Back in the Buckaroo Saddle Again-

Classic Country Group Reunites After COVID-forced Break

The Buckaroos then with Buck Owens, and now. Photo Buck Owens Private Foundation

Over fifty years ago, Fresno musician Jim Shaw wanted to record his country band Nashville West in a new studio owned by the legendary Buck Owens in Bakersfield.

Little did he know he would meet Buck and be asked to record with him that very day. “Buck was recording and needed a piano player".

He was told there was a piano player in the building: "me.” While Owens did not know Jim, he came out of the studio to meet him and asked whether Jim could play in the session.

That session worked out, and would soon be followed by a few more before Buck asked Jim if he’d like to join the group. “By June of 1970, I was hired as a member of the Buckaroos.”

The Buckaroos with Dean Martin in a photograph from the 1970s. Buck Owens and the Buckaroos appeared on a number of TV variety shows in the seventies including the Ed Sullivan Show, and the Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour. Photo: Buck Owens Private Foundation

Jim has been part of the Buckaroos ever since. He played in the band during the Hee Haw TV show that Buck co-hosted with Roy Clark.

Jim was there for the road appearances, network variety shows, and in the recording studio.

He never left the group. Band members moved on over the years and were replaced by other musicians.

Jim along with Doyle Curtsinger, who joined shortly before Jim, have both remained with the band for over fifty years.

Jim Shaw in the foreground with two other members of the Buckaroos at the band’s reunion concert in March 2023. Photo: Steve Daniels.

The Central Valley’s country music heritage was on full display on the stage of the Buck Owens Crystal Palace in Bakersfield in late March.

The Buckaroos performed for the first time since COVID restrictions closed the place back in 2020.

While the Palace would reopen once restrictions were lifted, the band went into a sort of holding pattern.

Jim Shaw on the keyboards at the Buckaroos reunion shows at the Crystal Palace in Bakersfield. Photo: Steve Daniels

Buck Owens died in 2005, but the band continued performing at the Crystal Palace.

Jim has played with the Buckaroos along with serving as the managing director for the Buck Owens Private Foundation.

The Foundation runs the entertainment, publishing, and recording arms of the singer’s estate. When he signed on, he joined legendary guitarist Don Rich and bass player Doyle Holly who were stalwarts of the band. Holly left a year later to forge a solo career.

Rich died in a motorcycle accident in 1974.

Others became Buckaroos over the past five decades. So the reunion shows took on a special significance.

Vocalist and Buckaroo Kim McAbee was part of the reunion shows the band did in late March of 2023. Photo: Steve Daniels

Also on stage for the reunion was lead singer Buckaroo Kim McAbee.

On her Facebook page, she said of the reunion, “So much fun with the Buckaroos together again after three years.” Jim Shaw echoed the sentiments of Kim and others by saying the two shows at the Crystal Palace went very well. “Friday night was totally sold out and we had an enthusiastic crowd and a train-wreck-free performance.”

When he met Buck more than five decades ago Jim had no idea how his life would change.

“I moved into running Buck’s recording studio and took on other duties over the years. I’ve been a managing director of the Buck Owens Private Foundation for the past seventeen years.”

Buck Owens would perform at his Crystal Palace right up until his passing in 2005. Photo: Buck Owens Private Foundation

Jim describes recording for Buck as an experience that was at times challenging but also inspiring. “It was interesting,” he says of those years. “Buck was hard driving, a perfectionist. On the other hand, he brought out the best of us.”

The Buckaroos band was considered one of the best instrumental groups in country music. That’s due in part to that hard-driving leadership from Buck Owens and in part to the musical magic that can happen many times within a small band. Each member brings in something unique, and when the conditions are right, the results are almost magical.

The Buckaroos were co-founders of the so-called Bakersfield Sound, a distinctive style of country music that focused on a smaller number of musicians and the liberal use of electric guitars.

Buck Owens and Merle Haggard were the best-known country artists who delivered the Bakersfield Sound.

Behind those two country icons were the backup bands. Haggard had the Strangers. Owens had the Buckaroos.

“Back in our heyday, every major country artist had their own band,” Jim said. “Loretta Lynn had the Coal Miners, and Johnny Cash originally had the Tennessee Two. Now, an artist may have a band, but often the faces change, and rarely are they even named.”

It is different for the Buckaroos. They keep the flame burning. Thanks to reunion shows like the two performed in late March in Bakersfield, the Buckaroos continue to keep the Bakersfield Sound alive.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

He has written several Our Community Story columns on the Bakersfield Sound and has featured Bakersfield in two of his books: Can Do Californians and California Back Roads.

Both books are available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Lulu.com as well as at the Merced County Courthouse Museum Gift Shop.