Buck Owens And His Buckaroos: “I’ve Got You On My Mind Again” (1968/2021) CD Review

This year Omnivore Recordings has been re-issuing a lot of Buck Owens’ work from the late 1960s and early 1970s, including 1968’s I’ve Got You On My Mind Again (which was one of six Buck Owens albums released that year). This one features almost all original material, written by Buck Owens. The band backing him includes Don Rich on guitar, Doyle Holly on guitar and bass, Tom Brumley on steel guitar and dobro, Bob Morris on bass, and Jerry Wiggins on drums and tambourine, with Buddy Alan on guitar, Jelly Sanders on guitar, Jimmy Bryant on guitar, Red Wooten on bass, Earle Poole Ball on piano, and Willie Cantu on drums and tambourine. There is also a string section and several backing vocalists. This re-issue has the tracks in the original configuration, without bonus tracks, but with new liner notes by Randy Poe, and mastered from the original analog tapes by Michael Graves at Osiris Studio in Los Angeles.

The album opens with its title track, “I’ve Got You On My Mind Again,” a wonderful and sweet song about being stuck on someone who is no longer there, about the pain and longing and loneliness brought by her absence. Country music is so good at tackling those feelings, and Buck Owens’ voice has the right amount of pain in it, helping to make this track one of the disc’s highlights. “But that same old hurt is back once more/It’s hurt since you walked out the door/And as the long day ends and the lonely night begins/I’ve got you on my mind again.” This track not only features some good work on steel guitar, but also piano. That’s followed by “Let The World Keep On A Turnin’,” a delightful song that features Buck Owens’ son on vocals and guitar, setting up a pattern of alternating between fast and slow songs on this album. This one was released as a single, and so also included on Buck ‘Em Volume Two: The Music Of Buck Owens (1967-1975). It was also included on the 2019 boxed set The Bakersfield Sound: Country Music Capital Of The West  1940 – 1974.

“Don’t Let True Love Slip Away” is a pretty song about love, and about not taking true love lightly, for it doesn’t come along every day. This track features another excellent vocal performance from Buck Owens. “Who’s going to hold you when you’re old and gray/Oh, don’t let true love slip away.” That’s followed by a more lively number, “I Wanna Be Wild And Free,” taking things in quite a different direction, with Buck singing “I don’t want no strings attached/Lord knows I’ve had enough of that.” But even though he sings “I don’t want to be tied down,” you get the sense he’s talking more about jobs and responsibilities than about love and relationships. He then returns to the great sad country sound with “Where Has Our Love Gone?” “What ever happened to tenderness/It just disappeared with gentleness/Or did they run away with togetherness/Oh, where has our love gone?” Here you get the sense of a man seated alone in his home, completely at a loss as to what went wrong.

“Sing A Happy Song” is another lively, cheerful tune, even as he sings lines like “Well, it’s a sad old world that we live in/A man told me yesterday/Well, he said I didn’t have any reason to care/Because tomorrow I’d be blown away” and “Well, today you need a program/To see who’s a-shooting who.” Those lines seem even more striking today, when gun violence is a daily occurrence. We just had yet another school shooting. But again, this is a happy-sounding song. It even has hand claps. “Be thankful to be living.” Yeah, because who the hell knows when some stupid trigger-happy lunatic will open fire? This is the only song on the album not written by Buck Owens. It was written by Bill Graham and Charlie Williams. Buck Owens follows that with “That’s All Right With Me (If It’s All Right With You).” I love the pretty guitar work on this track. “But me minus you adds up to nothing/And I was nothing ‘til you gave my life a start.”

Buck Owens’ son joins him again on “I’ll Love You Forever And Ever,” which moves at a good clip and features more good work on guitar. Buck Owens follows that with “Love Is Me,” another fast song, abandoning the pattern of alternating between fast and slow songs. And it’s a fun one. Sure, maybe it’s a bit cheesy, but that’s totally all right. “For the name of game is love/And love is me.” Then we get “Hurry, Come Running Back To Me,” a slower gem about an uncertain love. “I’ve done everything I could to make you happy/Yes, I’ve given everything that I could give/But the best I had to offer couldn’t hold you/You just couldn’t seem to live the way I live.” Those lines are similar to some in “The Heartaches Have Just Started,” in which Buck Owens sings “But the best I had to offer wasn’t good enough for you.” That’s followed by “Alabama, Louisiana, Or Maybe Tennessee,” a fun, rocking number about getting on a train after suffering some heartache, eager to leave, and not caring exactly where to. “Any place that I can find to lose your memory.” Check out that great lead on piano. Yeah, this is pretty close to a rock and roll song, and is one of my personal favorites of this album. “Well, I’m going to start all over/‘Cause I got a lot of living to do/And the sooner that I get started/The sooner I’ll forget about you.” The album concludes with “I Ain’t A Gonna Be Treated This A Way,” another lively tune. The title is also a line in Woody Guthrie’s “Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad.” This one features more good work on piano, as well as on steel guitar. “If you don’t take on a big transition/You’re going to see a change in my disposition/‘Cause I ain’t a gonna be treated this a way.”

CD Track List

1. I’ve Got You On My Mind Again
2. Let The World Keep On A Turnin’
3. Don’t Let True Love Slip Away
4. I Wanna Be Wild And Free
5. Where Has Our Love Gone?
6. Sing A Happy Song
7. That’s All Right With Me (If It’s All Right With You)
8. I’ll Love You Forever And Ever
9. Love Is Me
10. Hurry, Come Running Back To Me
11. Alabama, Louisiana, Or Maybe Tennessee
12. I Ain’t A Gonna Be Treated This A Way

This re-issue of I’ve Got You On My Mind Again was released on August 6, 2021 through Omnivore Recordings. Also released on that date were Sweet Rosie Jones and Tall Dark Stranger.