BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- The night country music legend Buck Owens died, I was told by his Buckaroos drummer that lights flashed near midnight at his historic dinner theatre. Owens had performed, eaten his favorite chicken fried steak, then went home. He died in his sleep.

Some people say he might have died at midnight.

I was across the street that night at a Denny’s restaurant. Lights flickered and went out briefly at the same moment.

It’s the kind of legend country music songs are made of.

Dwight Yoakam, now a country music legend himself, has honored the late Owens with an album released Tuesday, “Dwight Sings Buck.”

The album, filled with Owens’ hits from the 1950s and 1960s, is the largest Buck Owens’ tribute to hit store shelves since the passing of Owens in 2006 at the age of 76.

Related Video: Dwight Yoakam Album Covers Buck Owens' Songs

Flavored with Owens’ melodies, Yoakam seasons with his own sound into a tribute that is at times filled with haunting thoughts of a long-lost friend. In the 1966 Owens’ song, “Think Of Me” Yoakam sings,

Think of me when you’re lonely

Think of me when you’re blue

Think of me when you’re far away

And I’ll be thinking of you

“We thought we would just rehearse Buck’s songs and record them, but once we got started, I realized it wasn’t going to happen that way,” writes Yoakam in “Dwight Sings Buck.”

The friendship of Yoakam and Owens is as mysterious as it is historic. They weren’t neighbors like some people think. No lemonade or sugar was ever borrowed from rural homes just down the street. They were friends, one a mentor, a surrogate parent, and both serious business associates.

The tale is widely known: a famed country crooner from the 50s and 60s who invented a hard-rocking country sound with a Telecaster strapped to his side, meets a young buck from the 80s L.A. country music scene. The young buck, Yoakam, insisted on helping one of the fathers of the Bakersfield Sound rekindle a music career that even Owens suggested, had become overpowered by comedic hillbilly imagery from the globally popular television show, “Hee Haw.”

"Early on, I was doing three songs in an hour, and at that time all my songs were hits. It slowly gravitated to the point where I did a hell of a lot of comedy and hardly any music," Owens recalled. "But they paid me a lot of money to do that show, so I more or less looked the other way, winked and thought, 'Well, I don't have to be out in some lonely little hotel room tonight, I'll take the money and run.'" (From the Washington Post)

The legendary singer helped Yoakam exit the Los Angeles music scene in the mid-80s with financial wisdom and country music know-how, which included a duet called “The Streets Of Bakersfield” that brought them both a number one hit. It was Owens' last.

“Dwight Sings Buck” is a tribute to past hits, and is instantly a memorable road album of hopeful love songs, meant for long travels and melancholy nights.

Owens made millions not just off strings of more than 20 number one country hits. He had a pair of radio stations, a television station, real estate, and by 1996, a dinner theatre that fused the best vibe of honky-tonks with a state-of-the-art sound system, museum memorabilia, big screens, an Opry-like feeling of grandeur, and a long bar in the back with an old Elvis Presley car shining from the wall.

The building stands tall on Buck Owens Boulevard. It rests near a truck stop, a few diners, a heart hospital and a lot of industrial buildings. Factories belch smoke just across Highway 99. While cars zoom past on that freeway, passersby look down into the gloom industrial city streets and see a gem.

Far from a true honky-tonk, the Crystal Palace just acts like one. It’s where Dwight Yoakam shared a lot of time fast-picking onstage with Buck Owens in his later years, performing to fans who should still see bright days ahead for Yoakam.

The honky-tonk feel of “Dwight Sings Buck” is a lot like the fast-moving sounds of the Crystal Palace on weekends. Its mostly kicked-up mood is built of Owens’ old love ballads. One of the songs is actually a slowed-down version—a honky-tonk near closing time. The single off the album, “Close Up The Honky Tonks,” is a ghostly crooning tribute:

So close up the Honky Tonks, lock all the doors

Don’t let the one I love go there any more

Close up the Honky Tonks, throw away the key

Then maybe the one I love will come back to me

Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit is directing a video for the single, which he said to the Los Angeles Times, that he and Yoakam agreed was based on “minimalist loneliness.” Yoakam is expected to do some acting in the video, something he usually separates himself from in his music career.

Recently, Dwight Yoakam was in Bakersfield to perform at Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace along with a medley of other country music artists to tribute Owens' music career and what would have been his 78th birthday.

Yoakam performed a few of the songs off “Dwight Sings Buck.” Saddened by thoughts of Owens not being alive to celebrate, Yoakam, a longtime friend of Owens, said, “It’s always a little melancholy now. It was New Year’s Eve the first time I was here since he passed, to do this without him being in the building. Sometimes when he didn’t feel well he’d go home early. It was never with him not coming back.”

On selected nights, the Buckaroos perform old hits at the dinner theater. Three of their members served Owens for over 30 years. On special nights, Owens’ son Buddy Alan Owens performs with the Buckaroos.

Dwight Yoakam said of Buddy Alan, “It’s kind of eerie when he walks out and does his part of Buck’s songs.”

The new album, put out by New West Records, is both a CD and a limited edition vinyl record. Yoakam also has a new self-produced album out titled "Blame The Vain."

ABC23 will be giving away signed copies of "Dwight Sings Buck" during its No Bull Mornings program.

“Dwight Sings Buck” Track List:

My Heart Skips A Beat

Foolin’ Around

I Don’t Care (Just As Long As You Love Me)

Only You (Can Break My Heart)

Act Naturally

Down On The Corner Of Love

Cryin’ Time

Above And Beyond

Love’s Gonna Live Here

Close Up The Honky Tonks

Under Your Spell Again

Your Tender Loving Care

Excuse Me (I Think I’ve Got A Heartache)

Think Of Me

Together Again

Article by ABC managing editor, Nick Belardes