He also did session work at the LuTal Recording Studio in Bakersfield (owned by Lewis Talley). He played and sang harmony on singer-songwriter Terry Fell’s 1954 recording of "Truck Driving Man," a trucker standard that was the flipside of Fell’s hit "Don’t Drop It," released on RCA’s "X" label.

Impressed by Buck’s composing and singing, Fell tried unsuccessfully to get him signed to "X," but managed to interest Pico Rivera, California baker Claude Caviness in Buck – Caviness owned the tiny Pep label. Buck’s first Pep session, done in 1956 in L.A., yielded "Down On The Corner Of Love" and three other numbers. The records were well-received locally, though Pep’s lack of distribution hindered wider success. The songs themselves did better. Red Sovine, James O’Gwynn, and Bobby Bare all eventually covered "Down On The Corner Of Love."

At Lu-Tal in Bakersfield he cut four more songs for Pep: "Sweethearts In Heaven," "There Goes My Love" (covered by George Morgan, Pam Tillis, Highway 101, and The Wild Bunch) and, owing to his love of rockabilly, "Hot Dog" and "Rhythm And Booze." As much as Buck loved rock music, he feared a rockabilly single might harm his country music aspirations and he had it released under the pseudonym "Corky Jones." In 1957 the bluegrass duo of Don Reno and Red Smiley recorded "Sweethearts In Heaven" for Dot Records.

By 1956, Buck had remarried, and his third son, Johnny Dale Owens, was born May 9, 1956. Around the same time Buck met Michigan native, Harlan Howard, an aspiring songwriter who had moved to the West Coast, where he’d met his wife, singer Jan Howard, just beginning her country music career. When singer Wynn Stewart came to visit the Blackboard for the Sunday jam session, Harlan accompanies Wynn. The friendship between Buck and Harlan grew quickly. On weekends, Harlan often stayed at Buck’s tiny house in Bakersfield.

"I lived in a little old two-bedroom shack, and had these buck beds the two boys slept in," says Buck. "And on one of the corners, they got to playin’ and broke off one of the legs, and I just put – the only thing I had – a big ol’ concrete brick under the corner and he slept in that bed every time he came to stay all night with me. He’s never let me forget that. In later years, he’s said he’d come stay all night with me sometime if I still had that stone block."

Buck and Harlan started writing songs together, Buck putting Harlan’s lyrics to music. They also founded Blue Book Music to publish their songs. No one realized that Blue Book would play a major role in Buck Owens’ career.