Discovery of new music to a given listener knows no bounds. Don Rich Sings George Jones came to me in an Omnivore Recordings sale email. The only solo recording made by Dangerous Don Rich, lead guitarist and harmony vocalist for Buck Owens & His Buckaroos. Only it was never released. It took that intrepid label owner Cheryl Pawelski to find and release the recording, and she and her Omnivore Recordings have made a fine art of it.
How the recording came about because in the early- to mid-1960s Buck Owens had been a part of the Capitol Records stable for some time. Each of the Buckaroo band members was given separate contracts with the label to record their projects. Rich was the rare character among characters in the Buckaroos. A trailblazing, Fender-Telecaster-wielding lead guitarist who sang a pretty wicked country harmony.
While Owens’ catalog was primarily known for its sizzling instrumental tracks, almost all of The Buckaroos’ albums also included vocals by Don Rich and other members of the band. Tracks featuring Don’s vocals had become charting singles and the thought of a solo album by Don Rich became a foregone conclusion. It was Owens who suggested to Rich to record a collection of George Jones songs. One thing Don Rich was not was fearful. George Jones was already considered the greatest country voice since Hank Williams and Rich was game to take his catalog on.
The resulting Sings George Jones went into the vault to sleep for the next 40 years. Oddly, this recording never was released as it would have been popular in the period. Recorded in July 1970, the Bakersfield Sound was peaking in popularity. Bakersfield gave the Jones songs a hard far West edge. As a singer, Rich was reliable, if not a bit of a straight-man foil to Owens in the Buckaroos. Rich’s George Jones is a homage to the great voice that defined country music after Hank Williams died in 1953. Rich never tries to imitate Jones, only celebrates him.
Don Rich died in a motorcycle accident four years after the recording of Sings George Jones, leaving the open question of what a solo career would have looked like. This album is just a glimpse of that possibility.