Buckstone County Blues

BUCKSTONE COUNTY PRISON (1978)--
Directed by Jimmy Huston.
Stars Earl Owensby, Don “Red” Barry, David Allen Coe (wrote soundtrack), Ed Parker & Sunset Carson.

A good movie could be made about North Carolina entrepreneur Owensby, who built a filmmaking operation at home, including a full studio, and rented it out to Hollywood productions when he was starring in his own homegrown action features.

This vanity project, Owensby’s third to be directed by Huston, stars ol’ Earl as Seabo, a tough bounty hunter who shoots an escaped convict in self-defense. Against the wishes of the sympathetic sheriff (old B-movie cowboy Carson),
Seabo is sent to a local prison run by a corrupt warden (Barry) who hates Seabo for killing his outlaw son. After suffering abuse and beatings instigated by Barry’s thug guard Parker, Seabo eventually busts out and sprays some whupass on all the rednecks who dissed him.

BUCKSTONE COUNTY PRISON, also released as SEABO, is crude action filmmaking and blunt storytelling given much needed verisimilitude by its backwoods locations, convincing rural atmosphere and low-key star.

This type of regional moviemaking is exactly the kind “they” don’t make anymore, and BUCKSTONE’s mere existence and distribution are at least as interesting as the film itself.

Released: 01.01.1978

  1. Narration and Real Man Blues
  2. Ball And Chain
  3. Chain Gang Boogie
  4. Buckstone County Blues
  5. The Bounty Hunter
  6. Shackles And Chains
  7. Rock N' Country
  8. Mississippi Woman
  9. West Virginia Man
  10. The Ballad Of Seabo