IT’S A BAKERSFIELD KIND OF CHRISTMAS AT OMNIVORE
Buck Owens’ A Merry ‘Hee Haw’ Christmas due in stores November 13.
Many of us are flat-out done with 2020 and are ready to turn the page on the hole damn year. Now there’s a something to make the upcoming holidays a little bit more wonderful.
The fine folks Omnivore Recordings will release Buck Owens’ A Merry ‘Hee Haw’ Christmas (out on November 13, 2020). The original title, released in 1970, combined Owens’ two Christmas albums for Capitol (Christmas With Buck Owens and His Buckaroos and Christmas Shopping) as one package. Now, in its CD and digital debut, A Merry ‘Hee Haw’ Christmas is augmented by four bonus tracks: “All I Want for Christmas Is My Daddy,†“Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy (Daddy Looked a Lot Like Him),†and two Toys for Tots public service announcements originally issued on a 1972 Capitol promotional single.
Buck Owens was born Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. in in Sherman, Texas on August 12, 1929. He was one of the pioneers of the Bakersfield country sound, along with Merle Haggard, Susan Raye and Jean Shepard, and arguably its most consistent hit-maker. Owens co-hosted the prime-time comedy variety show Hee Haw with Roy Clark. The inductee to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame operated Bakersfield’s Crystal Palace music venue, which continues to present live country music long after his passing on March 25, 2006.
Buck Owens and His Buckaroos popularity in 1960s made them a natural for the lucrative Christmas music market. Buck and his band recorded two classic Christmas albums for Capitol: First Christmas With Buck Owens and His Buckaroos in 1965, and Christmas Shopping in 1968. Not only did both albums make the Billboard Christmas Album Chart (Christmas With charted multiple times — #12 in 1965, and #23 in both 1966 and 1967, and #31 for Christmas Shopping), but they both threw off charting singles as well. “Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy (Daddy Looked a Lot Like Him),†drawn from Christmas With, proved to be so popular a holiday favorite it charted twice, hitting #2 in 1965 and two years later, in December ’67, revisiting the charts and making it to #18. In 1968, it was the title track of the second classic Christmas offering, Christmas Shopping, which made it to #5.
Going back to the holiday well in 1970, Capitol cashed in again with a double LP distillation of the two albums called A Merry ‘Hee Haw’ Christmas, which would chart at #34. For that compilation, two songs were omitted, one from each original album, and they’ve been reinstated for Omnivore’s reissue. “All I Want For Christmas Is My Daddy†was left off the Christmas Shopping disc, while “Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy (Daddy Looked a Lot Like Him)†was lost from the Christmas With album — a curious omission since it was the most successful Christmas single ever offered by Buck.
Grammy®-Nominated- and Award-winning producers Patrick Milligan and Cheryl Pawelski produced the CD with Estate approval. Newly remastered from the original analog master tapes by Grammy®Award-winning engineer Michael Graves, these holiday favorites sparkle and shine like never before.
When a pre-release source becomes available we’ll update this post with a link.
A Merry ‘Hee Haw’ Christmas track listing
1. Christmas Shopping
2. Christmas Time Is Near
3. The Jolly Christmas Polka
4. All I Want For Christmas Is My Daddy
5. Merry Christmas From Our House To Yours
6. Good Old Fashioned Country Christmas
7. One Of Everything You Got
8. Home On Christmas Day
9. Christmas Schottische
10. A Very Merry Christmas
11. It’s Not What You Give
12. Tomorrow Is Christmas Day
13. Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy (Daddy Looked A Lot Like Him)
14. Blue Christmas Lights
15. Christmas Ain’t Christmas
16. Jingle Bells
17. All I Want For Christmas Dear Is You
18. Santa’s Gonna Come In A Stagecoach
19. Christmas Time’s A Comin’
20. Blue Christmas Tree
21. Here Comes Santa Claus Again
22. Christmas Morning
23. It’s Christmas Time For Everyone But Me
24. Because It’s Christmas Time
25. Toys For Tots (Version 1) [Bonus Track]
26. Toys For (Version 2) [Bonus Track]