Terry “Buffalo” Ware, the acclaimed Oklahoma guitarist who performed with Ray Wylie Hubbard, Jimmy LaFave and John Fullbright, has died at 76.
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Ware died Wednesday after a battle with lung cancer, according to several reports.
Throughout a career that spanned more than five decades, Ware established himself as one of Oklahoma’s most respected guitarists. He moved comfortably between rock, country, folk, and Americana and performed both as a solo artist and as a sideman for numerous musicians.
Terry “Buffalo” Ware Was A Talented Guitarist
Ware was born in Shattuck, Oklahoma, in 1950 and grew up in Gage and Woodward. He discovered the guitar after watching The Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. He later described that performance as “earthshaking.”
During high school, Ware played in a rock-and-roll group called The Debtors, which later became The Debtor Group. The band played dances and other events across western Oklahoma and neighboring states.
Ware attended the University of Oklahoma in the early 1970s and performed with the band Sailor in Norman and Oklahoma City. After graduating in 1972, he moved to Red River, New Mexico, where he met fellow Oklahoma musician Ray Wylie Hubbard.
Ware, Hubbard, Dennis Meehan and Jim Herbst eventually formed Ray Wylie Hubbard & The Cowboy Twinkies. The group released a self-titled album on Reprise Records in 1975 and toured extensively. The band also opened for Willie Nelson at the Troubadour in Los Angeles.
Ware later returned to Oklahoma and formed the Norman rock band The Sensational Shoes. He reunited with Hubbard in 1986 and spent about a decade touring with him throughout the United States and Europe.
During his career, Ware also performed and recorded with Jimmy LaFave and Kevin Welch. His collaborations extended to a younger generation of Oklahoma musicians when he played electric guitar on John Fullbright’s Grammy-nominated 2012 debut album, From the Ground Up.
Ware later joined Fullbright at the Grammy Awards and performed with him on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2014