Doyle Holly, der famose Bassist von Buck Owens‘ Buckaroos ist gestorben. R.i.p.!
SundazedTHE END OF THE TRAIL FOR BUCKAROOS‘ BASSIST DOYLE HOLLY
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Doyle Holly, the man responsible for the thumping bass beat of Buck Owens‘ backup band, the Buckaroos, during their creative apex died Saturday Jan. 13 in Nashville of prostate cancer at the age of 70. Born Doyle Floyd Hendricks on June 30, 1936 in Perkins, Okla., Holly moved to Bakersfield and worked the Kern County oil fields by day, then played the city’s booming honky tonks by night.
Holly assumed the bass duties in the Buckaroos in 1963 when the band’s previous bassist, Merle Haggard, decided to pursue a solo career. Holly remained with the band through 1971, an extremely fertile period that saw Owens and the Buckaroos—who also included guitarist Don Rich, steel guitar player Don Brumley and drummer Willie Cantu—top the country charts year after year.
As Holly put it recently, „Everybody was in the right place at the right time.“ Owens‘ oldest son, who recorded successfully under the name Buddy Alan, notes that the Bakersfield Sound the Buckaroos created was just loud and raunchy enough to be considered „country rock ’n‘ roll“ and was a lively alternative to the more traditional sounds coming from Nashville at the time.
Holly gained enough national exposure on Owens‘ television series „Hee Haw“ to quit the band and begin a successful solo career that saw him release a pair of Top 20 hits of his own. But he left the recording business to open a musical instrument shop in suburban Nashville where he remained until reuniting with the surviving Buckaroos (Don Rich was killed in a motorcycle accident in 1974) to record a bluegrass album called Together Again.