Musical History
I was born and raised on a small farm in Western NC.
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As far back as I can remember, I’ve loved Country and Gospel music. I’m one of 5 siblings in my family, of which only 3 remain. There were no musical instruments of any kind in our home, but we had a radio to listen to.
No one in my family was interested in playing or learning to play a musical instrument except for me.
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One of my Grandparents lived about four miles from us. She was a widow and lived in an old cabin by herself. I loved her very much and would go stay with her any time I could.
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OR
... THE EARLY YEARS ...
My Aunt would come stay with us at times who had an Arch Top Kay Guitar that she could play a little.
She left it at my grandmother’s home and I was absolutely fascinated with it.
I remember picking it up and strumming the strings even though I didn’t know a single chord on it. I'd play with this guitar and think to myself,
“If I could learn to play, I could be a Country singer.”
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That was harder than I thought it would be because living on a farm back then meant there was a lot of work to be done and we all had chores we had to do every single day – and those chores had BETTER get done without having to be told twice.
At the age of 14, I managed to save up enough money to buy my very own guitar from a pawn shop in Asheville, NC and a 0.50 cent song book that taught the basic chords I’d need to learn. It was a cheap, acoustic guitar that I only paid $15 for.
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Well, I finally had a guitar and a song book that taught the chords. I started to practice every day for at least two hours at a time, sometimes more.
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I remember my mother looking at me one day and saying,
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“Doug! You are driving us crazy with all your beating on that guitar! Go outside or out to the barn if you’re going to keep that up!”
So, that’s just what I did.
NO ONE EVER ASKED ME HOW IT WAS GOING...
Or if I was learning anything… they would all just go somewhere else any time I got it out. That could have been from another problem I had though, looking back on it…
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I didn’t know how to tune it!
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A fellow that I knew had himself a guitar as well and knew how to play a little. He lived about 4-5 miles from me and I’d hop on our little farm tractor we had and drive over to his place with my guitar to see if he’d show me how to tune it.​ After about the second time I went to visit him, he looked at me and asked, “Doug, do you not have a tuner?”
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“What’s that?” I asked​. “A tuner, it’s called a pitch pipe and you use it for your guitar or any other string instruments you’ve got. You can buy one for just a couple of dollars.” – So, I did.​ Finally, I started to learn to play a little and as time went on, I got better.
At the age of 21 I was drafted into the Army...
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I served a 12-month tour in Vietnam and brought along my guitar to play for the others there with me. I was the only musician in my unit until about 4 months later when a fellow from Boston Massachusetts joined us.
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He played guitar, but only by written music and he taught classic guitar. He soon found out I played and wanted to hear some of my music, so I played “Your Cheatin’ Heart” by Hank Williams for him.
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“Who is Hank Williams and just what kind of music is THAT?’ He asked when I had finished.
“It’s Country” I said, “It’s pretty popular in the Southern part of the USA.”
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“Well, write it down for me, I’ll try to learn it too.” He replied.
“Oh, I don’t write music.” I said, “I play by ear, maybe you could learn it that way?”
He told me that he didn’t really like County music, but he’d try to learn it, so we could play together whenever we could.
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I encouraged him to take lead guitar on the songs we played and after a while he started to like it. He even thanked me for teaching him all my music.
Eventually my tour was up, and it was time to return to the good ol’ USA. When we said good-bye, he told me that I had ruined his classical music career, but he didn’t regret it.
ABOUT TWO YEARS AFTER SERVICE, I STARTED A BAND
We sounded pretty bad to start with but of course, with practice we got better.
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Finally, we got some gigs at local bars and nightclubs in our area. After a while we became pretty popular and played clubs and events every week. One year in the month of December we played 21 shows for company parties! We also worked our every day jobs this month too!
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That was hard, but I was younger then.
I didn’t start writing songs until later in my career. In the mid 1970’s I wrote 2 songs that I managed to have recorded in Nashville Tennessee. They were on all the radio stations in my area and made numbers 14 and 15 on the biggest country station in the area which was WWNC at the time.
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I opened for a few Country stars who would play shows in the area and was told that I should move to Nashville and if I did, I just might make it with a major label… But I didn’t know much about how things were done there, and I had my own responsibilities here and never took that chance.
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My band broke up after about 10 years, but I still wrote my songs. I even co-wrote a few with a good friend of mine, Attorney, Bill Slawter.
We had lots of Demos done in Nashville and here, and we had a few songs published in Nashville.
I have only one child, Kimberly Y. Buckner who is my biggest fan.
She would not SHUT UP until I agreed to make an album of my music. I also have quite a lot of friends who are fans who encouraged me to make an album too…
So, I did.
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I sure hope they sell, I’ve invested a lot of time and money into them.
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Well, that’s enough about me. I want to thank my family, friends and fans. Any comments you have are welcome and I hope you enjoy my music. God Bless.
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Again, thanks!
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Doug Buckner
