Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys mixed elements of hillbilly, big band, polka, swing, and Dixieland jazz to create a brand of music all its own. Western swing expanded on the instrumentation of a string band, adding horns, drums, and amplification. Although Wills led the band and played fiddle, Tommy Duncan was the lead singer on their biggest hits. “Take Me Back to Tulsa,” “Ida Red,” and “Cotton Eyed Joe” influenced future generations across musical genres.
In 1948, frustrated by the bandleader’s drinking habits, Duncan left the Texas Playboys to pursue a solo career. The hits stopped coming for the Texas Playboys, and Duncan didn’t exactly set the charts on fire over the next decade. In 1959, the singer reunited with the band and recorded an album for Liberty Records called Together Again. Buck Owens took notice of the album’s title and thought it would make a good song title. Several years later, he sat down at a piano and wrote the song. Let’s take a look at the story behind “Together Again” by Buck Owens.
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Together again
My tears have stopped falling
The long, lonely nights
Are now at an end
Three Hits in One Session
When Buck Owens went into the recording studio in the Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood on January 28, 1964, he recorded “My Heart Skips a Beat,” “Ain’t It Amazing Gracie,” and “Together Again.” Capitol Records felt the song with the most potential was “My Heart Skips a Beat” and paired it with “Together Again” on the B-side. In 1972, Owens rerecorded “Ain’t It Amazing Gracie,” and it, too, would become a country hit, reaching No. 17 on the Billboard Country chart.
Owens wrote about the double-sided hit in his 2016 book with Randy Poe, Buck’ Em! The Autobiography of Buck Owens, “My Heart Skips a Beat’ reached No. 1 on the charts. That was on May 16. Of course, I was thrilled like I’ve always been when one of my records hits the top of the charts, but the funny thing was, I also kept hearing the B-side,’ Together Again,’ on the radio a lot. Sure enough, I was looking at Billboard magazine one day, and I saw that ‘Together Again’ had hit the charts, too. … If you’re going to have hit records, you really want to have ’em one at a time. I don’t mean to come off sounding like I’m greedy or ungrateful, but the point of making records is to sell records. That’s why they call it the music business. You’re not really looking to have a two-for-one sale or a ‘buy one, get one free’ kind of situation. But every time I’d look at Billboard, I’d see ‘Together Again’ just keep going on up the charts.”
The key to my heart
You hold in your hand
And nothing else matters
We’re together again
Owens Displaced Himself from No. 1 … Twice
“My Heart Skips a Beat” stayed at the top spot on the Billboard Country chart for three weeks, only to be displaced by its own B-side. “Together Again” reached No. 2, swapping positions with its A-side. Owens suspected “Burning Memories” by Ray Price or “Wine, Women and Song” by Loretta Lynn would knock his song from the top spot. To his surprise, “My Heart Skips a Beat” reclaimed the No. 1 position and stayed there for four weeks. It was the first time such an event happened on the Billboard Country chart.
Owens wrote, “The funny thing about ‘Together Again’ is that it’s actually a happy song, but since the melody is kind of mournful sounding, most people think it’s really sad. That’s because they haven’t listened to the lyrics. The singer is talking about how his tears have stopped falling and how his lonely nights are over because he’s back together with the woman he loves. The guy couldn’t be happier—but I put the lyrics to this slow, melancholy melody—and that’s what causes folks to misunderstand what the song is really about.”
Together again
The gray skies are gone
You’re back in my arms
Now, where you belong
A New Drummer
Owens was backed by The Buckaroos, featuring Don Rich on guitar, fiddle, and backing vocals. Drummer Mel King had been in and out of the band for a year. Owens and Rich decided to look for a full-time replacement and recruited Willie Cantu. They borrowed Mel Taylor of The Ventures for the recording session, who provided the recognizable hook in “My Heart Skips a Beat.” On “Together Again,” steel guitarist Tom Brumley played an iconic solo, influencing Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead to take up the instrument.
Owens commented on the arrangement, “When it came to recording ‘Together Again,’ I sure didn’t let the vocal arrangement get in the way. If you’re a fan of my music, you can probably hear that song in your head right now. And when you get to the chorus, you can hear Don singing along with me, doing that tight, high harmony part. Well, believe it or not, that’s not the way it was on the original record. From beginning to end, the hit version didn’t have any harmony vocals on it at all. It wasn’t until we started performing ‘Together Again’ live that Don added that incredible harmony part on the chorus. We ended up doing the song that way on so many concerts and TV shows and live albums that a lot of people have told me they were really surprised when they heard the original version without Don’s harmony part on it. So, that was a case where I might’ve made the vocal arrangement a little too sparse. But since nobody had heard it any other way when the record came out, they didn’t think anything was missing.”
The love that I knew
Is living again
And nothing else matters
We’re together again
Covers
Many people covered “Together Again” through the years. In 1965, Ray Charles recorded the song and took it to No. 19
on the Billboard Hot 100. In 1976, Emmylou Harris took the song back to the top spot on the Billboard Country chart.
And nothing else matters
We’re together again
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Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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