Susan Raye

Known for her lighthearted yet emotive singing voice, Susan Raye rose to prominence as a country hitmaker throughout the 1970s, frequently teaming with Buck Owens for duet recordings. Her output during those years presented a modestly refined take on the Bakersfield sound that matched the straightforward character of both her delivery and her song choices. The 1999 compilation 16 Greatest Hits offers a strong survey of her most popular 1970s material, while the 2021 anthology Together Again gathers individual selections together with numerous joint performances alongside Buck Owens.

Born on October 8, 1944, in Eugene, Oregon, Susan Raye started out performing with a high school rock ensemble. Once that group disbanded, she tried out for a nearby country radio outlet. In addition to appearing on air, she secured a role as a disc jockey and later hosted the Portland television show Hoedown.

She encountered Jack McFadden, Buck Owens’ manager, during one of her nightclub appearances in the region. Impressed by her singing ability, McFadden arranged for Owens to bring her to Bakersfield, California, for an audition. Owens promptly added her to his forthcoming tour schedule, and she recorded her debut single, “Maybe If I Close My Eyes (It’ll Go Away),” in 1969. Her follow-up, a version of Jackie DeShannon’s pop hit “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” marked her first Top 30 entry. Around this period she also began a nine-year run as a regular on the Hee Haw program.

Her initial solo album, One Night Stand, appeared in 1970; the track “Willy Jones” became her first Top Ten success and supplied the title for her next LP the following year. That same year she issued two duet albums with Owens, We’re Gonna Get Together and The Great White Horse. Her strongest solo stretch occurred in 1971, when three successive Top Ten singles emerged: “L.A. International Airport,” “Pitty, Pitty, Patter,” and “(I’ve Got A) Happy Heart.” The title song from 1972’s My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own likewise reached the Top Ten.

After reaching number nine in 1974 with “Whatcha Gonna Do with a Dog Like That?” and enjoying a hit with Owens via their cover of the Mickey & Sylvia standard “Love Is Strange,” Raye lost her primary collaborator when Owens severed ties with Capitol and shuttered his Bakersfield studio. She collaborated with producer Jim Shaw in Nashville on the 1976 album Honey, Toast and Sunshine. That proved her final Capitol release; she moved to United Artists Records, which issued Susan Raye in 1977. Although four singles were extracted, none entered the country Top 40. By the close of the 1970s she had stepped away from music, prompted by her Christian background and a renewed spiritual focus that led her to prioritize family life. A gospel recording she made for Capitol in 1973, her rendition of “Precious Memories,” later surfaced on the soundtrack of Paul Schrader’s 1979 film Hardcore.

In 1985 she mounted a brief return, releasing two projects on the independent Westexas America label: There and Back, containing ten original songs, and Then and Now, which paired fresh versions of seven 1970s hits on one side with eight spiritual selections on the other. This concluded her recording career. She earned a psychology degree from California State University and began working as a Christian counselor. Various labels periodically reissued her catalog in subsequent years, and in 2021 Omnivore Recordings, as part of a Buck Owens series, brought out Together Again, featuring ten solo Capitol tracks plus twelve of her duets with Owens.