Saddle up for a trip through entertainment history with a weekly highlight from Santa Clarita’s Walk of Western Stars! This week, musician Buck Page!

Buck Page was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1922, and began his performing career at the age of 11 as a string bass and rhythm guitar player for a western band called The Valley Ranch Boys. 

The musician established his own group, the Riders of the Purple Sage, named for Zane Grey’s novel by that title in 1936.

The Riders were a quartet that played on Pittsburgh KDKA radio station and in 1939, the band moved to New York City, where they performed on radio station WOR and at the Village Band nightclub. 

Page served in the U.S. during World War II and during the war, Californian singer Foy Willing organized an unrelated western band using the name Riders of the Purple Sage Foy Willing: however, Willing disbanded his Riders in 1952 and Page resumed using the Riders of the early 1960s. 

Willing’s Riders was the most commercially successful band by the “Riders of the Purple Sage” name. Page’s manager Gary Bright has stated that Page’s Riders are sometimes mistakenly credited for pieces by Willing’s band.

In the 1950s, Page moved to California, where he found work as a studio musician and played guitar on the theme songs of “Bonanza” and “77 Sunset Strip” and also contributed music to “Tales of Wells Fargo”, “Wagon Trail” and “Laramie”. 

After reforming the Riders of the Purple Sage, Page also recorded three studio albums with the band.

Page received the Country/Western Living Legend Award from the North American Country Music Association International in 2001. 

Throughout his life, Page emphasized the distinction between country and Western music, once telling the Los Angeles Times:  

“ You’re either country or you’re western. We sing about the Grand Canyon, cows, and girlfriends back home. We don’t sing about the girl at the corner bar. We don’t cry in our beer.”

Page’s first and only solo album, Right Place to Start, was released in December 2005. He performed his last public concert in Scottsdale, Arizona, in July 2006 at a National Day of the Cowboy celebration.

The musician died at his home in Burbank, California, on August 21, 2006, and his death was attributed to natural causes. 

Where is Buck Page’s Plaque on the Walk of Western Stars?

In 2004, Page was honored with a plaque on the Walk of Western Stars. The plaque is on the east side of Main Street, south of Market Street, in front of Newhall Refinery. 

Click here to view last week’s feature. 

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