Records and Roots: The Bakersfield Sound lives on

Don Rich's Fender Telecaster alongside the sparkling Fender Telecaster of his boss and mentor Buck Owens. Phooey on a Stradivarius. Just behind clear as the truth glass, it felt like I could reach out, grab, plug in and play those wildly historic country music guitars.I stood inside the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. And yes, indeed, I gawked. Maybe even drooled.That exhibit, The Bakersfield Sound: Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and California Country, closed its run on Dec. 31, 2014. Like the musicians on display and the songs heard while walking in its midst, memories linger.For example, Rich's sparkling 1951 Fender Telecaster, was there. Imagination intact, one could hear Rich duet with Owens on their seminal instrumental, "Buckaroo."That recollection revived today. Don Rich was born on Aug. 15, 1941. He died on July 17, 1974 from injuries incurred during a motorcycle crash. Alas, his death took more than his life; Buck Owens told me that when Rich died, his sound essentially went to grave with him."It took the wind out of my sails," Owens, disheartened even decades later, said.Owens and Rich helped create a movement that thrived on hard-driving country music. Owens, one of country music's most accomplished guitarists, had the style well in mind when he hired Rich, who played fiddle and guitar.They met in 1958, Texan Buck Owens moved from California to Washington. Rich was playing shows in South Tacoma, Washington, where they met at a restaurant named Steve's Gay 90s. Rich played in the house band, Jim Torrence and His Jazzmasters. Rich played guitar, fiddle, and sang under his birth name, Don Ulrich.Owens hired Rich to play fiddle and sing harmony. Some of their first appearances came when Owens secured his own television show, the weekly BAR-K Jamboree, on Tacoma's KTNT television. Owens named his band the Bar-K Gang, which among others included Rich on fiddle and Dusty Rhodes on steel guitar.A sidenote about KTNT. In 1960, Loretta Lynn made her television debut on KTNT.By then, Owens had returned to California with Rich. Owens' first recording session with Rich, who played fiddle, was on Dec. 23, 1959 at Capitol Recording Studio in Hollywood, California. Two of the four songs, Harlan Howard's "Above and Beyond" and "Excuse Me (I Think I've Got a Heartache)," which Owens wrote with Howard, became standards in the Owens canon.Rich first recording on which he played guitar with Owens came on March 6, 1961. Once again at Capitol in Hollywood, Rich played acoustic guitar on one track, "The Keeper of the Key," of six songs recorded that day. Five more songs were done the next day, each of them features Rich on fiddle. Collectively, the songs became Owens' album, "Buck Owens Sings Harlan Howard."Later that year, Don Rich made his first electric guitar appearance on a Buck Owens record. He's playing second lead guitar to Owens lead guitar on a pair of instrumentals, "Mexican Polka" and "Country Polka," each of which were recorded at Capitol in Hollywood on Sept. 27, 1961.Owens' seminal and highly influential sound came incrementally thereafter. He formed his band, The Buckaroos, in 1963. Their style planted its deepest roots on Feb. 12, 1963 at Capitol in Hollywood. Rich played electric lead guitar on the songs "Act Naturally" and "My Heart Skips a Beat," each of which proved to become bedrocks in the style of Buck and the Buckaroos.On June 15, 1963, Owens' recording of Johnny Russell's "Act Naturally" became his first of 21 number one country singles. "My Heart Skips a Beat," which was rerecorded on Jan. 8, 1964 at Capitol, became Owens' second chart topping record.The Beatles, who shared a record label with Owens, recorded "Act Naturally" in 1965. Owens told me that they were fans of country music's hotshot from Bakersfield."The Beatles had it in their contract that they were to receive copies of every new album that I released," Owens said. "Yeah, they were fans of mine. You know, I later recorded some with Ringo Starr."Few if any country acts were hotter than Buck Owens and His Buckaroos between 1963 and 1970. All but two of Owens' number one records came during that time. Two things, according to Owens, began their downward spiral.First, in 1969, Owens was hired to co-host television's "Hee Haw" with Roy Clark. Then came the death of Don Rich in 1974. By then, though, the legacy of Buck Owens, Don Rich, and the Buckaroos was firmly cemented.Bakersfield replaced Nashville's strings and syrup with twang and tone. Whereas the Nashville Sound embraced highbrow uptown, ties and tuxes, the Bakersfield Sound embodied honky-tonkin' downtown, blue collars and blue jeans.Neither Buck Owens and Don Rich nor Merle Haggard and Roy Nichols invented what came to be termed the Bakersfield Sound.But as with the Roy Acuff wail on A.P. Carter's "Wabash Cannon Ball," Buck Owens and Don Rich echoed a style that's etched as if in bronze in the annals of country music history. It's as distinctive as a sip of Coca-Cola. Buck was The Lone Ranger to Ron's Tonto.And you betcha, I dream and sometimes even drool when I hear Buck Owens play alongside his Tonto, the Fender Tele toting Don Rich.