On the Charts 59 Years Ago, Buck Owens Was at No. 1 With an All-Time Humorous Heartbreak Ballad

A pioneer of the Bakersfield sound, Buck Owens ruled the country music charts in the 1960s. With a knack for deceptively upbeat tunes like “Act Naturally”, he scored 21 No. 1 hits with his band, the Buckaroos. On this day (March 24) in 1966, the Sherman, Texas-born artist was atop the charts once again. This time, it was “Waitin’ In Your Welfare Line.”

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#1 Country On This Day in 1966: “Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line” #WaitinInYourWelfareLine #BuckOwens

♬ Waitin’ In Your Welfare Line – Buck Owens & His Buckaroos

Buck Owens wrote “Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line “with Don Rich and Nat Stuckey. With a dash of dark humor, the song was in a similar vein to “Act Naturally.” Heartbroken over a lost relationship, our narrator jokes, I got the hungries for your love / And I’m waitin’ in your welfare line.

Spending 18 weeks on the country music chart, the song gave Owens his 10th No. 1 hit. “Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line” spent seven of those weeks on top.

[RELATED: On This Day in 1965, Buck Owens Was at No. 1 With a Song That Started as a Sarcastic Joke From an Annoyed Co-Writer]

Buck Owens Helped Define the Country Sound of the 1960s

Releasing his self-titled debut album in 1961, Buck Owens was a reliable presence on the country music charts throughout the 1960s. Other No. 1 hits included “Act Naturally”, “Love’s Gonna Live Here”, and “I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail.”

Although born in Texas, Owens’ previous career as a truck driver took him to Bakersfield, California. He loved the town so much that he and his first wife would eventually settle there in 1951. On March 25, 2006, Owens died at his ranch just north of the San Joaquin Valley town. He was 76 years old.

Along with Merle Haggard, Owens was one of the most successful examples of the “Bakersfield sound”, which relied heavily on electrical instruments.

“The Bakersfield Sound, I think, is a, it’s a mix of Bob Wells and the Texas Playboys and Little Richard,” Owens told NPR in 1989. “I liked music with a big beat, and I liked the driving sounds of the drums and the guitars.”

As part of the “Bakersfield Sound” movement, Owens influenced later country artists like Dwight Yoakum, Rodney Crowell, and Randy Travis.

Those artists, he said, declared, “‘I don’t want my music made by machine. I just want to hear good, plain country music. And the nice part about it, it was all the young people that were saying that.”

Featured image by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images