Streets of Bakersfield

Homer Joy was asked in 1972 to record for Owens's studio and was kept waiting at the door day after day while the Buckaroos rehearsed. After a night walk around Bakersfield in new boots left him with blisters, he wrote the song. The next morning the studio manager, out of frustration, told him to sing one of his own songs. Owens heard it and booked a session for that afternoon. Owens released his own version in 1973, and it was not a major hit.

In 1988 Dwight Yoakam persuaded him to try again. They performed it on a CBS television show, then recorded it, with lightly changed lyrics and accordion from Flaco Jimenez. It reached number one on Billboard's country chart, Owens's first in sixteen years, and was the lead single from Yoakam's album Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room.