Lucky fans of Hanson are 'armed'
BY THOMAS CONNER 05/29/1998 © Tulsa World At least one mother could sing about it. As she ushered her young daughter into the Drug Mart at 32nd Street and Yale Avenue to get one of the cherished Hanson concert-ticket wristbands, she sang, “MMMBop / Is it worth it? / MMMBop / I really hope so / MMMBop / Oh, brother . . .'' Hanson fans of every age were lined up outside — and around — eight Carson Attractions ticket outlets Thursday morning for a crack at the wristbands, which became available at noon. Some had arrived as early as 3 a.m. determined to get tagged with the bright pink and orange wristbands that guarantee a spot in line when tickets for the Hanson concert go on sale at 9 a.m. Saturday. A concert by the Tulsa-native hit trio Hanson is scheduled for July 8 at the Mabee Center. The Tulsa concert is the only show scheduled in the Midwest. Hanna Willsey, 10, was the first in line at the Maxwell Convention Center, decked out in her Hanson T-shirt and a necklace with beads that spelled out Hanson. She and a friend, Valerie Grannemann, 13, arrived outside the Convention Center at 5 a.m. “I'm glad school is out, but I would've missed school, anyway,'' Valerie said, jumping up and down. Jack Tubb at least had some leafy shade to stand in about halfway down the line at the Convention Center. He plans to buy some tickets for his granddaughter. She'll be visiting from Kentucky when Hanson appears here, and — shhh -- it's a surprise. As noon approached, the Convention Center crowd began clapping and chanting, “12 o'clock! 12 o'clock!'' By then, the line stretched a good 100 yards out the building's north doors. The wristbands are the first step in the ticket-buying process for the big show. A wristband does not guarantee a ticket, only a place in line Saturday morning. Ticket outlets were turning away hundreds of fans as their stock of wristbands quickly dwindled and ran out. Some frustrated fans hurried to other locations, but nearly every outlet had given away all the wristbands by 2:15 p.m. “I don't know what we're going to do,'' said Verna Smith, the mother of two pouting young girls. They were turned away from the Mabee Center, where an estimated 1,000 fans stood in a line that wrapped almost all the way around the building — all vying for the 350 wristbands available at that site. “I'm not sure my girls will forgive me if they miss this show,'' she said. Some crowds got a bit unruly. James McCarthy, manager of the Drug Mart at 31st Street and 129th East Avenue, said he had to call the police to help deal with a mob that started pushing and shoving. “We had about 400 people out there and only about 175 wristbands to give out. I thought we were going to have a problem, but everybody was pretty nice when it was all said and done,'' he said. Glenn Smith of Glenn Smith Presents, the show's promoter, said his company has tried-and-true formulas to determine how many wristbands to make available. “There are enough for one show, and 85 to 90 percent of the people who got wristbands should get tickets,'' Smith said. “It's not like paper money that we print until it's worthless. We've figured out how many should be at each location given the number of terminals there, the fact that each wristband holder can buy up to four tickets and our guess that about 15 percent of the tickets will be sold by phone.'' Smith handled last summer's five concerts by Garth Brooks and used the same procedure then. Hanson fans quickly purchase 8,000 tickets for Tulsa's July concert BY THOMAS CONNER 05/31/1998 © Tulsa World Armed police officers patrolled the line. Men with hand-held radios and clipboards checked off the numbers of the desperate refugees. When the signal came, everyone screamed. A child was torn from her mother. Sound like a war zone? It was just the Mabee Center on Saturday morning as tickets went on sale for the July 8 Hanson concert. Like any military skirmish, too, there were winners and losers and lots of cries to pity the children. But for those frustrated by the ticketing procedure and their inability to get tickets, it all boils down to a simple, military answer: There were only about 8,000 tickets and only time for one show. “We could have sold three shows here easily,'' Glenn Smith said Saturday morning after all 8,000 tickets had been sold. “It looks like about 85 percent of everyone with a wristband got tickets.'' Smith, the show's promoter, said, “We still turned thousands away. . . . You just don't know when you're planning a show like this in advance — scheduling the venues and the transportation and such — what kind of demand there will be. Who could have imagined eight months ago that there would be this kind of demand?'' Smith relayed a message from the Hanson boys themselves: “We will be back as soon as we possibly can.'' A second show can't be added because of the tour scheduling, Smith said. Also, the Mabee Center is booked the following night. Tickets went on sale at 9 a.m. Saturday at eight Carson Attractions outlets and via a toll-free telephone number. They were all gone by 9:58 a.m. Despite having their place in line already guaranteed by their numbered wristbands, fans began gathering at the Mabee Center box office as early as 4 a.m. By 6 a.m., they lined up in the order of the numbers on their wristbands and eagerly awaited the random drawing that would determine the first place in line. At 8 a.m. sharp, the number was called: 227. Summer Smith, 14, and her friends halfway down the line began squealing hysterically. The line ahead of her — now full of fallen faces, young and old — was moved to the rear, and Summer stepped up to the door. Ironically, Summer's mother, Teresa, had wristband No. 225. She had to head to the very back of the line, while her daughter stepped front and center. Mom took the twist with good spirits. “I was the one who brought all these girls here, who waited in line with them, who spent the night out here,'' she chuckled. Front and center is exactly where Summer will be on July 8, too. Her first spot in line scored her and her friends front-row seats. They're probably still screaming. Others at the back of the line had a few choice words about their predicament. The ticketing procedure required fans first to obtain numbered wristbands. A drawing was held Saturday morning at each ticket outlet to determine the first place in line. “Dedication doesn't pay,'' said Sue Smith, an end-of-the-line mother buying for her daughter in California. “If you sit out here from 3 a.m. because you care about these guys, you should get a ticket. This didn't alleviate people from camping out. They were still spending the night to get wristbands. What difference did it make?'' “Concerts have always been sold first come-first serve,'' one mother, LeAnn Rose, who was next in line, said. “It's not fair to these kids. They're the ones who will be the most crushed by it.'' Smith said he devised this procedure early on for other high- demand shows like Garth Brooks. He said he would rather bring it all down to luck of the draw than risk having kids injured in a mad rush or lose out to scalpers. “It's the fairest way,'' he said. “If we had done it first come-first serve, we'd have scalpers — not fans -- camping out for weeks ahead of time. Mothers wouldn't let their kids do that, but scalpers don't have lives — they can afford to beat you in that game. This gives everyone an equal chance to be first. Unfortunately, not everyone can be first, but I don't know a better way.'' One Carson Attractions employee predicted early on that Saturday would be a short work day. “This will sell out really quickly,'' the employee said Thursday. “It's still not as big a crowd as we get for (professional) wrestling tickets, though.'' Hanson ticket trauma BY THOMAS CONNER 07/08/1998 © Tulsa World Two girls. One ticket. Oh, the dilemma. Victoria Rodriguez, 15, stood in line for four hours back in May for wristbands to purchase tickets, but she -- and thousands of other fans — came up short. Rodriguez, however, managed to find one ticket through a friend a few weeks after the quick sellout. Just one. Good news for her, surely, but a friend of hers, Lili Lambert, 14, traveled here from Germany just to see her -- and the Hansons. "The girls are at the Hansons' house today in southwest Tulsa, hoping to see them and find another ticket," said Rodriguez's mother, Nila Estradda. "We found one from a scalper for $175, but that's just too much." For the time being, Estradda said, Victoria gets the ticket for Wednesday's show. Rodriguez met Lambert last year through the Internet. They chatted online nearly every day, Estradda said, until Lambert and her parents came to visit in mid-June. The trip was to unite the new friends and let them explore the hometown of Hanson in hopes of finding . . . something. "They are fanatics, both," Estradda said. Hanson — the Tulsa trio of Isaac, Taylor and Zac that scored a No. 1 hit last year with "MMMBop" from the group's debut album, "Middle of Nowhere" — is scheduled to play a concert at 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Mabee Center, 8100 S. Lewis Ave. The show sold out in less than an hour when tickets went on sale May 30. While Hanson may be hot, so are their fans. One of them was on Monday, anyway. That morning, disc jockeys at radio station KRAV, 96.5 FM, asked listeners, "What's the craziest thing you would do for passes to meet Hanson?" Lonnie Dugan called in with his bright idea — to ride around town on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle wearing a clown suit — and the station took him up on it. Dugan is a fan of Harleys, not Hanson, but his daughter -- like most young girls in the hit trio's hometown — is more interested in "Three Car Garage," Hanson's latest album. Dugan's idea won his daughter and her cousin two hard-to-find tickets to the show plus backstage passes. "They're definitely happy campers," Dugan said. He found out, though, just how hot a ticket this concert is. Dugan donned the clown suit and set off among rush-hour traffic — shortly after the air temperature reached its high mark of 99 degrees Monday. "I ride an old Harley, and it runs pretty hot. The heat outside didn't make it any better," he said. At least 8,000 fans — plus hundreds of others just hoping for a glimpse of the blond boys — are expected to descend on the Mabee Center for the show. Another Tulsa band, Admiral Twin, has been on the tour with Hanson for nearly a month. This power pop band — which includes drummer Jarrod Gollihare, author of Hanson: The Official Biography — will open the Tulsa show. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Hanson "Three Car Garage: The Indie Recordings" (Mercury-Moe) After one year on the international scene, Hanson somehow has seen fit to look back at its roots. It's an extraordinarily premature move that smacks of market milking, but then again, they might be playing the fleeting game of pop smarter than anyone. It also airs what now could be viewed as pre-fame ruminitions on Hansonmania in the media, like the chorus of “Stories'' (“Stories will be told until we're old / Stories will be told until the end of time'') or a line from “River'': “Lately we've been talking 'bout who we are / Seems we don't know anymore.'' This collection of songs from the boys' two Tulsa indie records is interesting if only to get a glimpse of the band from the perspective of another singer. It's Isaac singing lead on most of the 11 tracks here — and doing a surprisingly formidable job. Hearing his bold vocals on “Pictures'' and the exquisite ballad “Surely as the Sun,'' as well as his green-but-growing guitar work throughout, you can't help but wonder how the band would have fared had business types not put the more soulful (and, sure, more fetching) Taylor out front. It could have been a wholly different, grittier guitar band. But even though the 11-year-old Taylor sounds like a mosquito here, his immense talent is already evident. He takes the entire lyric of “Stories'' and makes it come from him, not through him, adapting every turn of phrase and every breath to his inate control. His voice may not be deep, but his soul is an ocean. Two songs from “Middle of Nowhere'' (“Thinking of You,'' “With You in Your Dreams'') are here in unpolished freshness, but a nascent version of the signature “MMMBop'' is a five-minute drag. Overall, it's a remarkably unaffected batch of pop songs that brims with a bright-eyed innocence the radio hasn't seen in two decades. Play on, boys. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World We've told the story of Leon Russell in these pages numerous times. Thus far, it's been a process of piecing together bits of well-known history and the accounts of those who knew Leon and hung around — or on — him during his beginnings here in Tulsa and his ultimate international fame. Not since Leon had a Tulsa address has he spoken with the Tulsa World or, for that matter, many press outlets at all. This week — since he's comin' back to Tulsa just one more time — the artist known almost as much for his shyness as his hit songs broke down and talked with us from his home near Nashville about his new album and his much-mystified roots and days in Tulsa. It was an eagerly awaited conversation that set a few records straight and shed new light on the shadowy mystique of the master of space and time. Home Sweet Oklahoma Russell spent his formative and most successful years in Tulsa, moving here in 1955 from Maysville, just west of Pauls Valley, when his father was transferred. He arrived at age 14, but that wasn't too young to start playing in local clubs. Things were a bit different back then. "In those days, Oklahoma was dry, and the clubs weren't supposed to have liquor. So a 14-year-old or anybody of any age had no problem working anywhere," Russell said. "I worked six or seven nights a week till I left Tulsa at 17. I'd work 6 to 11 at a beer joint, then 1 to 5 at an after-hours club. It was a hard schedule to do when going to school. I slept in English a lot. Then I got out to California, and they were more serious about their liquor laws. I about starved to death because it was so much harder to find work at my age." Russell remembers dozens of old Tulsa nightspots — the House of Blue Lights, the Paradise Club, the Sheridan Club, the Cimarron Ballroom — as well as his perennial stopover, the Cain's Ballroom. He said he also was partial to the hot goings-on along Greenwood Avenue. "There was quite a scene over there. They had classier shows than the other parts of town. There was the Dreamland, I believe, where they had big revues every night — traveling package shows with big stars. I saw Jackie Wilson over there when I was very young, I think at the Big 10. Saw Bobby Bland at the Dreamland. It was quite an experience." In California, instead of steady gigs in clubs, Russell found a lot of session work in recording studios, playing piano for other musicians and singers. The list of his contributions is nearly as impressive as his own three-decade discography, including work with the likes of Phil Spector, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan. Goin' Back to Tulsa After cutting his first, eponymous album, Russell returned home to Tulsa in 1972. First, he was just visiting, but the story goes that he and a friend were tanked up on psychedelics while in a boat on Grand Lake. A lightning storm came up, and the boat got stuck on a sand bar. Russell apparently found the experience so mystical that he took it as a sign to stay in Tulsa. "Yeah, that's not true, but it's a great story," Russell said. Russell moved his whole recording operation to the area, living in a big house in Maple Ridge and recording in a huge studio on Grand Lake. His presence here attracted numerous other big names to visit Tulsa, from Dylan to Clapton, and the excitement the scene generated in turn brought new local musicians out of the woodwork. Through his label, Shelter Records, Russell helped Tulsa-native talent like Dwight Twilley and the Gap Band reach a higher level of success. "That was the whole point, you know," Russell said. "There are so many talented people around — and Tulsa maybe has more of it than most places — but it's hard for the talented people to get a chance. The (music) business is largely run by accountants and lawyers. They hire people to tell them whether stuff is good or not. It's difficult for good, young artists to get someone standing up for them saying, `This is a great band.' I figured I could give some people a chance who deserved it. I mean, you know, the Wilson brothers (in the Gap Band) are some of the most unique talent in the world." Anything Can Happen Since that early '70s heyday of hits like "Delta Lady" and "Tight Rope," Russell his lived back and forth between Los Angeles, Tulsa and Nashville, and his career has meandered through different styles and varying levels of commercial success. 1974's "Stop All That Jazz" (which featured the Wilson brothers before they became the Gap Band) dabbled in funk and Afro-beat, and his 1992 comeback, "Anything Can Happen" — his first record in more than a decade — featured Bruce Hornsby and tinkered with traditional themes and island tempos. Russell's most noted stylistic side-step, though, is his occasional masquerade as a country persona named Hank Wilson. He first debuted Wilson in a 1973 album, "Hank Wilson's Back." It was an excuse for this rocker to purge his inherent Okie-born country leanings. "Hank Wilson came about on a road trip," Russell said. "I was bringing a car back from L.A., and I stopped at a truck stop that had about 500 country tapes for sale. I bought a bunch and listened to them on the way home (to Tulsa). I don't really listen to records very much, except for research. I liked some of that stuff, though, and thought it would be fun to do a record like that." Russell revisited Hank Wilson again in the early '80s, and a third Hank Wilson record is the reason for Leon's latest public presence. The new Ark 21 label just released "Legend in My Own Time: Hank Wilson III," a new set of country standards performed by Russell with such guests as the Oak Ridge Boys ("Daddy Sang Bass"), T. Graham Brown ("Love's Gonna Live Here") and longtime Leon pal and collaborator Willie Nelson ("He Stopped Loving Her Today" and "Okie From Muskogee"). Nelson and Russell still work together, performing occasional acoustic shows, but this album marks their first recorded duet since the 1979 "Willie and Leon" album. Ironically, the two collaborated musically before they ever met. "Somebody called me and said, `Joe Allison is working on Willie's album. Would you like to play?' " Russell said. "I went in and did some overdubs, some clean-up work, but I didn't meet him. Years later, I was sitting with Willie at his ranch in Austin. I said, `Listen to that guy playing all my stuff.' As I listened to it a little more, I realized I had played on those records. I didn't know it and he didn't know it." This Masquerade Harold Bradley, himself a legendary session musician who served as bandleader and production assistant for the new album, raves about the new Hank Wilson project. He said this album has finally captured Leon's true country spirit. "What I really like about this project is that we captured Leon totally," Bradley said. "In the other two albums, which I really liked too, I thought we had done really well. But in those albums, not really having done it before, we tried to make Leon go the Nashville way. On this album, we went Leon's way." Russell is equally excited about the results of the new Hank Wilson recordings. He recorded the vocals and piano in his home studio, then the musicians built on the framework he had established. Guest vocals were added later; Willie Nelson recorded his part in Austin while the Oak Ridge Boys made a visit to Russell's home. Twenty-four songs were recorded for this album in two days. "Nashville is full of master players," Russell said. "I mean you can go up to them and say, play this at this tempo, play it as a samba, and they can play it ... They're ready to play, and they're trained to play master quality at all times. It's great to be able to take advantage of that. I tried to do this rapidly, too. They get it right the first time about 95 percent of the time, and I tried to capture that. "The first time someone plays the tune, it's off the top of their head. It's somewhat more free and loose than if they'd practiced it 10 times. It gets confusing if you make a lot of takes and you start second-guessing yourself. You start arranging it in your mind. That first time, you play from the heart and it has a special kind of feel. Most of the songs (on this record) are first takes. Ten of my vocals are first takes, and in most cases I'd never sung the song before." Russell usually records his own albums at home, but he said he enjoys the chance to work with session players for these Hank Wilson albums because — with his own background as a session musician — he has such respect for them. "Those years I played in studios gave me invaluable experience," he said. "I worked with probably the best 200 or so producers and arrangers in the world. I learned so much from those guys. I can't imagine what it would be like not to have that." |
Thomas Conner
These online "clips" reproduce a self-selection of my journalism (music etc) during the last 20+ years. It's a lotta stuff, but it only scratches the surface. I do not currently possess the time or resources to digitize the whole body of work. These posts are simply a bunch of pretty great days at the office. Archives
September 2024
Categories
All
|