Buck Owens and the Buckaroos - At the Mint: Las Vegas 1968 (Vinyl LP)

Buck Owens and the Buckaroos At the Mint: Las Vegas 1968 on LP: Previously Unreleased Live Show, Taken from the Original Capitol Reels, Cut by Kevin Gray & Pressed at IRP.

Buck's 1968 lost live album recorded at The Mint Hotel & Casino not only failed to chart; it failed to exist – until now. Along with Buckaroos Don Rich, Doyle Holly, Tom Brumley and Jerry Wiggins, Buck and the gang romp through hits and deeper cuts all from the long-lost original Capitol reels!

This album just might hold the record for length of time between recording and release. Sure, there have been plenty of live recordings made that weren't released until decades later (Exhibit A: Chet Baker), but how many albums that were on a major label's release schedule for 1968 are still waiting to be heard?

One of the decisions made about Buck Owens & the Buckaroos At the Mint has been to leave it rawer than Capitol Records originally planned back in '68. Rather than make the kind of edits Ralph Emery refers to in his warm-up monologue, Sundazed takes the listener "behind the scenes" aurally, including comments from Ralph and Buck that would surely have been edited out. In fact, as funny as Doyle Holly is on this release, it's highly unlikely Capitol would have allowed Doyle's "We can't say 'hell' or anything" line to survive

The crowds at the Mint got to experience the true artist – the Boss of Bakersfield who pre-dated the bumpkin in the backwards-worn overalls sitting on a bale of hay. In March of 1968, the man was at the absolute peak of his musical powers. He was indeed, in the words of emcee Ralph Emery, "America's #1 country music singer – Buck Owens."