Bucky Fowler and his wife and daughters share their love of music with Wichita-area audiences
Lucky Bucky. That’s the nickname friends of Bucky Fowler have assigned him, and it’s not hard to see why.
At 52, Fowler is one of those fortunate few able to pursue their deepest passion surrounded by the people they love most. The kid who grew up singing country songs in a band with his dad and brothers now has a family of his own – and all of them just happen to share his love of music, his gift for it and his commitment to performing.
There’s Karla, his trim and beautiful wife. (In photos of her and the Fowler’s three daughters, it takes a while to figure out which of the four is the mom.) And then there are those girls — Kristine, 26, Kelcy, 24, and Kandace, 22 — each one exceedingly beautiful and with a voice to match.
Together, they make up the Bucky Fowler Band. Along with four musicians who have been with Fowler for years, the band performs one Saturday a month at the Newton Opry in the historic Fox Theatre and one Saturday a month at the Poncan Opry in Ponca City, Okla. Those regular gigs are augmented by performances at private parties, outdoor festivals and tourist meccas such as Silver Dollar City in Missouri.
It’s a life that Fowler always dreamed of, especially the part where he gets to share the stage with his daughters.
“I learned to sing and play guitar from my dad, and my girls were itty bitty when they learned to sing and play from me,” he says. “We never forced them into it. They just had to do it. They wanted it.”
Singing Sisters
In the living room of Kelcy Fowler Mohr’s east Wichita home, the family has gathered to talk about their music on a recent fall day. The affection they share is palpable. The eyes of all three daughters light up instantly when asked whether they still enjoy this singing gig with Mom and Dad. After all, they’ve been doing it for 16 years.
“I can’t imagine my life without music and without singing with my sisters, my family,” says Kandace, wearing a stylish dress over cowboy boots. “When we’re on stage, I get to look over and see my sisters and it means so much to me. We’re singing together and it brings us together.”
“To do it together as a family makes it so much more enjoyable,” says Kelcy, holding her 8-month-old daughter, Anabelle, on her lap. “We always have a good time and it keeps us close.”
Karla tells the story of how the girls got bit by the performing bug. They were just 6, 9 and 11 when they had their debut before thousands at a Wichita River Festival concert event.
“They heard about the concert and said, ‘Daddy, can we sing, too?’ Karla recalls. “They practiced and practiced and one day said, ‘OK, Daddy, we’re ready. And they all started singing three-part harmony and we just looked at each other. We said, ‘What have we started?’ ”
After that festival debut, the girls occasionally would sing at family-friendly events with their parents, and soon they were in demand. “We’d go to a performance and people would ask ‘Bucky, did you bring the girls?’ ” their father says.
The family’s stage shows include plenty of singing by the entire group, but the girls also perform their own solo numbers, as well as three-part harmony tunes. Kristine, the red-head, typically sings the low part of the trio.
“I’m the belter,” she says. “I sing from my gut.”
Kelcy, the brunette, typically sings lead among the trio, and also plays the mandolin. She also contributes a comic character she created called Earlene Jo Bedwetter to the family’s stage show.
Kandace, the blonde in the family, plays banjo, mandolin and some guitar. “I’m the yodeler of the group. That’s my specialty,” she says with a laugh.
All three girls are married. Kristine and Brandon have three sons, Kelcy and Matthew have two children and Kandace just got hitched in October to Cody. Being wives and mothers (Kandace also works at a radio station and Kelcy gives dance lessons in her home) doesn’t give them much spare time, but they’re committed to their singing careers.
“We have wonderful husbands,” Kristine says. “We wouldn’t be able to do this without them.”
Family legacy
Bucky Fowler sits back in an armchair as his girls talk about their music, soaking it all in. Just like his daughters, his own musical career started when he was just a boy watching and listening to his dad, Don, who was an active country music performer when Bucky and his brothers were growing up.
As they got older, Bucky and his brothers, Brent and Scott, formed their own group called the Fowler Brothers Band. “We enjoyed quite a bit of regional success and had a lot of our songs played on the radio,” he says.
But when Brent moved to Florida, Bucky and Scott decided to go looking for a female vocalist to sing lead in the band. They found her.
“Her name was Martina McBride,” Bucky says with a grin. “But it wasn’t too long before her and (her husband) John decided to move to Nashville, too.”
That’s when Karla stepped in to sing. “She got baptized by fire,” Bucky says of his wife. The Fowler Brothers band played all over the region and worked with many well-known artists, including backing up country singer Charlie Daniels for several years running when he brought his show to Wichita to raise money for the Starkey Foundation.
Today, in addition to the five Fowlers, the band consists of Kurt Graber on steel guitar, Rob Loren on fiddle, James Hocutt on bass, and Pat Keitel on drums and percussion. Most have been with the band for years. “They watched our girls grow up and they took ownership in their evolution,” Bucky says.
Their two-hour stage show consists of a mix of country, bluegrass, pop, classic rock, gospel, jazz and old-timey music like the tunes the McGuire sisters might have sung from the 1940s. Every show they do has a different lineup of songs so that audiences are always watching a fresh performance.
But don’t look for shows in the summer months. That’s when Bucky takes off to pursue another of his lifelong passions – rodeo. He competes these days in calf roping and team roping, after suffering a serious knee injury two years ago that sidelined him from steer wrestling, an event he loved and often won awards in.
Like music, rodeo is a skill and a pursuit he inherited from his father.
“My dad was quite a horseman,” he says. “I was rodeoing before I picked up a guitar.”
‘We have a passion’
This month, the Bucky Fowler band will perform on Dec. 3 in Ponca City and Dec. 10 at the Newton Opry. You can bet a few Christmas tunes will be in the mix. The holidays are a time when the family naturally comes together to celebrate their blessings and to look to the future. They don’t see an end in sight to their stage shows.
“No matter what, I know that the five of us as a family will never stop singing,” Kristine vows.
“As long as people show up to the shows, we’ll keep doing it,” says Bucky. “We do it because we have a passion for it.”
Gathered in Kelcy’s living room, the girls offer to sing a Patti Page tune called “Old Cape Cod” to demonstrate their three-part harmony. They cast about at first trying to find the right key and Bucky offers to help by humming a note or two. “Shhh, Dad,” Kelcy says good-naturedly. The other two wave him off and he sits back with an amused look on his face.
Then they sing, confidently and smoothly, each voice distinct and pure. They smile at one another, this third generation of singing Fowlers, and one can’t help but notice a gleam in Bucky Fowler’s moist eyes.
More on the Fowlers For more information about the Bucky Fowler Band, go to buckyfowler.com
