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Worldwide Buck Owens has released more live albums than any other country artist. His first was recorded at Carnegie Hall on March 25, 1966. Though not the first country album to be recorded there it was the most successful topping the Billboard Country Album chart for 5 weeks during the early fall of 1966. Thanks to the exceptional success of that live album Capitol Records wanted another. Buck & his Buckaroos band, Producer Ken Nelson and their wives all traveled to Japan to record a concert in early 1967. A recent personal change had brought bass player Wayne Wilson into the Buckaroos replacing Doyle Holly who had left in late 1966. The standing room only concert at the Kosei Nenkin Hall in Tokyo was recorded on February 6, 1967. However unlike the Carnegie Hall concert which primarily featured Buck’s previous hits, the “In Japan!” album was dominated by brand new songs. Buck’s comments were translated to the audience by emcee Tetsuo Otsuka (Ted) which became fodder for much of the humor between songs. The album was released on May 1, 1967 and as with the Carnegie Hall set no singles were released. With minimal radio exposure this album rose to the top of the album chart demonstrating Buck’s remarkable popularity at the time. This recording is a superb time capsule to hear one of country music’s most innovative talents at the peak of his career. The songs are exceptional and you can clearly hear why the Buckaroos remain one of the most revered road bands in country music history. This album was reissued on the Sundazed label in 1997 (Sundazed SC 6103) and remains available on CD.
There may be different ways of counting these things–what counts as live, and what counts as a release–but they sure did release a lot of live albums on Johnny Cash–including some after he died.
I was referring to legitimate “live” recordings specifically planned for album release not soundtracks from TV shows that were later released on CD. Nor did I count illegal bootlegs or any re-releases & repackages of earlier albums.
Buck Owens released 6 live concert albums domestically and 4 others overseas. All were on Capitol. (The “Live At The White House” album has recently been reissued on CD for the first time)
Johnny Cash released 4 live concert albums domestically for Columbia including the 1969 Madison Square Garden concert that was not released until 2002. The Johnny Cash Show album was not a live concert album per se – but segments taken from various episodes of his ABC-TV show. Cash also released one foreign prison concert album. The 2011 Personal File Vol. 3 double CD set from Sony/Legacy contains segments from various live performances. Even counting that album and the TV show album brings Cash’s total to just 7.
ken