Bonnie Owens
b. Bonnie Campbell, 1 October 1932, Blanchard, Oklahoma, USA. Bonnie was a yodelling country singer, who married Buck Owensin 1947. Their son, Alvis Alan Owens (b. 22 May 1948), became the singer, Buddy Alan. Buck and Bonnie Owens toured together and had a radio series in Arizona. They divorced in 1953 but both moved to Bakersfield in the early '60s, where she made her first records, Dear John Letter, Why Daddy Don't Live Here Anymore and Don't Take Advantage Of Me. After a relationship with Merle Haggard's manager, Fuzzy Owen, she married Haggard in 1965, becoming part of his stage-show and recording a successful duet album with him. Their marriage was unusual in that Owens tolerated Haggard's affairs—‘I don't care what you do so long as you don't flaunt it in my face’, she is reputed to have said. In 1970 they co-wrote Today I Started Loving You Again. She stopped performing in 1975 to look after their family and business interests. They divorced in 1978 but she is now an integral part of his road show.