’s no wonder that this would lead Buck to join up with Roy Clark on Hee Haw a mere five years after this concert for a 17-year run.

In 2024, the original recording arrived at Omnivore Records via The Buck Owens foundation and Jim Shaw. The tape was in such poor shape that it was in need a full restoration before it could be released. The label brought in mastering audio engineer ace, Michael Graves, of Osiris Studios, to restore the recording with technology that didn’t even exist five years before that time. The album was produced by Cheryl Pawelski and Scott Bomar. Scott, an authority on Bakersfield music, contributed extensive liner notes.

On a final note I’d like to thank my good friend Greg Allen, art director at Omnivore Records. He alerted me to this great discovery over breakfast in LA last November. I have been a life- long fan of Buck Owens and His Buckaroos and had the good fortune to meet him one night in the late 1980s at a concert in Los Angeles with Dwight Yoakam.