Click here to listen to Shy Guy (from radio show #4): Mike Wallace made a brief appearance on our Oklahoma Rock and Roll radio show. It was Show #4 - the first of two shows we did on Oklahoma POP - pop music and pop culture with some sort of connection to Oklahoma. I thought I'd share this little segment that features just a tiny bit of the movie The Outsiders (filmed in Oklahoma and based on the book written by S.E. Hinton from Tulsa). That takes us in to a 'school film' about outsiders called The Shy Guy, featuring Dick York from Bewitched, and Mike Wallace as the narrator. The Shy Guy, with his "record transmitter and microphone" (and oscillator), sets the stage for the great Five Americans record, Western Union - complete with a bit of my buddy, disc jockey Ronnie Kaye from WKY (now KOMA) radio in Oklahoma City. Finishing up the segment is a commercial (Sherman Oaks and Mazeppa) for Jerry Ralph R. B. Bob Bevis Furniture Warehouse Revolution. Good times...
Bill Anderson and The Oak Ridge Boys - dressin' fancy and singing old Uncle Steve's song "Gone Away" on The Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium. The original version was written by myself and my buddies, Tim Dubois and John Wooley. Whisperin' Bill added some great stuff about country legends that have gone away. Brought down the dang house, I tells ya....
May 2009
Rolling Stone Interview - Bob Dylan's America by Douglas Brinkley I ask whether, as a bandleader, Dylan had ever played a set with the perfect guitarist. Dylan jumps at the opportunity to answer rather reminiscently. "The guy that I always miss, and I think he'd still be around if he stayed with me, actually, was Mike Bloomfield," Dylan says of his collaborator on Highway 61 Revisited (who also famously played electric guitar with him at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965). "He could just flat-out play. He had so much soul. And he knew all the styles, and he could play them so incredibly well. He was an expert player and a real prodigy, too. Started playing early. But then again a lot of good guitarists have played with me. Freddy Tackett, Steve Ripley - Mick Taylor played with me for a minute." Full of memory lane, Dylan goes on to tell a story about first meeting Bloomfield in Chicago at a headhunt on the South Side. A social misfit, Bloomfield was the rare white guitarist who had recorded with the likes of Sleepy John Estes and Big Joe Williams. "He could play like Willie Brown or Charlie Patton," Dylan says. "He could play like Robert Johnson way back then in the Sixties. The only other guy who could do that in those days was Brian Jones, who played in the Rolling Stones. He could also do the same thing. Fingerpicking rhythms that hardly anyone could do. Those are the only two guys I've ever met who could...from back then...the only two guys who could play the pure style of country blues authentically." Finally finished production on the first “episode” of the new radio show called Oklahoma Rock and Roll. It took about two weeks of long hours – by both me and Charlene. Charlene is doing the research. It would be nice to have a staff of 4 or 5 people, but for now it’s just us. I think it’s a good show. Oklahoma has a rich musical history, so there’s a nice variety.
A PARTIAL LIST (with working show or segment titles): Leon Russell: Don’t Ever Take A Bus To California (The Wrecking Crew, Gary Lewis, Delaney and Bonnie, Joe Cocker, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton) J.J. Cale Jazz and Blues (Charlie Christian, Oklahoma City Blue Devils, Jay McShann, Lowell Fulson) Made In Oklahoma (Jim Edgar and The Roadrunners, The Disciples, Jimmy Markham, etc.) Rockabilly – Oklahoma Style (Wanda Jackson, The Collins Kids, Big Al Downing, Conway Twitty) Lee Hazlewood: These Rebel Rouser Boots Are Made For Walking (Duane Eddy, Nancy Sinatra) Western Swing (Bob and Johnnie Lee Wills, Spade Cooley, Speedy West) L.A. Power Pop – Okies at Madam Wong’s (Moon Martin, 20/20, Dwight Twilley) The Keltner Connection (Leon, Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, John Lennon, George Harrison, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, on and on…) To quote me: “We’re gonna take a look at not just rock and roll in Oklahoma, but the roots of rock and roll, and we’re gonna follow those roots wherever they take us and let them tell us how we got to this place today… how we got to this thing we call Oklahoma Rock and Roll. As the weeks go by, we’re gonna try to dig deep into the details of the music, and the artists and the musicians that made that music, and how it all ties together. But for the first couple of shows, what I want to do is to try to present the overall picture. I think you’ll find some surprises, and I think at times – I hope at times – you’re gonna be stunned just like we have been each time we find that extra special thing, and that direct link to Oklahoma.” The first two shows, “Home Sweet Oklahoma” (parts 1 and 2), are basically an Oklahoma Music Revue, with the aim of trying to paint the big picture, and also set the stage for what lies ahead in the weeks and shows to come. Covered in the first shows, and featured in more detail on future shows, are what might seem obvious: Leon Russell, J.J. Cale, and the whole Tulsa culture of musicians with direct links to people like Dylan, Clapton, Joe Cocker and the Mad Dogs and Englishmen; Wanda Jackson, The Collins Kids, and rockabilly (Oklahoma style); Moon Martin, Dwight Twilly, and 20/20 – the LA Power Pop scene. But we’re also taking a good look (and listen) to the early roots players and bands that changed music around the world: Charlie Christian, blues man extraordinaire Lowell Fulson, the Oklahoma City Blue Devisl, and Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. As with any adventure, there are surprises… like the probable first ever Rhythm and Blues record – a smash hit in 1945 by a piano player and singer from Guthrie. The picture starts to emerge of an art form that owes its heart to a mixture of hillbilly, gospel, blues, rhythm & blues, and jazz. Intertwined with all of that are the Native American and African American cultures. This is America’s music – Oklahoma Rock and Roll. “Don’t forget… Family is what’s important. Tell your mama you love her. Kiss your babies. We’re all in this together. Bye bye kids…” from → Radio Show Charlene and I have moved to the farm where I grew up in Pawnee County. This video shows the beginning of the conversion of a little “barn” to the new studio. We finished the mixes for the new Red Dirt Rangers record today. Now, the tapes go off to mastering, and then the birth of the long awaited new Rangers CD: Ranger Motel. We've been working in a temporary space that will eventually be the guitar shop after phase one of the new studio is finished. Building progress has been slow because of the weather, but I'm optomistic about getting back at it in the next week or two. And that's something... I'm very seldom optomistic about anything! Cheers...
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