Obit: Bonnie Owens (Haggard) 24 April 2006

Subject: Obit: Bonnie Owens (Haggard)
From: Gene
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 01:01 PM

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. Apr 25, 2006 (AP)— Bonnie Owens, a singer who
married and helped build the careers of country music legends Buck
Owens and Merle Haggard, has died. She was 76.

Owens died at a Bakersfield hospice hospital Monday after a long
battle with Alzheimer's disease.

She recorded a duet with a young Merle Haggard and their rendition
of "Just Between the Two of Us" hit the top of the country charts
in 1965 and won the best vocal group award from the Academy of
Country Music

Bonnie Owens

Subject: RE: Obit: Bonnie Owens (Haggard)
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 04:30 PM

Here's a rather bittersweet tribute to Bonnie written by singer Laura Cantrell.

The Queen Of The Coast
Laura Cantrell, from her album Not The Tremblin' Kind, 2000.

She was the Queen of the Coast back in nineteen sixty five,
Prettier 'n most, she could keep a room alive,
With the catch in her voice and the beehive on her head.
Do you remember anything she ever said?

Well, some stars fade faster than the rest,
And the promise wore off though she did her best.
She finally looked around for somethin' else to do.
What she found was a man who needed what she knew.

Have you forgotten? Have you forgiven?
Tell me are you livin' just a little in your past every day.
Time sure has changed you; it's walked right on by you.
Does it satisfy you to have so little to say?

For the next ten years she rode around on the bus.
She did washin' and ironin' and pickin' up.
She had a place to stand at the back of the stage.
She was there every night, lookin' her age.

She lent her voice, but she gave her heart.
And, I guess, that must've been the hardest part.
She figured out exactly what was goin' on,
All the love she had given for a song.

Then things unravelled like they usually do.
She got her old heart busted up by husband, number two.

Have you forgotten? Have you forgiven?
Tell me are you livin' just a little in your past every day.
Time sure has changed you; it's walked right on by you.
Does it satisfy you to have so little to say?

I'm not quite sure when she got back on the bus.
But she's still washin' and ironin' and pickin' up.
If you look all the way to the back of the stage,
She's standin' at her mic, lookin' her age.

In a roadstop in Reno at supper time,
The waitress comes over with a look in her eye.
Says: "I saw you in Modesto almost thirty years ago,
"An' I can still remember every song in your show."

"Please Help Me, I'm Falling." "Don't Come Home A-Drinking."
Well, there's a pair of swingin' doors for every cowboy sweetheart tonight.
Time sure has changed you; it's walked right on by you.
Does it satisfy you to have so little to say?

Subject: RE: Obit: Bonnie Owens (Haggard)
From: kendall
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 05:04 PM

I liked her voice

Subject: RE: Obit: Bonnie Owens (Haggard)
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 05:07 PM

That's a really sad and poignant song. Sorry to hear of her passing.

Subject: RE: Obit: Bonnie Owens (Haggard)
From: GUEST,Dale
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:31 PM

http://www.bakersfield.com/static/FP/baksound/bonnie.htm


Excellent in depth retrospective from a few years ago.

"I was a follower; Buck and Merle were leaders," she said. "I did what was needed and I did what I could. It was a great time, though. We thought we were as big as Nashville. We didn't have their recording studios and we didn't have the big radio stations, but we had the thing that was more than anything: We had the music."

She admits her diary could be a hot-seller, given her intimate association with Bakersfield's most two prominent musicians.

"I'm very honored to be friends with both of them," she said. "But I never knew they'd be big stars, and I didn't care. When I like somebody, I like 'em all the way."

Subject: RE: Obit: Bonnie Owens (Haggard)
From: Once Famous
Date: 26 Apr 06 - 11:41 PM

I will always love country music.

Subject: RE: Obit: Bonnie Owens (Haggard) 24 April 2006
From: open mike
Date: 12 Dec 10 - 03:50 AM

Her former husband, Buck Owens died about a month before she did...