1973 Buck White & The Downhomers Bluegrass Musicians - 4-Page Vintage Article

Description

1973 Buck White & The Downhomers Bluegrass Musicians - 4-Page Vintage Article
Original, vintage magazine article
Page Size: Approx 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
The sprawling, desolate Texas plains have never been the
spawning ground of bluegrass talent that the Appalachians
have. Involved for years with its own gift of genius to American
music----Western Swing----Texas has made bluegrass music
fight hard for a toehold out there, even today.
Yet the state of Texas produced one of the most creative
bluegrass musicians of our day, largely, perhaps, because of the
fertility and the variety of musical forms from which Buck
White was able to draw in developing his distinctive style: swing,
old-time, blues, western, fiddle tunes, south-of-the-border,
bluegrass, and jazz. It is this cross-pollination in his mandolin
style which makes his music so refreshing, music which creates
an aural excitement that goes beyond technical proficiency.
Buck was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the son of a
construction worker, who moved back to his native Wichita
Falls, Texas, a few months after Buck’s birth. His father was a
semi-professional buck dancer, who also tried his hand at the
clarinet and the trumpet, but Buck didn’t begin to try to play
an instrument until he was thirteen, when he attempted to
take up the drums.
Only one thing stood between him and a career as a drum-
mer----iack of drums. His grandmother did have a piano how-
ever, and with her help, and that of a local professional pianist
named Henry Dockins, he soon put his natural talents to
practice. He picked up a few records, and was heavily influenced
by the playing of two great blues/boogie-woogie pianists,
Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson.
Buck played piano (and its asthmatic cousin, the accordian)
all through high school, but “fell in love with the mandolin at
first sight”, as he puts it, when introduced to it by a friend,
Red Fields. In his senior year in high school, he picked up a
Martin mandolin for §40, and shortly thereafter traded it and
his fancy accordian in on a Gibson F-12.
Buck started at Midwestern University after graduation, but
gave it up after a semester. He had been in a western/old time
band----The Blue Sage Boys----his senior year in high school,
and they had been playing a 5:30 AM radio show every morn-
ing, while booking out occasional shows in the evening. When
the opportunity came for them to move to Abilene in 1950,
to become regulars on the newly formed K.RBC “Hillbilly
Circus”, the youngsters jumped at the chance.
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