Country legend Buck Owens scored hits with "Bakersfield sound"

Buck Owens, one of country music's leading stars and a host of the long-running television show "Hee Haw," died Saturday at his Bakersfield, Calif., home. He was 76.

The cause was not immediately known. He was treated for cancer in 1993 and pneumonia in 1997, but he had been in good health in recent years and performed regularly at his Bakersfield nightclub.

By blending rock 'n' roll rhythms with country harmonies, Mr. Owens created the distinctive "Bakersfield sound." Between 1959 and 1974, he had 45 songs in the country Top 10, along with 20 No. 1 hits, including "Act Naturally" (1963), "Love's Gonna Live Here" (1963), "Together Again" (1964), "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail" (1964) and "Waitin' in Your Welfare Line" (1966).

He unquestionably was the leading country-music star of the 1960s, annually selling more than 1 million records. He performed more than 300 nights a year and appeared at Carnegie Hall and the White House. In the mid-1960s, he had 15 consecutive No. 1 country hits. As a patriotic gesture in the late 1960s, he began using a red-white-and-blue guitar.

From 1969 to 1986, Mr. Owens and Roy Clark were the hosts of the comedy and country-music program "Hee Haw." He also had a syndicated series, "Buck Owens' Ranch Show," from 1966 to 1972.

Except for "Hee Haw," Mr. Owens stopped performing in 1979 to focus on his business enterprises.

His career had a late resurgence after a younger Bakersfield country star, Dwight Yoakam, walked into Mr. Owens' office on Sept. 23, 1987, and asked him to join him onstage that night at a county fair. Mr. Owens collaborated with Yoakam the next year on "Streets of Bakersfield," which became Mr. Owens' 21st No. 1 hit.

Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. was born Aug. 12, 1929, in Sherman, Texas, where his father was a sharecropper. To escape the Dust Bowl, 10 family members headed west in 1937, stopping in Mesa, Ariz., where their car broke down.

Mr. Owens quit school at 13 to work in cotton and potato fields and later was a truck driver and ditch digger. By 16, he was performing in Arizona clubs and on radio. He married his first wife, singer Connie Campbell Owens, when he was 17 and performing with a group called Mac's Skillet Lickers. He moved to Bakersfield in 1951.

He played trumpet, saxophone, harmonica, piano and drums but was best known for his Telecaster electric guitar.

After signing a contract with Capitol Records in 1957, Mr. Owens formed a band, the Buckaroos, named by a fellow Bakersfield singer and musician, Merle Haggard. (Haggard later married Mr. Owens' ex-wife.)

From 1958 to 1960, Owens lived in Puyallup, where he had a radio show and played in clubs.

Mr. Owens' vast holdings included real estate, television and radio stations, a television production company and a management company. By the time his nightclub, Buck Owens' Crystal Palace, opened in 1996, he had an estimated worth of $100 million.

His three marriages ended in divorce. Survivors include three sons, one of whom performs country music as Buddy Alan.