Buck Stiltman was born (May 22nd 1941) in a poor rural farming community in Kansas to a single mother, Rene, widowed by the tragic death of Buck's father Walter in a crop-spraying plane crash just two weeks before the birth of their first and only child.

As a young boy, Buck was a member of the local church choir and friends and relatives have always stated how he was marked out from a very young age for his talent and precocious nature. Buck learned to play a variety of instruments as a child, including the piano, drums, guitar, saxophone, trumpet and clarinet, and was composing his first songs by the age of 11. In 1953, aged just 12, Buck had a song he had written entered into a National Young Songwriters Competition entitled Devil-Back Blues, but following objection from the religious right for its 'adult' content, it was controversially pulled from the competition, but not before catching the attention of Hank Williams Jr, who recorded the song with Buck accompanying him on guitar. The song was a runaway success and sold over 55000 copies despite a very limited release in the South, based on word of mouth alone.

8 years later, Buck enjoyed his big break when he joined a touring music show organised by the legendary Bob Neuhardt, which featured amongst others a young Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons and other future members of The Flying Burrito Brothers. Buck was the star of the show initially, with his great showmanship and vast repertoire of songs dating back over 10 years of writing. The influence Buck Stiltman had upon Dylan and Parsons formative development was huge, whilst being stylistically different, he taught them a great deal about performance and lyrical content which set them off to the great success they both enjoyed.

Despite critical acclaim, Stiltman began losing his focus just as the 60s were beginning. A series of torrid affairs with the wives of music executives, including the wife and daughter of Bob Neuhardt, resulted in his effective expulsion from the tour and from then, he found a lot of his opportunities had been taken away. During the summer of 1964, an aggrieved husband and rumoured Mafia-member whose wife had succumbed to the charms of Buck attacked Stiltman, then living in New York, resulting in serious injuries to his right leg, a collapsed lung and 7 broken bones in his face. Stiltman narrowly escaped with his life, but was now a shadow of his former self, losing his confidence to perform along with his good looks, he retreated from performance and became consumed by an addiction to tranquilisers.