By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World 07/13/1999 Arlo Guthrie just loves the idea of this week's annual Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival. He's got only one complaint. July? In Oklahoma? "I know it's a real grand notion to schedule this event around my dad's birthday and all, but I kind of thought September would be nice," Arlo said, chuckling in an interview this week. Arlo Guthrie performs Wednesday night -- what would have been Woody's 87th birthday -- to kick off the second annual festival celebrating the life and music of the late Woody Guthrie. He'll be playing indoors and out of the heat at Okemah's beautiful Crystal Theater, at the festival's fund-raising starter show. Wednesday's bill also includes the Kingston Trio and Country Joe McDonald. It's certainly not the first time Arlo has paid tribute to his legendary folksinger father in performance or even on record, but he's been careful not to make his entire 30-year career one long torch-bearing ceremony for his father's music. "I sort of became a poster boy at a young age," Arlo said. "Luckily for me, though, my own success has made it possible for me to do both -- to sing my own songs and help keep my dad's alive. "If I was nothing but Woody's kid, that would be fine, but you know, there are probably more people today who know Woody Guthrie as my dad than know Arlo as his son. I think I just lasted longer in the public eye. My dad really only had 15 really good years being a public entertainer. I've had 30, almost twice as much. I've also had the advantage of living in a media-driven age, and because of that my record, 'Alice's Restaurant,' outsold all of my dad's records combined. I'm not saying this to have a popularity contest but to point out that the way things work now made it possible for me to support all the things of my dad's life without compromising anything for myself." Still, Arlo and the rest of the Guthrie clan don't jump onto every we-love-Woody bandwagon. This festival, though, organized by the Oklahoma-based Woody Guthrie Coalition, passed muster with the entire family. Arlo's sister Nora, who runs the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York City, has contributed materials and supported the festival. Woody's sister, Mary Jo Edgmon, has a hand in this year's symposium on Huntington's Disease, the ailment that killed Woody. "There are moments when events have a larger scope than just publicizing or promoting Woody Guthrie's name," Arlo said. "We've tried to stand behind things that are most valuable and meaningful and contribute to the things he enjoyed ... Not everyone who hangs a 'We Like Woody' sign in their window should have instant support from everyone else." Arlo said he was impressed with the way the Okemah festival tries to present the whole picture of Woody -- more than just the greatest hits of his music. In the same way, he said he enjoyed the "Mermaid Avenue" album -- last year's historic CD of Woody Guthrie lyrics put to music by British folksinger Billy Bragg and American alt-country band Wilco -- because it put into perspective other sides of Woody's life. "There was a time when folk songs were synonymous with protest songs. That's changing, in part because the way the world is now but also because we're beginning to understand that the songs of Woody and others were not just complaints about the world. They wrote about everything, a lot of which was pretty funny," Arlo said. "The whole focus of Woody's writings was that everyone is a regular guy, that people are regular people. The underlying philosophy behind all his work is that those regular people are just as valuable as all the kings and queens, that there's nobility in being a regular person." That outlook on humanity led Woody adamantly to support -- and sing about -- workers unions and some socialist causes. As Woody became a public figure in the '40s and '50s, these notions got him branded as a communist, a stigma that hung on his name long after his death in 1967. His home state was particularly slow in letting go of the old myths, a stubbornness Arlo sees as an amusing irony. "My dad was a free thinker. He was convinced that if people were left alone, they'd do right by each other. I find it difficult to understand that people who also find too much big government around them also are afraid of too much free thinking," he said. "I mean, that kind of irony gives rise to a sense of humor which is unique to that part of the country. There are places where the wind blows a certain way or the preacher speaks a certain way or the water tastes a certain way that gives rise to a certain way of thinking about things. If they don't add up quite right, you either hang your sign in the window or go on and smile about it. There's some of both going on there." After last year's lavish welcoming home of Woody's spirit -- involving the unveiling of a Woody Guthrie statue in downtown Okemah -- Arlo said he looks forward to coming back. He'll be performing Wednesday night with his son, Abe, who's traveled with Arlo for several years now, and his daughter, Sarah Lee, who started singing with Arlo and Abe last year. The travelling troupe has been so busy on the road lately that they haven't found time to mix the latest record, the follow-up to Arlo's 1996 album "Mystic Journey." Last year, Arlo and Abe went into a studio in Branson, Mo., and recorded an album called "32 Cents," a record of Woody Guthrie songs celebrating Woody's appearance on a postage stamp. The album was recorded with the Dillards, icons of bluegrass music (though you may remember them as the demented hayseeds the Darling Family on "The Andy Griffith Show"). Fans can hunt down more information on Arlo events at http://arlo.net. The Woody Guthrie Birthday Hootenanny featuring Arlo Guthrie, the Kingston Trio and Country Joe McDonald When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday Where: The Crystal Theater, on Main Street in Okemah (about an hour south of Tulsa on Interstate 40) Tickets: $27, available at all Carson Attractions outlets, (918) 584-2000 This post contains preview and review coverage of this annual festival ...
Free Woody Guthrie: a folkfest By Thomas Conner © Tulsa World 07/11/1999 After his historic performance on the inaugural night of last year's Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival, British folk singer Billy Bragg loaded up and headed south. His next gig was an appearance on public television's "Austin City Limits." As he took that famous stage, the first words out of his mouth were, "I just got back from Okemah. They're putting on a festival there for Woody Guthrie, and it's the coolest thing ever." The morning after that aired, David Gustafson's phone about came out of the wall. Gustafson already had attracted a good deal of attention by organizing the weeklong homage to Guthrie, America's greatest folk singer ("This Land Is Your Land," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "Deportee") and an Okemah native, but Bragg's public endorsement rolled out a bandwagon ripe for jumping on. "The word got out in all kinds of crazy ways, and after Billy's announcement people called from all over," Gustafson said in a conversation this week. "Artists were clamoring to be involved with this — and none of them get paid. That's not an issue, they don't care. They want to pay tribute to Woody in any way they can. We had to turn away a lot of people — big names, too. The future of the festival is bright." The clamor has boosted this year's festival to more than 40 scheduled performers, up from last year's dozen. An extra charity night has been added to this week's entertainment, and the Wednesday night kick-off concert features three of folk's largest legends: Country Joe McDonald, the Kingston Trio and Woody's son Arlo Guthrie. Last year's festivities — complete with the unveiling of a Guthrie statue in downtown Okemah — were inspiring on two fronts. First, the undying devotion of so many musicians to Woody's songs and legacy made clear how deeply the late singer's music touched the country's psyche. Plus, for the first time in decades, Oklahomans — and, more significantly, Okemahns — rallied around the Guthrie legacy. Guthrie's socialist leanings caused many people erroneously to brand him as anti-American and anti-religious. That turnaround in public sentiment helped to convince the Guthrie family that this festival was worth supporting. Since Woody's death in 1967, the Guthries — daughter Nora, son Arlo, sister Mary Jo — have been hesitant to stamp their name on just every Woody Guthrie tribute event. And there have been hundreds. "One thing Arlo's always said is that he's proud to be Woody's son but that he didn't ever feel like it was his job to carry the torch for Woody. He wanted to be his own artist. Now the entire family is saying that this is the event they want to sponsor and encourage," Gustafson said. "That kind of makes it official, and we feel great about that." Gustafson said he sees the festival growing significantly every year. Big names in music already have been in touch with the festival organizers to talk about playing in future years. Some may attend sooner than that. In January, the official Jackson Browne web page began listing the Guthrie festival on Browne's tour itinerary. Gustafson called Browne's organization to see what was up. "It wound up not working out, but it was left really kind of vague. Maybe he'll show up anyway," Gustafson said. "John Mellencamp is ending his world tour in Dallas on Thursday, too, and he's been made aware of the festival. Who knows what could happen?" An all-star start The second annual Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival begins Wednesday night in Okemah's Crystal Theater with an all-star concert that's not — as the festival's name implies — free. "Arlo said he'd be here this year, but he could only be here for the Wednesday show," Gustafson said. "We ran the numbers and decided it would be best to charge for this show and raise some money to keep the rest of it alive." Wednesday's show occurs on what would have been Woody's 87th birthday. Plus, while the MTV crowd focuses on the 30th anniversary Woodstock concert this summer in New York, this Wednesday night show reunites two acts that played the original Woodstock: Arlo and Country Joe McDonald. Arlo did manage to make a name for himself as a folk singer, scoring hits from "The Motorcycle Song" to his magnum opus, the raucous and rambling "Alice's Restaurant." This will be Arlo's first Okemah performance in a decade. Country Joe and the Fish rose out of Berkley, Calif., in the mid- '60s to lead the psychedelic movement in rock. By the time he played Woodstock, his "I-Feel- Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" and his notorious f-word chant had become the rallying call for resistance to the Vietnam War. McDonald himself has had intermittent success as a solo artist since. The Kingston Trio could be credited with the success — or at least the polarization — of mainstream folk music. Once one of the biggest acts in popular music (in 1961, 20 percent of Capitol Records' profits was all from the Kingston Trio), the Trio's staid, party songs struck a chord with cheeky, collegiate America and led to a string of No. 1 hits, starting with 1958's "Tom Dooley." The enormous success of this group gave other record companies the courage to sign acts like Bob Dylan. The Kingston Trio disbanded in 1967, but charter member Bob Shane revived it in 1971 and has nurtured a loyal following ever since. Health-care hootenanny Thursday's festivities are an added feature at this year's Guthrie festival. It's also the day Gustafson is most excited about. "I don't know how to explain how cool this is going to be," he said. Thursday night's free show at the Crystal Theater will focus on Huntington's Disease, the nervous disorder that killed Woody. Shortly after Guthrie died in '67, several of his musician friends, from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez to Judy Collins and Arlo, organized four tribute concerts — two at Carnegie Hall, two at the Hollywood Bowl — which featured a scripted performance mixing Guthrie songs with readings from his writings and journals. Actors Will Geer and Peter Fonda narrated the shows. Thursday's show will be a re-creation of those performances using the original script from the Woody Guthrie Archives. "We've taken that script, modified it, added some of Billy's songs and will present it with about 40 musicians," Gustafson said. "(Boston folksinger) Ellis Paul got hold of some lyrics Woody wrote about Huntington's itself, while he was suffering from the disease. The song is called 'No Help Known,' and he's put music to them." This show caps off a day-long symposium on Huntington's Disease for health-care workers from around the region. "See, it's not just a music thing anymore. It's starting to stretch into an event of what the man was about and what his experience was rather than only the music," Gustafson said. Wonderful weekend The weekend, though, is all about music. Nearly 30 folk performers will be playing on the festival grounds from Friday to Sunday. National acts include John Wesley Harding, a British alt-rocker gone traditional and self-styled "gangsta folk" player; Jimmy Lafave, an Okie expatriate from Austin and one of the leading voices in red-dirt folk music; and the Joel Rafael Band, an acoustic quartet from San Diego led by exalted Native American songwriter Rafael. Numerous regional red-dirt players will be on hand, too, namely Tulsa's Brandon Jenkins, the Farm Couple, DoubleNotSpyz and the Red Dirt Rangers. More music will sound from a stage in the campground area, as well as several after-hours late- night jams in clubs throughout Okemah. "Some people will go all night," Gustafson said. "The celebration will be intense." Essential Info WEDNESDAY The Birthday Hootenanny Featuring Arlo Guthrie, the Kingston Trio and Country Joe McDonald 7:30 p.m. Crystal Theater, on Main Street in Okemah Tickets are $27, available at all Tulsa-area Carson Attractions outlets. Call (918) 584-2000. THURSDAY "Huntington's Disease: Caring for People in Mid and Advanced Stages" -- a half-day conference for health-care professionals Featuring Jim Pollard, HD expert 9 a.m. Crystal Theater, on Main Street in Okemah Tickets are $15, payable to the Huntington Disease Society of Oklahoma. For information, call Dorothy Hearn, (405) 236-4372. "HD: Woody's Greatest Struggle in Story and Song" -- a panel discussion of Guthrie's battle with Huntington's Disease and how it affected his life and work Featuring Woody's sister, Mary Jo Edgmon, plus Guthrie historian Guy Logsdon and singer Jimmy Lafave, Bob Childers, Ellis Paul and Peter Keane 1:30 p.m. Crystal Theater, on Main Street in Okemah This event is free. Hoot for Huntington's Featuring the Kingston Trio, Country Joe McDonald, Ellis Paul, John Wesley Harding, Slaid Cleaves, Joel Rafael, Peter Keane, the Red Dirt Rangers, Jimmy Lafave, Larry Long, Tom Skinner, Bob Childers, and Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer 7:30 p.m. Crystal Theater, on Main Street in Okemah This event is free, but donation opportunities will be available for the Huntington's Disease Society of Oklahoma. FRIDAY Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival 6 p.m.: M.L. Liebler and the Magic Poetry Band 6:30 p.m.: Brandon Jenkins 7:40 p.m.: Chuck Pyle 8:30 p.m.: Slaid Cleaves 9:20 p.m.: John Wesley Harding 10:10 p.m.: Jimmy Lafave Pastures of Plenty Amphitheater, in the Okemah Industrial Park off of Interstate 40 This event is free. SATURDAY Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival 4 p.m.: DoubleNotSpyz with the Farm Couple 4:40 p.m.: Okie Songwriters in the Round featuring Tom Skinner, Bob Childers and Bill Erickson 5:30 p.m.: Women Singer-Songwriters in the Round featuring Emily Kaitz, Anne Armstrong, Linda Lowe and Darcie Deaville 6:20 p.m.: Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer 7:10 p.m.: Larry Long 8 p.m.: Red Dirt Rangers 8:50 p.m.: Peter Keane 9:40 p.m.: Bill Hearne 10:30 p.m.: Joel Rafael Band Pastures of Plenty Amphitheater, in the Okemah Industrial Park off of Interstate 40 This event is free. SUNDAY Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival 1 p.m.: Songwriting contest winners 1:40 p.m.: Susan Shore 2:30 p.m.: Still on the Hill 3:20 p.m.: Don Conoscenti 4 p.m.: Country Joe McDonald Pastures of Plenty Amphitheater, in the Okemah Industrial Park off of Interstate 40 This event is free. For more information -- including directions to the site, a printable map and details on camping and available hotels -- look on the Internet at http://www.woodyguthrie.com, e-mail woody@galstar.com or call (918) 825-6342. Ellis Paul hangs onto the essence of Woody Guthrie's music and ideals By Thomas Conner © Tulsa World 07/14/1999 Woody Guthrie was a restless soul. He couldn't stay in one place for very long, and he wound up traveling all over this country -- from the redwood forests to the Gulf stream waters. He saw different lands and different people, the scope of which informed the compassionate songs he sang with a reedy voice and a beat-up six-string. Ellis Paul knows about that wanderlust, and he's thankful for what it brings to his own folk songs. "It limits your experience to stay in one place," Paul said in a conversation last week. "Woody kept darting all over the country. He traveled without any route. He went out to California and got the migrant workers imbedded in his perspective. He wouldn't have had that if he'd stayed in Oklahoma. He was pretty worldly, he hung out with a diverse group of people -- poets and writers and artists and dancers and workers and politicians and union leaders. That's the great thing about the creative lifestyle: you hook up with the whole, romantic rainbow of humanity. "I'm on the road a lot because that's the way my music gets out there. It's exactly what Woody was doing when he was around. It's essential because the majority of the airplay you get is in nightclubs in front of a focused group of people. I get some airplay on the radio, but the main drive for this music is the engine of my car." Paul, who grew up on a Maine potato farm and is now a Boston- based singer, is a compelling songwriter in his own right and a workhorse on the neck of his open-tuned acoustic guitar. His latest album, "Translucent Soul," was released last year on Philo Records, part of the Rounder Records group. He will be one of several featured performers in Thursday night's Hoot for Huntington's concert, a preliminary event at the Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival in Okemah. The show will re-create a Woody Guthrie tribute concert from the late '60s as a fundraiser for the Huntington's Disease Society of Oklahoma. Paul has won numerous awards -- seven Boston Music Awards, even the prestigious Best New Artist award at the Kerrville Folk Festival -- and the Boston Globe once hailed him as "a national folk star and ... the quintessential Boston songwriter: literate, provocative, urbanely romantic." "I don't know if that quote sums up me, but it sums up the Boston scene. It's a literate scene because it comes out of listening rooms rather than bars," Paul said. "Boston has always had a great folk scene, and it's one of the only ones in the country that's thriving. It's a real industry here. It may be because of the collection of colleges here, all with radio stations catering to this kind of music. Folk is a somewhat intellectual art form, a little more heady than pop music. You don't have to know how to beat the bars here. If you emerge from playing bars, you have to do tricks to shut people up, like using more hooks. If you're in one of these listening rooms, all you've got is you and your words. The hook and the volume are secondary. That's why Boston songwriters tend to me more thoughtful and soft." Woody wasn't exactly loud, either. In fact, his quiet voice is usually what made the biggest impact. Paul has the same thing going for him. His small tenor has power whether cooing or squeaking, and he said he tries to adhere to Woody's same songwriting principles. Asked what in his own music is inspired by Woody, Paul said it would be "a complete awareness of the truth and trying to get to the bottom of it every single time, regardless of commercial viability." "Woody was a painter more than a singer -- or a journalist, really," Paul said. "He was trying to paint a picture of where he was in the time he was living. I feel like that's what I'm doing. I'm trying to be honest and real and talk about what's important." Like most of today's folk musicians, Paul came to Guthrie's music by way of Bob Dylan. However, where others peered into Woody's music from Dylan's stateroom, Paul wound up leaving Dylan behind and embracing Guthrie completely. "For me, what happened is that Woody became more important than Dylan or anybody," Paul said. "It was someone giving me the Joe Klein book (a Guthrie biography) -- that changed my life. Philosophically, he was doing something very risky, and his life story is so tied into 20th century history. He came out of the Depression, went with the migrant workers, served in a world war, fought fascism and he had so much to do with what happened in the '60s. "Here I am in the '90s doing my music and being hit by the tragedy of his story -- the fires, the marriages, the disease -- and the fact that he wrote 5,000 songs. It was a ridiculous amount of creativity. Plus, he had that overall philosophy that songs are supposed to be something more than just entertainment. They're supposed to be informational and change the people who hear them. I was overwhelmed by him, and changed, and I'm still in awe." Country Joe asks, Where's the social reflection? By Thomas Conner © Tulsa World 07/16/1999 The music of Country Joe and the Fish is inextricable from the public protests of the Vietnam War. Thirty years after Joe McDonald and his psychedelic San Francisco band set the tone for the Woodstock festival, that war is still very much on McDonald's mind. We had the opportunity to pick Country Joe's brain this week, prior to his solo appearances at this week's Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival in Okemah -- including his headlining show on Sunday -- and here are some of his notorious notions: On the new, "improved" 30th anniversary Woodstock concert: "It's kind of a shame that they're choosing not to address the Vietnam War. That war was connected to Woodstock. It's probably the reason for it ... There's no effort at all toward social reflection. They're just still trying to make money off it." On how radical the original Woodstock really was: "The right wing and the left wing hated us. Our lifestyles themselves were a threat to the status quo. Just the fact that we were trying to have fun was a threat to both sides. Young people today don't realize that ... We were politicized as much as anybody, but we tried to have fun at the same time. That itself was very political, and it scared the hell out of people." On the legacy of the Vietnam War: "The war is what did it. We were raised to blindly believe that America and our leaders were always right, then they sent us off to a war that shouldn't have been fought and we were just slaughtered. We did what they asked us to do, and we were disrespected and spit on. We were hated 'cause we fought and hated 'cause we didn't fight. We're still hated. The whole Monica (Lewinsky) thing -- that was the last go-round for the conservative '50s generation that absolutely hated the changes of the '60s." On what his Oklahoma roots taught him about life: "My father was born in Sallisaw. His dad had a ministry and three farms in Sallisaw. So I'm having a little family reunion on this visit ... Dad grew up on that farm, and my grandfather was a Presbyterian minister of the reformed school that believed children were not born into sin. He was an agrarian reformer, too, who built dams and worked to reclaim the soil. Dad then taught me how to farm in California. We broke horses together when I was a kid. He had a lot of Oklahoma sensibility about him, and taught me a lot. I live in the city now. City folks don't know how to dig a hole or anything. They hire someone to do a research study on hole digging, then get a big-time university project to walk the dog. They're totally mystified by dirt and critters. I mean, they buy these big plastic compost bins. My dad taught me to dig a hole in the ground, put in the compost, cover it with dirt. That's a compost pile." On how he wound up at a Woody Guthrie festival: "I grew up with his music, on 78s, along with rhythm and blues and lots of leftist union music in the house. My parents were leftist and admired working people, and my music tries to reflect the value of working people and respect their struggle for wages and justice -- which is still an enormous problem, now on a global perspective. Woody did the same thing -- and how." On an old album: "I recorded a record called `Thinking of Woody Guthrie' for the Vanguard label, did it in Nashville with Nashville musicians back in 1970. It's all Woody songs. It's on CD now, and I'll have some with me at the show." On a new album: "I bumped into a guy with an English rock band called the Bevis Frond. We made a live record of Country Joe and the Fish music called `Eat Flowers and Kiss Babies.' It's an electric tribute to some of the old music, 10 classic songs. It's on vinyl and CD, and you can get it on my website, countryjoe.com." John Wesley Harding: Folks are beginning to talk BY THOMAS CONNER © Tulsa World 07/16/1999 John Wesley Harding doesn't confine his wordplay to his witty and acerbic lyrics. He's a right clever self-promoter, too. Early in his career -- back when he suffered barbs for sounding too much like Elvis Costello, as if that's a bad thing -- Harding called his particular brand of folk-rock "power folk." It didn't catch on. Then he called it "folk noir." No bumper stickers followed. Nowadays, he calls his music "gangsta folk," and this label may stick. "The term 'gangsta folk' got a little foothold in American culture," said Harding, a native Brit now living in Seattle, during a conversation last week. "For a phrase I entirely made up, there's a sticker on the Smithsonian Folkways box set that says, `This is real gangsta folk,' implying that there's something else out there, which must be me. It's like Burroughs made up the phrase `heavy metal.' So I thought, well, I'll be in the dictionary now. " 'Gangsta folk' simply reflects what I do as opposed to what other singer-songwriters do. I'm not a sensitive singer-songwriter. Ellis Paul (Boston singer, who appeared at the Guthrie festival earlier this week) and I decided I was an insensitive singer-songwriter. Any way you can position yourself, you know?" Harding, a featured act on Friday's bill at the Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival in Okemah, has made a career of being dodgy -- dodging critical whines, dodging record label failures, dodging the lassos that would rope him into various consuming classifications. Always, he has dodged what was expected of him. For instance, he followed up the acoustic concerts that gave him his start with a cover of Madonna's "Like a Prayer" and then two slickly produced albums that had more to do with power pop than power folk. Just as everyone had written him off as a Costello clone, he turned in the 1992 album "Why We Fight," a preview of the more deeply rooted folk pioneering to come and including a pre-O.J. indictment of American justice, "Where the Bodies Are." When we expected a real folk record, he gave us the '70s orchestrations of "John Wesley Harding's New Deal," and when we expected an innovative new musical direction, he gave us his latest record, this year's "Trad Arr Jones," an entire record of Nic Jones songs. Jones is a folk music legend in Britain and has not performed in public since a car accident in 1982. The origins of gangsta folk? You guessed it. Harding said it's Woody Guthrie, pure and simple. "Without a doubt, he started gangsta folk," Harding said. "The lineage of gangsta folk runs from Woody through Dylan to Springsteen's 'Nebraska' album. Those are the high-water marks. Its real origins are the old murder ballads. It's music with a lot of dead bodies, no flinching in talking about sex and reality, with freedom to write from your imagination. That's especially important. People don't make things up anymore. Everyone writes about themselves and their own lives. That started with the '70s singer-songwritery stuff. I guess, people were doing enough drugs that they thought their private lives were incredibly interesting. It's not easy to make that stand up, though. Someone like Loudon Wainwright does it and it's Guthrie-esque in its honesty, humor and brilliance. Now it's all mixed in with a kind of therapy-speak that's really annoying." Harding found Woody Guthrie the same way nearly every folk songwriter has: through Bob Dylan. Dylan's emphasis on Guthrie's importance led legions of aspiring troubadours to check out Joe Klein's Guthrie biography from their local libraries. Harding watched the film biopic "Bound for Glory," which he said he "didn't much like," but something in the life story of Guthrie kept pulling Harding in until a larger sense of the singer's struggle emerged. Other artists showed Harding the way to Guthrie's experience. He first heard "Do Re Mi" played by Ry Cooder, and numerous Guthrie songs Harding first heard performed by other singers. "I'm a huge Woody Guthrie fan, but I don't put on Woody Guthrie albums. I have the Woody Guthrie greatest hits, and I don't think he's even on that record," Harding laughed. "Woody's very important. He and Hank Williams are very similar in their influence in that you don't need to own a record by them to know that you love them. Their influence is that pervasive in everyone's music. You can't even say that about Bob Dylan. Many people don't know any Jimmie Rodgers or Hank Williams or Woody Guthrie albums, but they already love their music. That makes them more like Mozart than pop songers -- someone whose music is everywhere and in the minds of everyone, regardless of who's playing it." With "Trad Arr Jones," Harding tried to do for Nic Jones what Dylan did for Guthrie. Jones -- who Harding said "certainly would have been influenced by Woody" -- inspired Harding's own work, and he said he wanted to share the discovery with his fans. "It's music that really moved me that's not available now, and I thought it deserved to be done. It's my covers album, it's just that I decided to do covers by all the same guy. His influence on my music is massive, namely in the narrative tradition," Harding said. The label that issued "Trad Arr Jones," Zero Hour Records, has folded, but the CD is still widely available. Harding said he'll also have some for sale with him at the festival this weekend. Review: This folk festival is bound for glory BY THOMAS CONNER ©Tulsa World 07/17/1999 Arlo Guthrie paused during his encore of "Goodnight Irene" to tell us what a wonderful festival this was. Four hours into the evening, we already knew that. Then he reminded us of something else, something we needed reminding of. "You know, it's only in the last 50 to 100 years that we've let other people do our singing for us," Guthrie said, strumming his guitar. "We used to sit around the fire, whatever kind of fire, and sing these old songs together. These are our songs. It feels good to sing them. It makes us feel more like human beings." So we sang, helped ol' Arlo and his kids -- Abe on piano, Sarah Lee on second guitar -- finish out the song and end another goosebumpy kick-off to the Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival. He was right, it did feel good to sing aloud. Grandparents harmonized. College kids clapped. Mothers with sleepy babies on their shoulders swayed back and forth. For a minute or two, the faceless caution of the Internet and the pigeonholes of cultural classification all melted away, and we indeed felt like human beings again. Arlo, son of the festival's late honoree, wrapped up Wednesday night's Birthday Hootenanny concert at Okemah's Crystal Theater with trademark grace and aplomb. Tossing out songs -- a few of his own, a few of his dad's -- and stories, the trio rambled through an engaging set of humor and humanism. He played "City of New Orleans" (with a story about forgetting the words during a performance at, of all things, a Steve Goodman tribute show), "The Motorcycle Song" ("I can't believe I wrote this stupid song and made a living singing it -- for decades! I love America!") and "This Land Is Your Land." The next generation of Guthries heightened the evening's musicianship and all-important sense of tradition. Abe received a well-deserved whoop of applause for a gritty solo during "Walking Blues" and his crucial support during Arlo's fresh take on "House of the Rising Sun." Sarah Lee had one song in the spotlight, singing Gillian Welch's "Orphan Girl" with a chiming, crystal-clear voice. Arlo and Abe backed her up with soothing harmonies; they came in one-by-one, singing the chorus of "No mother, no father, no sister, no brother," creating a great irony -- a wrenching song about a girl who knows no family sung here by a girl whose family legacy will live on for generations. Wednesday's concert also featured the commercially legendary Kingston Trio. Still able to sell huge volumes of tickets, the Kingston Trio -- consisting of one original member, Bob Shane -- is an anachronism of the highest order. In their prime, they were a nostalgia act, white-washing traditional folk songs for a homogenous late-'50s audiences, and now they're nostalgic about their own nostalgia. Granted, there is a generation or two between this group's mystique and my understanding, but their bar jokes and impassable distance between their own experience and the songs they were singing made a great bathroom break. Really, these three soft, old white guys in crisp Hawaiian shirts -- like a cast of a gay "Bonanza" -- have never done any "Hard Travelin' " or they wouldn't be so lively and jovial when singing about it. George Grove, while a studiously talented player, looks positively goofy singing a song in the persona of a lovelorn Mexican servant. Shane's solo reading of "Scotch and Soda" was the one sublime moment in the trio's set -- a smooth, lush song anyway, and one in which Shane clearly had an emotional investment. The rest of the bright, cheery songs about subway fares and serial killers are better left to Branson stages with the stench of breakfast buffets wafting through the aisles. Country Joe McDonald started the show with a cantankerous kick. Still as feisty as he was when he played Woodstock 30 years ago next month, McDonald exhibited what 30 years of playing the guitar can teach a man. Not only were his lyrics riotously funny and biting (especially his "no-nukes `Yankee Doodle' "), the music he pulled out of a weathered acoustic guitar was rich and full -- sloppy here and there, but only sloppy in the sense of an intrepid player refusing to keep to the well-traveled path. "Janis," written years ago for Janis Joplin, rings with gorgeous chords and tender sentiment, and a slide instrumental, "Thinking About John Fahey," helped the concert live up to its title as a hootenanny. McDonald is scheduled to headline the festival's outdoor show on Sunday evening. Wednesday's show was emceed by Boston singer-songwriter -- and honorary citizen of Okemah -- Ellis Paul. He introduced the acts, shared stories about his and others' pilgrimages to Woody's birthplace and sang a few of his own immensely pretty songs. While the three headlining acts were well-established, Paul impressed the standing-room- only crowd, earning the most comments like, "Hey, he's good. I gotta get that CD." It's highly deserved recognition for an artist of broad beauty and depth. Another link in this chain Of the many lessons to be learned during the Thursday night concert at the Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival, there are two important ones. First, Woody Guthrie's music, life and philosophies are loaded with timeless moral lessons for everyone. Secondly, out of organizational chaos can come performances of soul-shaking excitement. Thursday night's free show in Okemah's Crystal Theater followed a day of events related to Huntington's Disease, the nervous disorder to which Guthrie succumbed in 1967. The concert re-created and amended a series of all-star tribute shows performed in New York and California after his death. What began as a confusing, impersonal concert eventually warmed into a right cozy hoe-down. By the show's end, it was a hot time in the ol' hometown. About 30 musicians, ranging in origin from just south of London to just east of Tulsa, took turns on stage -- frequently backing each other -- singing unique arrangements of Woody Guthrie songs. In between performances, Pryor school teacher Bill McCloud read from Guthrie's writings -- observations on life, death and all the uplifting fuss in-between. It was an odd and thrilling evening. The artists had received their song assignments sometimes hours before showtime. Austin songwriter Slaid Cleaves managed to learn all 10 verses of "1913 Massacre," and performed it with the necessary chill. Local songwriter Bob Childers had no idea what the words were to "Biggest Thing a Man Has Ever Done" and didn't have his glasses to see the music stand. In a flurry of high comedy, Red Dirt Rangers singer Brad Piccolo tried to feed him the lines, a tactic which produced lots of laughter but little music until festival organizer David Gustafson brought out Childers' glasses. When good musicians aren't quite sure what's going on but find themselves onstage anyway, marvelous things can happen. Such inspired moments came frequently from Jimmy Lafave's band, which backed numerous singers, and the Rangers, who were responsible for breaking the ice with their unaffected stage presence. Incredibly solid performances came from John Wesley Harding (a rocking "Dear Mrs. Roosevelt"), Tom Skinner (a heartfelt "Jesus Christ") and Joel Rafael ("Deportee" with more conviction than I've ever seen it performed). Twenty songs later, the entire group of performers crowded onstage and led the crowd in a religious, 15-minute "This land Is Your Land." Everyone was on their feet, clapping and singing, and the singers took turns on the verses, shouting and laughing and yipee-yi-yo-ing. Suddenly, another lesson from the festival was clear: Woody is alive and well, and as long as these songs survive, humanity's hope will never die. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World Loni Anderson has discovered the fountain of youth. It's a delicate mixture of equal parts reruns and fan mail. " 'WKRP' has been running somewhere in the world since it went off the air in 1982, and I still get fan mail from all over the world. I'm getting tons from Germany right now, so it must be on over there. Some people don't realize how old the show is, how long ago it went off the air. Little kids write to me saying, 'I know you're older — you must be 20 -- but will you wait for me?,' " Anderson said in an interview this week. "I love that kind of fan mail." The TV show that made Anderson a star, "WKRP in Cincinnati," begins its run on Nick at Nite this week. The network launches the reruns with a five-day, 40-episode marathon beginning Monday night, unofficially enshrining the show as a classic in Nick at Nite's virtual on-air television hall of fame. The marathon will run each night this week from 8 p.m. to midnight on Tulsa cable channel 33 and will be hosted by Anderson, who played clever receptionist Jennifer Marlowe, and her "WKRP" co-star, Howard Hesseman, who played the incorrigible DJ Dr. Johnny Fever. Anderson said she's enjoyed seeing the show brought back into the limelight, though the series is no stranger to rerun ratings routs. The show ran for four seasons, '78-'82, and actually became more popular in syndication. Executives at CBS realized the mistake of canceling the show when reruns of "WKRP" topped Monday Night Football a year later. "I'd forgotten a lot of it — and how funny it was," Anderson said. "I laughed out loud, which to me is the true test of a comedy." "WKRP" was a smart sitcom set in a struggling Cincinnati radio station, which makes the abrupt format shift from elevator music to Top 40 rock 'n' roll. Though the music the on-air DJs are spinning is now called "classic" rock, Anderson said there's plenty for new viewers — like the young'uns writing her fan mail — to enjoy. "It's not dated at all," she said. "That's the interesting thing about the show. Hugh (Wilson, the show's creator) was so into comedy coming out of character and story rather than a referral joke to what's going on in the world at the time. The comedy comes out of the story and never gets old." Anderson almost turned down the role of Jennifer. She had come to Hollywood from her native Minnesota at the urging of actor Pat O'Brien (who later played one of Jennifer's elderly beaus in the episode "Jennifer and the Will," airing Friday night). At the time, she was married to Ross Bickell, who was called back several times for the role of WKRP programming director Andy Travis. "He had the script with him, and I kept getting calls to go in for the part of Jennifer. But I didn't want it. I thought the part was window dressing," Anderson said. "It was not the way I wanted to go, especially since I had just decided to go blonde. Finally, my agent said, 'There's only so many times you can tell MTM (Mary Tyler Moore's production company) you're not interested, so I went in to try it. "I was doing an episode of 'Three's Company' at the time ('Coffee, Tea or Jack?'), so they told me to come in on Saturday. I got out my soapbox to tell them how much I didn't like this character. I did my speech, and Grant Tinker asked me, 'How would you do it then?' I said I think she should be sarcastic and atypical. He said, 'So do it that way.' But it wasn't written that way, and I cried all the way home thinking I was terrible. "On Monday they offered me the part. Hugh said, 'I promise, if this pilot sells, you'll change.' And he kept his word. You can see the change from 'Pilot Part I' to 'Pilot Part II.' In the first part, I'm sticking my chest in Andy's face and calling Carlson (station manager, played by Gordon Jump) a jerk. Later, Carlson became my baby, and Jennifer became a real person." That was one of many battles Anderson would have to fight in Hollywood over the stereotype of the dumb blonde -- ironic since Anderson was a natural brunette until moving to California. "Before you even open your mouth, there's a look that happens. I didn't have to deal with that as a brunette, and it was very new. I made sure to do talk shows so people would see more than just the outside of me," Anderson said. Not that Anderson couldn't play a dumb blonde quite well. In the episode "The Consultant" (airing Friday night), the staff of WKRP reverses roles to foil a radio consultant with ulterior motives. Jennifer pretends she's the classic ditzy blonde. "I was so intent on not letting anyone know I could do a dumb blonde voice. I used it a lot when I was a brunette, but it was never a problem. After I went blonde, I didn't do it anymore. But I was sitting on the set one day, and someone made a comment, and I did the voice. Hugh said, 'Did that come from you?' I said yes, and he said, 'We have to do a show where you can use that,' " Anderson said. Anderson has played a variety of characters since "WKRP" went to static, most recently being the mother to the brothers in "Night at the Roxbury" and mother to Pamela Anderson in UPN's "V.I.P." Still, she remembers that first TV role most fondly. "We were such a family," she said of her "WKRP" co-stars. "We had all worked, but none of us had had much celebrity status before that, so it was a beginning, and beginnings are always spectacular. You always remember your first kiss, to have this be such a wonderful experience — well, we were very lucky." After this week's introductory marathon, all 90 episodes of "WKRP in Cincinnati" will air in sequence at 11 p.m. on Nick at Nite. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Dwight Twilley doesn't sit still. Even in his own home. He's sitting cross-legged on his living room floor, rocking back and forth, sucking Parliament cigarettes to the filters. Sometimes he gets up and paces behind the couch. He bites his nails like a new father outside the maternity ward. He is a new father, really. His latest baby is being born right here in this living room, on the stereo. It's Twilley's new album — his first record of new songs since 1986. We're in Twilley's living room in a nondescript house in a midtown Tulsa neighborhood like any other. The dogs frolic in a fenced yard out back. The neighborhood kids loiter in the front yard, hoping to find one of the box turtles that live underneath the property's massive, signature oak tree. There are no fancy cars in the driveway. Only the converted garage with no windows -- Twilley's recording studio — gives away anything unusual about the house. No one would drive by and think this was the home of a Top 40 pop star. "It's only when I'm out mowing the lawn and looking dirty and awful that somebody drives by and stops. 'Are you Dwight Twilley? Can I get your autograph?' " he says. That odd, windowless garage is where the entire new album was recorded. It doesn't sound like a homemade record, though. It sounds bigger and brighter than any album released in his three-decade career. It sounds as if he had a huge, major-label recording budget — or, as Twilley is fond of putting it, "We tried to make this record sound like we had a deli tray." But there was no caterer, no staff of engineers, no heady Los Angeles vibe intoxicating everyone in the process. Just snacks in the kitchen across the breezeway, Twilley's wife Jan Allison running the control board and the laid-back comfort of Tulsa keeping the couple sane for a change. In fact, the heady Tulsa vibe informed and inspired practically every note, word and sound that went into this new record — from the use of a recorded thunderstorm and cicada chorus to lyrics such as, "I gave a lot up for rock 'n' roll / I had a lover but I let her go in Tulsa." A quick scan around the living room reveals prints of Twilley's paintings on the wall, a Bee Gees boxed set on the stereo cabinet, Twilley himself jittering through his nervous energy on the floor. At least he's still got the energy, and at least he's home. The new album will be on shelves Tuesday. It's called "Tulsa." All roads lead to Tulsa It's 1970. Twilley and Phil Seymour have finally gotten out of town. The two had met three years earlier at a screening of "A Hard Day's Night" and discovered their musical chemistry, as well as their desire to practice that science far and away from Tulsa. In a '58 Chevy, they head east to Memphis. Driving down Union Avenue, they pass a storefront painted with the moniker of Sun Records. "Hey, look, it's a record company," Twilley says. He and Seymour walk into Sun Records and talk to "some guy named Phillips." They have no idea where they are — Sun Records, the studio where Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and countless others were molded, talking to Sam Phillips, the man responsible for their molding. Phillips listens to the tape of songs by Twilley and Seymour. He doesn't send them away. Instead, he sends them to Tupelo, Miss., to see Ray Harris, who says, "Y'all sing like (weenies)!" "We had no idea where we were, really. We thought Elvis was a movie star and that the Beatles invented rock 'n' roll. We heard this Elvis stuff and were saying, 'Hey, that sounds like Ringo,' " Twilley says of the trip. "It made an impression. That's what wound up setting us apart. Everybody else thought the Beatles invented rock 'n' roll, and we fused the two. "Plus, when we came back, we didn't sing like (weenies)." A few years later, after learning to blend the catchy pop of the Beatles with the backbeats of classic rock 'n' roll, Twilley and Seymour escape Tulsa again. This time they go west, to Los Angeles. Once again, they start shopping their tapes to record companies. "Leon (Russell) had started Shelter by then, and that was the last thing we wanted," Twilley says now. "We thought that was the stupidest thing in the world. Every club in (Tulsa) had someone singing like this — " and he launches into a wheezy, whiny Leon Russell impression. "We drove 1,500 miles to get away from that." Still, during the pair's first week in L.A., someone takes their tape to the Hollywood office of Russell's Shelter Records. Within days, Twilley gets a call from Russell's manager and label head Denny Cordell. "I show up at the Shelter office and sit in the little waiting room. The Shelter people are in listening to the tape and apparently freaking out. Somebody said, 'They came out here with a tape of 30 of these (songs)!' Denny walks out and says, 'I've heard your tape. Here's how I feel about it,' and drops a record contract in my lap. Then he walks out, saying over his shoulder, 'You'd better get an attorney.' That was it," Twilley said. "Then they sent us back to Tulsa." Inspired insubordination It's a chilly night early in 1975. Actually, it's early in the morning, maybe 3 a.m. Twilley and Seymour are toying around in the Church Studio (then owned by Russell) under strict orders from Shelter Records to get to know the studio and not — under any circumstances — record any songs. Maybe it's the hour, maybe there are stimulants -- regardless, Twilley and Seymour buck the orders. Seymour takes Twilley into the hallways and says, "Let's do it. Let's record a hit. Right now." Building on a groove Seymour had been tinkering with, and handing guitarist Bill Pitcock IV the riffing opportunity of his life, the Dwight Twilley Band records "I'm on Fire." The Shelter people will be annoyed — until they hear it. The single will be rushed out. By June it will hit No. 16 on the charts and stick in the Top 40 for eight weeks. For the next 10 years, Twilley's career will ride a roller-coaster of fame and frustration, scoring another Top 10 hit in 1984 with "Girls" and settling him into life in L.A. The prodigal star Fast-forward to November 1996. I'm at Caz's in the Brady District, checking out the latest band to be graced by Bill Padgett's thundering drums, a now-defunct act called Buick MacKane. The singer, Brandon McGovern, moved from Memphis to Tulsa just to be near Phil Seymour, who had died from cancer a few years earlier. The influence rings in every sweetened, Beatlesque chord. Buick MacKane is the opener tonight. The main act is Dwight Twilley. Most in the audience remember Dwight, after all, he had some hits. Those still new to the Tulsa scene probably don't realize he was a Tulsan, much less that he's back in town. But the crowd is willing to give his set a listen. When Twilley walkes into the bar — feathered hair, sloganeering buttons on his lapel — he turns heads not with the ghosts of his good looks but with an intangible aura of a superstar. His set on the floor of this tiny shotgun bar was bigger and stronger than any other local show in recent memory, and the songs were gorgeous, crystalline, catchy as hell. What on earth was he doing back here? "After the earthquake ('94, in California), the insurance people said we'd have to move out of the house to fix it and then move back in," said Twilley's wife, Jan Allison. "Dwight looked at me and started singing, 'Take me back to Tulsa . . .'" Weary of the literal and figurative shake, rattle and roll of the L.A. lifestyle, Twilley and Allison moved back in '94. Twilley wasn't retiring. In fact, quite the contrary — he planned to finally record a new album right away. "But with fax machines and Fed-Ex, you don't need to live in the big business centers anymore," Twilley said. "I wanted to come home." 'I'm Back Again' Before Twilley and Allison premiere the new record, Twilley shows off his home studio. It's a masterfully rehabilitated garage, an immaculate studio and a small drum room; set into the door between them is a porthole from the Church Studio. He points out a few pieces of equipment used in the recording, and talks about how many favors he cashed in to lure old Dwight Twilley cronies out to play on yet another record — original guitarist Bill Pitcock, noted local axmen Pat Savage and Tom Hanford, original Dwight Twilley Band drummer Jerry Naifeh, Nashville Rebels bassist Dave White and drummer Bill Padgett, among others. "I used up every favor, burned every bridge. There's guys who won't return my calls anymore," Twilley says. But he doesn't seem to regret the effort. He's very proud of the results and is quite sure that his moving back to Tulsa was a great career move. "This record wouldn't have been possible without the incredible musicianship in this town," he says. "I've always said that Tulsa musicians are the best in the world because they have to work so damn hard, harder than anywhere else. That was part of why I moved back. I wanted a band of Tulsa musicians again . . . and I feel a real sense of accomplishment that I've made a new Dwight Twilley record here in Tulsa." "Tulsa" will be released Tuesday by a Texas-based independent label, Copper Records. It's the first new Twilley record to hit shelves in 13 years, the first recorded in Tulsa in two decades. A CD collection of rarities and outtakes will follow later in the summer from a different label. A new Twilley single — 7-inch vinyl, no less — is the current best-seller for a French indie. Twilley classics have popped up on every "power pop" collection worth its salt in the last three years. Twilley just doesn't sit still — especially when he's home. Between the cracks By Thomas Conner © Tulsa World Twilley's latest salvo includes not one but two new CDs. In addition to the album of new songs, "Tulsa," Twilley soon will release a CD called "Between the Cracks, Vol. 1." It's a collection of rarities, demos and outtakes from the early '70s to the present. Twilley is an extensive archivist of his personal exploits, and he's saved nearly everything he's recorded on his own and with the Dwight Twilley Band. "Between the Cracks" features several gems from this collection, including several tracks from "The Luck" album, which was never released. There's also a demo of a song from about 1973 featuring just Twilley and a piano. "Between the Cracks" will be released by Not Lame Records in Colorado. For more information on Twilley recordings, look to his website at http://members.aol.com/Twillex. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World A couple of weekends ago, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey played a handful of Tulsa gigs in which they barely included any of the songs on their new album, "Welcome Home," released this week. "We did three sets of all new material except two from 'Welcome Home,' " said keyboardist Brian Haas. "We've just got that much new stuff. It just keeps coming." That kind of spirit and production rate after five hard years together as Tulsa's most unique jazz-funk fusion band is what impressed Russ Gershon to sign the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey to his independent record label. "It boggles my mind that this group has held together, playing mainly with each other and evolving as a group as opposed to going off to the big city and playing with hot shots," said Gershon, head of Massachusetts-based Accurate Records. "These guys stuck together and pulled it up to a really high level without losing a sense of fun." The seven members of Jacob Fred started sending tapes of their music to Accurate about four years ago. The first Medeski, Martin and Wood album — a band to whom Jacob Fred is frequently compared — was released on Accurate, so that seemed like a logical place to start. Gershon has his own innovative band called the Either Orchestra, and he picked up on the band's outstanding sound. "It was just odd enough," Gershon said of hearing Jacob Fred's first self-produced CD, "Live at the Lincoln Continental." "Of all the tapes that are sent to me, I listened to this one. I liked it. It had great energy. I called them back — or maybe Brian called me — and they sent me another one. It was even better. We talked about what was next for them, and I said I'd put the next one out." As a musician himself, Gershon said he appreciates the band's efforts to keep jazz interesting and dangerous. "They have such a sense of abandon, which is very important these days," Gershon said. "You hear a lot of jazz-funk that's trying to sound tight and just sounds dry. These guys are loose as free improvisors. They have fun when they're playing. There's a lot of music where people are too damn serious — not about their efforts but their message. These guys' message is that you can be a serious player and still have fun. In fact, it's better to have fun because that's the only way a musician can survive. Having fun doesn't mean you have to be sloppy musician. Jacob Fred has a looseness I associate with my early Miles Davis records." "Welcome Home" hit shelves across the country on Tuesday. Accurate's other credits include the first Morphine album, as well as six CDs for the Either Orchestra. Jacob Fred plays a show Thursday at Club One to celebrate the CD release. Earlier reports noted a cover charge for the show, but admission will be free. Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey When: 9 p.m. Thursday Where: Club One, 3200 Riverside Drive in the Place One apartment complex Tickets: No cover charge BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World There's an element of jazz — real jazz — that's rarely discussed at charity benefit galas and music company board meetings. You won't hear it in much of the music masquerading as jazz — not lounge, not swing, certainly not "smooth jazz." It's psychedelia. You might only have heard the term applied to rock 'n' roll — the droning, sitar-drenched stuff from the late '60s. But while psychedelic rock 'n' roll tried to blast open the doors of perception, inventive and free jazz tries to create its own keys. Creative bandleaders such as Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk, as well as sonic pioneers from Ornette Coleman to Cecil Taylor, pushed the boundaries of music back to expose new ways of producing and perceiving the music, new vistas of expression, undiscovered countries. More dopey-eyed people said, "Wow, man," at a righteous Mingus performance than any Captain Beefheart show. The music of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey is an excellent reminder of this. Built on firm foundations of traditional jazz, funk and even rock, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey often bounds off on enthralling collective improvisations, and the result is often very "Wow, man." "Jazz has always been psychedelic," said Brian Haas, the band's own Master of Space of Time behind the Fender Rhodes keyboard. "Psychedelic — that is, activating the psyche, dealing with the intangible instead of the tangible," added Reed Mathis, Jacob Fred's bass player. Besides being a seven-piece group of well-trained musicians, mostly from the esteemed jazz program at the University of Tulsa, Jacob Fred's music often receives more comparisons to fringe rockers than the jazz artists in which the band's innovative creations are so rooted. "Even more than Medeski, Martin and Wood, the comparison we hear most is Frank Zappa," said trombone player Matt Leland, son of local keyboard wiz Mike Leland. "Mostly that means they're saying, 'Whoa, that's really out there.' Zappa's probably the only really crazy music they've ever heard." More exploratory listeners will have the chance this week to hear Jacob Fred's brand of crazy music. The Tulsa-based tribe releases its third CD, "Welcome Home," via a Massachusetts-based independent record label, Accurate Records. The label distributes its records nationally through the Warner Bros. Records network, meaning "Welcome Home" should be available at any record outlet coast-to-coast. Take Three "Welcome Home" is the band's third full-length disc. The first two, with the cheeky titles "Live at the Lincoln Continental" and "Live in Tokyo," were recorded live at the Eclipse and Club One in Tulsa. For the third outing, the members of Jacob Fred set out to record their first-ever studio record. That's not what they ended up with. The reason is simply stated. "It sounded like poopy," said guitarist Dove McHargue. The band spent several months in a studio with local producer and punk rocker Martin Halstead (N.O.T.A.), slaving over a hot mixer and trying to pin down the explosive — and often psychedelic — Jacob Fred chemistry. Only rarely did the results live up to the band's standards and expectations, so the bulk of the recordings were scrapped. "Welcome Home" features two studio tracks, a righteous ballad called "Road to Emmaus" and a talkie courtesy of drummer Sean Layton's affected drawl, "Stomp"; the other six instrumentals were captured once again at Tulsa's Club One. "It was necessary that we do this," Mathis said of the studio experience. "We learned many of our strengths and weaknesses. The things we are familiar with as mainly a live band simply weren't there in the studio ... It was getting ridiculous doing 11 takes of one tune. We set up for two nights in the club and had a finished album." "It's much easier to present this music when you're thinking about the audience and not about your own critical ears," said trumpeter Kyle Wright. "It's just not time for us in the studio yet," Mathis said. When will it be time for a Jacob Fred studio record? "When we can find a studio that can hold 500 patient people," McHargue said. So, for now, the third Jacob Fred CD is another snapshot of the band's carefully reckless evolution. JFJO, Not MMW, OK? After this week's two Tulsa CD release parties, Jacob Fred again will take to the road for a tour stretching from Boston to Los Angeles. The word is out ahead of them, too. This month's Down Beat magazine — the cornerstone news source for jazz — sports a feature article on the band. That article's chief comparison of the band is not, of course, Zappa. It's Medeski, Martin and Wood, a more revisionist acid-jazz organ trio that also debuted itself to the nation via Accurate Records. Jacob Fred members maintain that the only thing they have in common with MMW is a spirit of innovation. "It's the things MMW and us avoid that groups us together," Mathis said. "It's not what we have in common, really. The thing we really have in common is that we're both unclassifiable bands." "MMW," a song on "Welcome Home," makes light of the perceived link. In this case, the MMW marks the order of solos in the song: McHargue, Mathis and Wright. On tour, the band proudly carries the banner for Tulsa music. Or is that Texas? There's a goofy story behind the new album's name. Mathis explained: "We went to Chicago, and the paper mentioned us, saying, 'avant-garde sounds from Texas.' The next week in Austin, they'd somehow picked up on that, and a flier for our show said they were welcoming us home." Haas continued, "So in the show we said, 'It's great to back. This next song is called "Welcome Home."' And Kyle went into an improv thing." "So now anytime we make up a song on stage — total improvisation — we call it 'Welcome Home,'" Mathis said. Celebrating its new and nationally released CD, "Welcome Home" on Accurate Records, Tulsa's own Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey has scheduled two shows this week for its hometown friends. Fans of all ages can catch the band's unique funk-jazz at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Living Arts of Tulsa, 19 E. Brady. Admission is $5 ($3 for Living Arts members) at the door. The second show — 21 and over — kicks off at 9 p.m. Thursday where most of the new CD was recorded: Club One, 3200 Riverside Drive It's $5 at the door, too. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World The members of Epperley on Sunday are returning from the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas. They've been there before — once playing a packed official showcase, once playing to the sound man at a "pirate" gig -- but this year's self-promotion rings of self-confidence and assurance. No longer does this Tulsa rock band fit the mold of green, mildly desperate newcomers. An acclaimed new album, some miles on the odometer and a sense of professionalism instilled by four years in the running have fermented the Epperley sound into something finer, full-bodied and formidable. "Like wine, right?" smirked Epperley guitarist Matt Nader during a recent conversation. "Jeez, I hope we've grown by now. We're playing some great shows, and I think we're all excited about the record and what people will think of it." He should be. Epperley's new album, "Sophomore Slump," is likely to raise most of the brows furrowed by the self-titled debut. Recorded and mixed in a whirlwind few days in New York City, the disc is a wallop of fat guitars, roaring production and some solid songs. That it's finally on record store shelves is a bit of a relief, too — the release was delayed for a year — but Nader said he thinks the timing will be just right. "Somehow we haven't let people forget our name, and I think some people are actually waiting for this," he said. The waiting has been the hardest part. Better late than never Exactly one year ago I caught up with Epperley to talk about the new album, finished early in '97. When I asked when the record would be released, all four guys — Nader, singer David Terry, bassist David Bynum and drummer John Truskett — laughed. The responses, though, showed they weren't amused: "Maybe late May?" "This century?" "Hell's frozen now, right?" The band's record label, Los Angeles-based Triple X Records, held onto the disc while working out a deal to distribute it properly. Nader said the delay, while frustrating, will be worth the wait. "The last record (also on Triple X) was hard to find even here in Tulsa, but a friend of mine saw copies in a Tower Records in Germany and Indonesia, and I found it in Paris," Nader said. The new deal should make "Sophomore Slump" readily available in most music shops on this continent. Last year's meeting took place during a rehearsal at Nader's posh south Tulsa house. An upstairs bedroom was the band's studio, littered with chunky sound equipment and videodiscs of cult films. Truskett, the band's manic Neal Cassidy, was sniffling and wheezing behind his kit; the night before, his symptoms had landed him in the emergency room. Before launching into the first song of the afternoon, he beat on his chest, chanting to himself, "Who's not sick? Who's not sick?" "Hey, the drummer for Def Leppard only had one arm," Nader said, attempting consolation. No dice. "Yeah," Truskett said, "but he didn't have bronchitis." As the sun faded, they plowed through several of the songs they're still playing today — the martial beats of "Static," the reinvented boredom lament "Jenks, America," a great song that didn't make the new album, "Casio Man" -- randomly selecting them from a lengthy three-column list on a bulletin board. "Triple X wanted to put out an EP, but we thought that would be a bad idea," Bynum said. "We've got so many songs, though, and we haven't put out a record in so long." Said Nader: "We're the most prolific band in the Midwest." Indeed, since the appearance of "Epperley" in 1996, Nader and his mates have churned out scores of songs. Every few months, I'd see them brandishing another 90-minute cassette of new songs. In addition to producing their own Christmas CD twice, Nader even formed a band on the side, Secret Agent Teenager, to ease some of the songwriting pressure. In the interim, the band also landed a publishing contract with Windswept Pacific. "The publishing deal is actually the best part," Bynum said. "That gets our material in front of a lot of people who otherwise probably wouldn't play one of our records on sight. That has helped us to slowly, very slowly, get bigger." Teen-age imperialism Epperley spent the beginning of 1999 plying the West Coast with this sweeter sound. After four years together, this is the first serious touring the band has done. Nader said the advantages of honing a live show far outweighed the soul-deadening experience of driving for hours on end. "We got to play a lot — a lot more than if we had stayed here in Tulsa," he said. "It was a drag sometimes, pulling eight- to 12-hour drives every day and knowing exactly what records each person would listen to when it was his turn to drive. But we had some really good shows, especially toward the end of the tour." Not only did a San Diego club, the Casbah ("I finally got to rock the Casbah," Nader said), bring Epperley back for a second show, but the band's final gig was an opening slot for Imperial Teen, the latest band featuring Roddy Bottom (Faith No More), at L.A.'s noted Troubadour club. They plan to hit the road again next month, if for no other reason than to see Tina Yothers again. "Remember Tina Yothers, from 'Family Ties'? She's in a band called The Jaded," Terry said. "It's awful. It's like Cinemax after-dark kind of stuff. Really bad." It's gonna happen Meanwhile, Epperley now is concentrating on promoting the new album through all the right channels. The reviews are starting to come in, and most are positive. The band is now listed in the online version of the All-Music Guide, and both albums score three out of five stars. "The first album got reviewed in all these punk magazines," Bynum said. "That's bad." "We got a bad review in one of those that said we sucked because we didn't use distortion in every song," Nader said. "Guitar World said, `This band makes Blind Melon look like Pantera,' " Bynum recalled. "What else was there?" "Remember the shortest one?" Terry asked his mates. "It was just one sentence: 'Isn't Kurt Cobain dead?' " Everyone laughs, and it's a healthy laughter. The Epperley guys usually join detractors of their first record. Most of it was recorded when Epperley still operated under the names Bug and, briefly, Superfuzz, with some extra tracks added from initial, hasty L.A. sessions. "We don't even really like the first record," Nader said. "We can't blame Triple X for not promoting it. It was recorded without any idea that someone would say, `Hey, we want to put this out.' " But that, Epperley likes to remind itself, was a long time ago. "One day," Terry said, "whether it's on Triple X and takes forever or whether we're shoved into the limelight, it's going to happen for us." BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World Back-to-back Grammy award-winner Roberta Flack was on the phone with us a few hours before the annual Grammys ceremony last month. She wasn't attending — the call came from her home in Barbados — and she wasn't even sure she would watch the show. "I'm not sure I can get it down here," Flack said, "and I couldn't sit down that long even when I was going to those shows." Grammys may be old hat for Flack; however, even when she doesn't attend, her presence often still permeates the glittering music halls. This year, for instance, the golden child of the evening was hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill -- once leader of the Fugees, a band that just two years ago launched its formidable career by covering one of Flack's signature early '70s hits, "Killing Me Softly With His Song." Flack herself has a unique place in Grammy history. In 1972, she took home trophies for Record of the Year and Song of the Year for her recording of Ewan MacColl's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face." She also shared a trophy for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Group that year with Donny Hathaway for the duet "Where Is the Love." That alone was a nice haul, but the very next year Flack returned to collect three more statuettes for "Killing Me Softly" — an unheard-of one-two punch. Then what happened? Well, therein lies the rub, as well as what makes a musical artist distinct. The pop scene changed — the fans' love of story songs in the early '70s gave way to mindless disco beats — and Flack refused to blow with the prevailing winds. She remains an unmistakable talent at this point in her three-decade career precisely because she didn't try to become a disco queen (a la Patti Labelle) or a private dancer (a la Tina Turner). Flack was, is and forever will be a balladeer. That's not to say she hasn't dabbled. Her last album, 1995's "Roberta," opened with a kind of rap, and she's tinkered with jazz singing, but Flack endures as a vocalist who lures the simple, shining joy out of a ballad, from those first two smash hits to her chart-topping duet with Peabo Bryson, "Tonight I Celebrate My Love." She sings songs that tell tales — timeless ones. "I got started at the time people were really into songs that told stories," Flack said in our conversation. "That was a really good time, the early '70s. Even rock 'n' roll artists, country and R&B artists — and this is when those divisions were really clear — they were all trying to do music that told stories. It wasn't necessarily a once-upon-a-time story, but something people could connect to, some personal experience they'd been through. The exciting part about being a musician is recognizing that when you're on stage, when someone connects with what you're singing about, and you just watch them change. "But everything has its season, and things changed. Except me. The disco thing was next, and I'm not stupid enough to hang in with that. I'm perfectly satisfied to sing a beautiful ballad." The process of choosing ballads sometimes is subject to whim or instinct. Flack said she looks for ineffable concepts like "gorgeousness, effect, meaning" in a song before she tackles it, with an emphasis on that last one: meaning. "I have to think that somebody other than me is going to understand it," she said. "I don't want to sing and entertain myself, or provide just therapy for myself. I want to be sharing my feelings. I make sure I'm picking a song that speaks to experiences and attitudes and moments in all of our lives." Still, the meaning Flack may find in a song can be, well, unique. "Killing Me Softly" is a lyric written about the songs of Don McLean (telescope that notion through the Fugees' version and see what you get!), but Flack said she sung it because it reminded her of someone close. Plus, the face she had in mind when recording "The First Time" in 1969 was small and, well, furry. "At the moment I recorded that, I was singing to a little cat," Flack said. "It sounds cornball, but it's true. I'd never had a cat before, and my manager had just given me one. I named it Sancho. About the time I got him was when I got the chance to go to New York and record demos for that first album ... In those two days, I recorded between 35 and 40 songs live. (Not long after) I got back, Sancho died. Then, three or four weeks later, when I recorded the album, I was thinking about little Sancho, that cute little funny-looking, scrawny cat." In concert, Flack said she tries to gauge the temperament of her audience and chooses songs to fit that perceived mood. Set lists vary from night to night when she's on the road (the Tulsa shows are special engagements). She's been known to nix "The First Time" in favor of, say, John Lennon's "Imagine," because "the young kids today" might identify with Lennon more readily than her own signature work. Those same young kids are still driving record sales, and Flack's perceived distance from them is why she thinks she's without a record deal at the moment. Not that it troubles her greatly — she's looking, but she's got time and options, she said — but she recognizes that she's not alone. "A lot of us don't have deals now — those of us who sing those story songs well. There's just not a place for us in the scheme of things. "We're not doing hip-hop, and if you're not doing what sells," Flack said, "you're not going to be doing." ROBERTA FLACK With the Tulsa Philharmonic When 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday Where Tulsa Performing Arts Center, Third Street and Cincinnati Ave. Tickets $14-$58; PAC, 596-7111 and Carson Attractions, 584-2000 BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World Larry Graham is sometimes referred to as The Man Who Invented Funk. "Well, I don't know about that, but I did invent my style of playing the bass," Graham said in an interview this week. Indeed, a great number of influential musicians formed the foundations of funk, but the music never would have been the same without Graham's particular style of playing the bass. That contribution gave the music its signature sound: the slap bass. Slap bass is just what it sounds like: the bass player slaps the low strings with his or her thumb, keeping rhythm while plucking the other strings with the fingers. Graham "invented" this method of playing before he had his own funk band, Graham Central Station, and before he joined the legendary '60s soul-funk collective Sly and the Family Stone. And that sound? Well, it was all a mistake, really. "Bass players usually play overhand, with their fingers. That's a carry-over from upright bass playing. My style is different because I came to the bass from the guitar," Graham explained. "My mom and I were working together, and this one club had an organ with bass pedals that went half way across. I learned how to play those pedals while playing my guitar, and I got used to that. "But one day the organ broke down. We sounded empty without that bottom sound. I rented a bass to hold down that bottom until the organ could be repaired. I wasn't trying to learn the correct overhand style, because I wasn't planning to play bass any longer than I had to. I was playing it like a guitar. But the organ couldn't be repaired, so I got stuck on the bass. That rental turned into a purchase." After a while, the jazzy combo with Graham and his mother became just a duo of the two. Again, Graham improvised to fill in their sound. Lacking a drummer, Graham began thumping his bass strings to make up for not having the backbeat of a snare drum. The innovation paid off in a big way. Sometimes it only takes one person to be impressed. "There was one lady in a club we played regularly who was also a fan of Sly Stone on the radio at the time," Graham said. "She used to call him up on the phone and say, `You gotta go hear this bass player.' Eventually, she was persistent to the point that he came down to hear me. That's how I got the gig with Sly, and that's how this style of playing got popular — through the records we made. If you were a musician playing our tunes, you had to play the bass like me for the song to sound right. Then, when these people started writing their own music, the bass players kept using that style. I never thought it would be anything new. "And, you know, I never did see that lady again to thank her." But with Sly and the Family Stone, he did help write sweat-dripping classics like "Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf)." A lyric from the band's classic "Everyday People" (now used to hawk Toyotas) sums up the group's musical philosophy as well as its timeless appeal: "Different strokes for different folks." At least, that's what Graham said made the group so popular in the early '70s — much more so than his unique bass playing. "We were different. We were a rainbow," he said. "The music was a combination of all types of music. You could hear R&B, jazz, rock, even country. Plus, it was a self-contained band. We played the instruments as well as singing all the parts. There was male and female, black and white, mixed up every kind of way you could think of." That was 30 years ago. After the Family Stone split up in '74, Graham immediately formed his own funky collective, Graham Central Station, which thwacked its way through the '70s before Graham went solo in 1980. In all that time, Graham has watched funk music grow into its own, fade slightly, then come back indirectly through samples in hip-hop songs. "A lot of the old-school stuff is hot again because it's been sampled so much. Us, Parliament-Funkadelic, Rick James — they're all back on the scene because the kids, after they hear whoever's rapping on top of that song, are smart enough to know that's M.C. Hammer rapping but Rick James making the music. So they go dig up his old records or my old records," Graham said. One such second-generation fan has turned out to be Graham's latest R&B benefactor. Last year, Graham was in Nashville to play a show, and he got a call during soundcheck from another artist in town at the same time: Prince (The Artist, or whatever you call him). "He heard I was in town, and he called me and told me he'd be jamming after his concert at an after-party, would I like to come down and jam? That was the first time we played together, and we had an instant lock," Graham said. "Growing up he listened to a lot of my music, and he said I was one band who influenced him the most. I hadn't played with anybody who knew my music so well. I started doing tour dates with him, then a few more and a few more, pretty soon a year had passed. We knew we had something going together, so I moved to Minneapolis to be closer to him." The relationship has resulted in millennium-marking projects for both artists. Graham worked with Prince on the new single versions of Prince's 1982 hit "1999," and Prince collaborated with Graham on a new Graham Central Station record, "GCS 2000." Both discs were released on the same day early this month on Prince's NPG Records. Graham is still adjusting to life in Minneapolis after seven years living in Jamaica. When we caught him on the phone this week, it was snowing in Minnesota. "Been a while since I've seen snow, let me tell you," Graham said. "It has a pretty thing about it. Of course, I'm saying that from inside the house." But the climate shock is worth the artistic freedom he enjoys working outside the traditional record label system with Prince at his Paisley Park Studios. "It's great working up here. You have total freedom to record whatever you want to record. Nobody's standing around saying, `You can't do that.' There's no time crunch, no budget to worry about. As long as the bill gets paid for the electricity, the tape will be rolling. When you're finished with a song is when you're actually finished with it, not because you ran out of time or money to pay the label or the studio. And to have the greatest producer in the world working with you — well, it all went into creating what I think is a great album for me," Graham said. "And it's good to have a new lease on life. Funk is back, so this is where I belong." By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World The band's debut, 1996's "Great Divide," slipped under the radar of most music fans despite its shimmering beauty and sparkling guitars. But when Semisonic tweaked their recording approach and turned in a song that resonated with a wide audience of nightclubbers, the follow-up record, "Feeling Strangely Fine," inched toward platinum sales. The clincher, "Closing Time," was catchy enough to ensnare even the modern rock fans who didn't immediately empathize with singer-guitarist Dan Wilson's tale of precarious decision-making in a bar at 2 a.m., just before everyone is turned out to the sidewalk sale. Some bars now play the song at closing time as a cool nod to their customers. With that hit and the latest, the plucky "Singing in My Sleep," on the resume, Wilson and his bandmates — John Munson and Jacob Slichter — are now open for business, and this month they venture out on another arm of a lengthy tour, bringing them through Tulsa and points south. We caught up with Wilson in a Santa Monica, Calif., studio — tore him away, actually — to talk about Semisonic's success, the makings of a good "bedroom album" and the latest generation of crack rock bands coming out of Minneapolis. Thomas Conner: You sound exasperated. Is this a bad time? Dan Wilson: Oh, I'm just in the studio working on a song, and it's very hard to drag myself out right now. We've been on tour so long; it's so hard to find time to do this. Conner: What's the song like that you're working on? Wilson: It's upbeat, hard to describe. It's kind of got a Lindsey Buckingham thing to it. I've been hearing a lot of music lately, watching him play the guitar with his fingers blazing. I'm trying to cop that. Conner: Is this a break in the tour for you? Wilson: It's kind of a multi-purpose trip to L.A. before we go to Las Vegas to be on "The Penn and Teller Show." The last thing I saw on that show was a man putting this lighted wire down his nose and throat. It was all very grotesque. Hopefully they won't ask us to do that. Conner: This next leg of the tour brings you down south, which I think you've missed thus far, right? Wilson: Yeah, we're trying to hit some of the places we didn't get to last year. We kept missing Texas, and we've never been to Louisiana. We sort of saw the spring shaping up where we could play some of these places. I value that in a band — getting out there and playing the long shows and giving the fans as much as we can. I have a wife and daughter who I miss very much when we're on the road, but there's something about that contact with the fans that's really important. It lets you know if you're dealing out the real stuff. Conner: You once said that you wanted "Feeling Strangely Fine" to be a "bedroom record." What's that? Wilson: Well, not in the sense of turning it on and having sex with someone. It's one that you put on with headphones in a dark room when the rest of the family is asleep and listen to the whole CD. I dreamed that that's how people would use this record. I wanted it to be something really intimate and inside your head. Conner: So how do you go about crafting a bedroom record? Wilson: I wanted to make sure the lyrics were really apparent. On our last album, "Great Divide," we buried the vocals in this swirl of guitar tones and intricate samples. I was disappointed when the reviews came back — and I take what they say pretty seriously — saying that the melodies were great but the lyrics were meaningless fluff. Fact is, I think I try to be as honest as I can in my lyrics, and those (on "Great Divide") are some of my best. So I wanted this record to have a really intimate vocal sound up front. Conner: I would venture to guess that approach helped streamline the arrangements, yes? Wilson: Yeah. It put us in the situation of saying, "If there's no room for the vocals, then take out 11 of the guitar samples." It's looser sounding. It feels more like three guys having an interesting, passionate, intense time in the studio. Conner: What are some of your favorite bedroom albums? Wilson: "OK Computer" by Radiohead is a great one. "Hejira" by Joni Mitchell. Liz Phair's "Exile in Guyville." Tricky's first album ("Maxinquaye"), though I don't like the whole thing. John Coltrane's ballads album. I was the family member who never came up for air. I was always in front of the stereo listening through the headphones, and none of my family members could get my attention. Conner: I once heard "Feeling Strangely Fine" compared to R.E.M.'s "Murmur." It started to make some sense when I thought about it, mainly because of that intimate feel. Make sense? Wilson: That mysteriousness is probably — hopefully -- there in our record. "Automatic for the People" is my favorite R.E.M. record, and I was probably trying more to emulate that kind of directness, space and emptiness for the bedroom vibe. It just can't be a constant onslaught of fun, you know? Conner: "Murmur" hit the atmosphere about the same time some of modern rock's seminal bands were coming out of your hometown, Minneapolis. Were you caught up in the legendary Minneapolis scene? Wilson: My idols were the Replacements and Husker Du, plus Prince, Soul Asylum, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis as producers. It was great — Minneapolis was one of the few towns in America where, for about 10 years, all of your teen idols were from your hometown. A lot of people in Minneapolis grew accustomed to having their entertainment needs fulfilled by local musicians. Conner: An enviable position, for sure. What's it like up there now? Wilson: Honestly, I think this will be a great year for Minneapolis music. There's a new album by the Hangups I think is incredible — a lot of early R.E.M. and Badfinger and Small Faces in this really weird but personal retro-sounding album. There's a provocative band called the 12 Rods that make some really weird sounds. My brother Matt came out with an album last year that I think was criminally underpublicized (Matt Wilson's "Burnt White and Blue"). And, of course, I think we've added a lot to the scene, too. Conner: How so? What's the legacy there in Minneapolis? Wilson: Anything we aspire to ends in this butt-shaking groove. SEMISONIC WITH REMY ZERO When: 7 p.m. Wednesday Where: Cain's Ballroom, 423 N. Main St. Tickets: $13 at The Ticket Office at Expo Square, Mohawk Music, Starship Records and Tapes and the Mark-It Shirt Shop in Promenade Mall By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World A well-traveled pair of children's high-top sneakers sits atop the Hammond B-3 organ. The organ itself is at the bottom of the back stairs, in the utility room next to a rope rack where dresses are drying. The main studio is upstairs, in a converted maid's quarters — one room filled to the brim with keyboards, bass guitars and high-dollar recording equipment. A hall closet has become a vocal booth, just a few doors down from the kids' bedrooms, emanates TV sounds and the faint odor of socks. This is the environment in which a jolly giant, Wayman Tisdale, recorded his latest major-label jazz record. The disc, "Decisions," is the first record of his music career that isn't titled with a basketball pun — the previous two were "Power Forward" and "In the Zone" — and the first made in the wake of his professional basketball career. "This album is my coming out party," Tisdale says, breaking into his court-wide grin. The decisions that brought Tisdale to his current situation were weighty but welcome. He launched his basketball career at the University of Oklahoma, where he was a two-time All-American. He was chosen as the second overall pick in the 1985 NBA draft and set off on a 12-year run through the NBA, playing four years each with Indiana, Sacramento and Phoenix. Through with hoops A dozen seasons were plenty, though, and Tisdale bowed out of the sport earlier this year. In our interview at Wayman's south Tulsa home last week, Tisdale said his hoopster career almost went on too long. "I knew coming into the league I wanted to play about eight years. I never thought I would make 12," Tisdale said. "When I didn't enjoy coming to the gym each day and staying late, I knew it was time to let it go." Tisdale's exit from basketball was hardly retirement. In fact, he immediately turned back to the work he always loved, the work that sustained the low points of his sporting career, the work that would not leave him alone: writing, playing and recording modern jazz. Long before Tisdale learned layups, he learned licks. His father, the Rev. Louis Tisdale, bought his sons Mickey Mouse guitars when Wayman was young, but Wayman was the only sibling who didn't "start using them as a hockey stick or a baseball bat." He took to the instrument and worked at it until he'd broken four of the six strings. With two left, the only parts of a song Wayman could play were the bass lines. So Wayman became a bass player. Then one summer, Tisdale grew two feet. Suddenly, his priorities changed. "I wasn't comfortable, you know, standing a foot taller than everyone in the (church) choir, even the director," he said, "so I thought, 'I've got to find something I can put my energy into that will suit me.' " Jazz on the sidelines Onto the court he went. But music was never put away, only put aside. As coaches told Wayman repeatedly that he would be in the NBA one day, Tisdale lumbered home from practice and followed along with a guitar to Stanley Clarke records ("That's where I got my style," he says). He kept his hand in something musical throughout his college and professional basketball career. By the time he began playing with the Phoenix Suns, he also had landed a record contract with MoJazz, a Motown subsidiary. "That's when the ribbing got pretty tough," Tisdale said. "These guys see this multimillion-dollar basketball player getting on the bus with this big bass, and they say, 'Oh, man, here comes Michael Jackson.' I laughed it off and just said, 'Someday you'll see. You'll see.' When my first record came out, a lot of those guys came up to me all wide-eyed, saying, 'Man, I can't believe you did it. And it's cool.' " Getting that deal was a tough sell, at first. Record company scouts tended to groan when a pro athlete wandered into their offices. "Being in the NBA was my worst nightmare as far as being taken seriously in music," Tisdale said. "You walk in and say, 'Hi, I'm Wayman, and I'm in the NBA,' and they think, 'Oh no, another vanity project,' or they hear the tape and think, 'Is it Milli Vanilli?' This was right after Deion Sanders had done his thing and a bunch of other players and done rap records that were really awful. "I was going to put it out myself, but a friend took my demo down to Motown. They loved it, and the last thing he told them was who I was. They were sold." Slam dunk The two MoJazz albums met with rave reviews. When MoJazz dissolved, Atlantic's godfather of jazz, Ahmet Ertegun (who signed the quintessential jazz bassist, Charles Mingus), flew Wayman to New York, once again defying his own promises to retire just to sign Tisdale to Atlantic. "I couldn't believe I just stepped up from one big label to another," Tisdale said. "He kept telling me I had the capability to cross-over." What Ertegun heard in Tisdale's "Decisions" demos was not just the overriding smooth jazz, but gospel, adult contemporary and R&B. The songs are easygoing gems that are somehow more than jazz. Wayman even sings on a handful of radio-ready tracks. "If I can't sing the song when I'm done with it, I won't do it," Tisdale said. "I'm melody and hook oriented. That's why I differ from most smooth-jazz players, I think. It's feel-good music. It's got gospel, Latin, R&B — that was my goal. The one common denominator in the whole thing is the bass." Tisdale is confident he's made the right "Decisions," and he plans to be as much of a musical star as he was a sports star. "A person who's been on top knows how to get on top again," he said. "The Grammies — that's my goal. Basketball taught me what it takes to get on top every day, and music won't be any different." BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World For a moment, I thought it was a joke. "Hi, Thomas, it's Frank Black," said the voice on the phone that morning. "I'm at my manager's house, and I'm making some calls this morning, and I saw you on the list for interview requests, and I just thought I'd call and see if you wanted to set something up." An artist doing his own schlepping? Sounded fishy, to me. Sounded like my friend Robert, too, who also happens to be a fairly rabid Frank Black fan. I nearly laughed aloud. As the conversation trickled on, though — this actually was Frank Black, former lead singer of the Pixies and now slightly less manic solo artist. We arranged our interview for the following week, and I voiced my surprise at his grassroots service. "Well, I'm just a regular guy," he said. "As a fan of your crazy music for the last 10 years, I somehow doubt that, but we'll talk more later," I said. On the appointed day, I called him at 8 a.m. Not exactly a rock star hour. Maybe he's a regular guy, after all. "My mornings are pretty regular guy-ish," Black said. "I get up, give various animals a treat. If I'm in a coffee streak, I'll make coffee. If we have nice foodstuffs in the house, I might prepare myself a gourmet breakfast or skip it altogether. Then I make phone calls." The Pixies re-established the chaos at rock's core, laying the foundations for '90s modern rock with their serrated guitars, sloppy playing and Black's alternating mischievous irony and brain-curdling shouts. Listening to them rage through such visceral, subversive rants like "Gouge Away," "Debaser" and "Bone Machine," sunny mornings with breakfast and puppies are not exactly how I had envisioned Black greeting each new day. The years have mellowed Black, though — not to mention the distance from the Pixies' former glory. The group disbanded in 1993, and Black took off on a solo career portraying himself as an average suburban nobody with unexplained obsessions. The sales have shrunk ever since, and so have Black's notions of how to conduct business. "I was calling you because it's just easier for me to get things done when I have the chance," Black said. "The band has decided to do this next leg of the tour without a crew, without even a tour manager. It's my job to advance the shows. We've been in constant downscaling mode for the last couple of years ... We're enjoying becoming more self-sufficient. The more we do it, the less we need. I don't freak out if we show up to a gig and the monitors sound horrible. We booked the gig, and people are there. The only thing that really bugs me is a messy, dirty backstage men's room." Black's latest record illustrates the new stripped-down approach, as well. "Frank Black and the Catholics," Blacks' fourth solo release and the first to bill his new backing band, was recorded directly to two-track digital tape. No multitracking. No overdubbing. No studio trickery or polishing. In fact, the album they released was intended to be a mere series of demonstration recordings. "We were really just making an expensive demo," Black said. "We had booked four days in a studio that was a thousand dollars a day. Time itself said to forget the multitracking and play live, which we'd never done ... I've been in a pattern of writing in the studio, of building a backing track and worrying about the lyrical content later. We couldn't do that here. After the second day in the studio, we realized it sounded good, familiar, like we knew we sounded in a club." The Catholics include bassist David MacCaffrey and drummer Scott Boutier, formerly the rhythm section for Conneticut's Miracle Legion. The eponymous new album features former Bourgeois-Tagg guitarist Lyle Workman; on tour, though, Rich Gilbert, from Human Sexual Response among others, handles the guitars. Black's first couple of solo records were largely collaborations with Eric Drew Feldman, a one-time veteran of both Pere Ubu and Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. Though Feldman still contributes on occasion, he backed away from the projects as a tighter band began to gel around Black. Black said Feldman still may join the Catholics as a keyboard player, but he's busy producing PJ Harvey at the moment. The return to the band construct has streamlined his sound, Black said, and he's glad to be a member of a posse again. "It's hard to miss the Pixies when we've got another band dynamic going," Black said. "It feels more band-like now. The choice of bandmates is more mature, too. You sort of fall into a situation with a bunch of people when you're younger. That had no experience behind it. This has 10 to 12 years of experience behind it. Now it's more possible to be the Rolling Stones when before we were more like the Monkees. There's something to be said for experience. It creates a groove of its own, which I think is heavier." Heavy grooves are certainly what Black enjoys. The new album is fairly typical and full of them, though the live recording keeps things moving briskly. The groove is the easy part, Black said. It's the lyric writing he dreads, which may explain a good deal of his, um, bent verses ("My Fu Manchu / Is a hard-earned way / Occidentally tic-tac"). "The easy part is strumming the guitar and getting that first lump of clay that looks like a song. You shape it, figure out the chord progression, and the melody comes out of that. The next part is pushing myself to write the lyric. I have to push," Black said. "It's like an algebra assignment. I'm not looking forward to it, and I put it off. Once I get into it, I enjoy it, but there's a mental block to that point. It's the scholarly side of songwriting. It's about having words rhyme together and having the song make sense, even if it's just to yourself. It's puzzle solving. "At this point, I'm not worried about what the song's about yet. You can write a song about anything. It's about putting words together. I get out dictionaries and reference books, geographical dictionaries, rhyming dictionaries. There's language in these books, and that's what it's all about. I'll get to three notes in the melody, and I'll think, 'Here, I want to go wah-wo-wah.' What word sounds like that? I'll stumble on a word for it. It might be obscure, but it will set off a flurry of activity. Then it's, `Oh, this will be a song about that.' " One thing Black does not write about much, though, is himself. No confessional singer-songwriter stuff here. "I don't get too caught up in that whole diary rock thing, when you have to write something from the heart. That's icky," he said. "You will write from the heart, whatever you write. There's a lot of fake stuff from the heart. People get caught up in striking a certain kind of pose, and it makes for some lame songs." Frank Black and the Catholics When 8 p.m. Saturday Where Cain's Ballroom, 423 N. Main St. Tickets $11, available at The Ticket Office at Expo Square, Mohawk Music, Starship Records and Tapes and the Mark-It Shirt Shop By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World A small gaggle of nervous kids approached the members of Admiral Twin last month on the streets of Seattle. They had obviously screwed up a great deal of courage to approach the Tulsa band, and they were wide-eyed with awe. "Are you in a band?" one of the girls asked cautiously. The Admiral Twin fellows said yes, puffing with a little internal pride. The girls were particularly focused on bass player Mark Carr, his bushy locks and constantly furrowed expression. "You're ... Eddie Vedder?" they asked him. Oh well. There are worse things that can happen to a rock band on the road than being mistaken for Pearl Jam. It's an understandable error, too. Pearl Jam was playing in Seattle the same night Tulsa's pop-rock kings Admiral Twin once again opened for Hanson in the Emerald City. Admiral Twin is the other Tulsa band on the Albertane Tour -- Hanson's oddly named summer trek across the continent — and they might be having more fun than even the much-ballyhooed brothers. "We're on a national tour playing for sold-out arenas. Yeah, I guess we're having a good time," drummer Jarrod Gollihare said before the band's July 8 show in Tulsa. The fun continues — as does the development of future business prospects. Numerous record label scouts have seen the show at various stops, many specifically to check out Admiral Twin. A rep from Mojo Records (Cherry Poppin' Daddies, etc.) was hanging out with the band in Tulsa, and scouts from Mercury — Hanson's label — were on hand for the sold-out show at the Hollywood Bowl. The band, however, is tight-lipped about any deals going down. "We can just say for now that stuff is happening. We'll have some news at the end of the tour," said the band's instrumental everyman and songwriter, Brad Becker, in an interview this week from the tour's second stop in Detroit. In the meantime, these Tulsa players — Becker, Gollihare, Carr and guitarist John Russell — are high on the excitement of this incredible opportunity. Just last spring, Admiral Twin would have surrendered a digit or two to play before sold-out crowds of nearly 25,000 people as they did at Washington, D.C.'s Nissan Pavilion. After their sound check at the Mabee Center last month, they were remarking how small the 8,000-capacity venue was. How quickly they forget. Granted, these giant venues are not selling out on the strength of Admiral Twin's presense on the ticket. That's the bittersweet dilemma of every opening act. But the Hanson tour is a different animal for an opening band, Admiral Twin has discovered. "For a lot of the kids in this audience, this is their first rock show ever," Becker said. "They're all having a good time regardless. They're not jaded. They're open to anything they hear, and we just feed it to them." Surprisingly, the band isn't totally anonymous to these first-ever huge out-of-Tulsa crowds. Several audiences — on both coasts — have been sprinkled with Admiral Twin banners amidst the ocean of poster-sized declarations of devotion to Hanson. Some crowds — as the band chronicles in its tour diary (see related story) — have even chanted Admiral Twin's name. That's not the only feedback they get from new fans, though, Becker said. "We've been getting a ton of e-mail, too," said Becker, also the band's webmaster, who keeps track of the band's web page and e-mail daily from the road. "In the last month or so, we've gotten 2,000 e-mails. The Internet is where a lot of this started. First, some people posted on the Hanson newsgroup that we were goign to be on the tour. Then Hanson linked to our web page from their official page. That got the word out to Internet-savvy Hanson people. Then once we started playing shows, it turned it loose. We get 30 to 40 messages a day from people saying they showed up expecting to throw food at the opening band but wound up loving us. They say, `You guys aren't anything like Hanson, but we loved you.' " Aye, it's that disparity in sound that's the rub. Admiral Twin took on that name after seven years as the Mellowdramatic Wallflowers; the change was part of the band's effort to distance itself from an undeserved but nonetheless dogging image as a kiddie band. The group's power pop is suited ideally for whatever might remain of a college radio audience. So why did they turn around a month after the makeover and accept the offer — from the Hansons themselves — to be on this tour with demographics split above and below that college radio crowd? The short answer is another question: who in their right mind would turn down an opening bid for a group fresh from earning numbers as the No. 1 act in the world? "We're not a weird niche group. We're a pop-rock group. We've got a broader appeal than a punk-ska band or a weird art group. This is a portion of our target audience -- the low age bracket and their parents — and it's a great chance for us. After this tour, we hope to do some colleges," Becker said. Chronicle of a dream: The Admiral Twin tour diary © Tulsa World Admiral Twin joined the Hanson summer tour when it came ashore June 20 for a show in Montreal. Since then, these Tulsa popsters have been opening sold-out arenas across the North American continent for the teeny-bop trio. They've been keeping a tour diary all summer long. A long version, plus complete information about the band, is available on the band's web site (http://www.admiraltwin.com/). Here are some excerpts from the band's chronicle of star-struck shows, credit-card capers and barricade-busting: Montreal (June 21) Wow! What a great feeling, walking on stage in front of 12,000 screaming people. It seemed like we went over very well. Nobody threw anything hard or pointy at us. Our eardrums exploded the first time the crowd yelled and we're all now legally deaf. Toronto (June 24) The fun never stops on the Albertane Tour. Last night's show at the Molson Amphitheater was crazy. Sold-out (16,000 seats), the venue roared like an army of screaming cheetahs when we took the stage. Unfortunately, the crowd shrieked all through the Hanson show as well, making misery for the sound technicians. Anyone attending further shows be warned: earplugs are a prerequisite. Last night also revealed a marked increase in people that either recognized us or had signs for us. We don't mind being underdogs, but it's gratifying to not be totally anonymous to the crowds. Fans are good. Toronto itself is pretty crazy. Very multicultural. The first day we were there, Iran beat the United States in soccer. Nothing but a tiny blip on our mental radar, but those crazy Iranians were hootin' and hollerin' and ululating up and down the streets, honking their horns, driving cars while cradling huge Iranian flags on poles out their windows. Back and forth. Honking. Waving flags. Ululating. More honking. Up and down. This went on pretty much all day. Well, hey, I guess it's not every day you get to beat the Great Satan in soccer. Boston (June 27) Tonight was the Great Woods Amphitheater show. 19,900 people, or so we've heard. All in all a good show but it was so hot that “Dancing on the Sun'' (one of our songs) took on a whole new meaning to us. The crowd looked pretty sweaty by the end of the night as well. Brad tried to convince the Hansons to hire a helicopter with a water cannon to come spray the audience. No luck. We hope the heat doesn't get any worse in D.C. and Atlanta but our hopes are most probably in vain. By Atlanta our stage attire will have probably downsized from our black wool suits to simple loin-cloths. Just kidding. Detroit (June 30) Last night we played Pine Knob near Detroit. The venue was sized and shaped not unlike Toronto's. Both seat 16,000 people. Tomorrow's show in D.C. should be close to 25,000. Paltry numbers. We're trying to get out there and meet [the fans]. Sometimes before the show, sometimes after. Security people get scared, though, and think we're starting riots. In Toronto, the guard kept saying, “It's not funny! Can you go away? These girls are ...'' He was drowned out by shrieks from a group of girls that was pressing up against the barricade on a bridge, wanting autographs. He was clearly scared. How bizarre. You wake up one day and suddenly people want to meet you and so, of course, it becomes impossible. Life is funny like that. D.C. (June 30-July 2) Incredible. Nissan Pavilion was by far the best show yet. The crowd was insanely loud, full of Admiral Twin posters and very excited to hear us. They stood up while we played. They jumped up and down. They clapped and yelled. They even chanted, “Admiral! Admiral! Admiral!'' as we were leaving the stage. Of course, after a few seconds they switched to “Hanson! Hanson! Hanson!'' but that's OK, too. Tonight we ate dinner with Ozzy Osbourne's daughters and Zac and Taylor. Rumor has it the daughters paid an exorbitant sum for a backstage pass to the show at some auction. MTV was there to interview them and the Hansons. Tulsa (July 8-11) It's a real trip to observe the “fringe'' behavior that those boys [Hanson] bring out in people. Especially the younger members of the fairer sex. Unfortunately, Tulsa is languishing in the grip of a fierce and fiery heatwave. Talk about nasty. Hot and humid are the words of the day, and the only relief from the heat comes with rain, which only further incites the humidity. Yuck. Also, Brad had to go back to his day job for a day or two. He calls it “work.'' The word vaguely rings a bell with the rest of the band. It sounds like something we were trying to forget. The Tulsa crowd was markedly different from the other crowds so far. For starters, it was a sit-down kind of crowd. Even during the Hanson's set, the crowd sat and watched. They seemed attentive and appreciative, but perhaps slightly less fanatical. Chalk it up to familiarity, maybe. The Mabee Center also confiscated all the signs and banners that they saw, and it was quite dark inside anyway, so it was hard to see if any of the crowd was familiar with us or our music. We're wondering what kind of response we'll get in L.A. There's supposed to be movie stars at the show. Maybe someone needs an up-and-coming young band for their next directorial endeavor ... Los Angeles (July 11-13) L.A. is a very interesting place. You've got the ocean, the mountains, the highways, and just way too many people running around looking for trouble. Luckily, they somehow missed us and we had a very nice time in the City of Angels. We've been here before, so we knew what to expect. The show at the Hollywood Bowl was sold out. L.A. luminaries there included Gus Van Sant, Jenny McCarthy and David Hasselhoff. Yup, we talked to him about “Knight Rider.'' Really. Unfortunately, since there was a third band playing before us, we only got to play 15 minutes. The crowd seemed to like us, though. The next day, we toured Media Ventures, met Hans Zimmer (a famous composer) and drove up Pacific Coast Highway 1 to San Francisco. By the time we finally found our hotel, it was almost 3 a.m. Denver (July 16-18) Ah, Red Rocks! For those of you who've never been, it's as beautiful as you'd think. We're following in the footsteps of U2 and the Beatles. Not bad company. Unfortunately, we arrived late, and it was a somewhat stressful day, all told. Some of us got lost driving back to the hotel. Those darn roads are all dark and twisty around there. The crowd at Red Rocks was wonderful. They were quite attentive and receptive. They jumped up and down. They had banners. One difference there that we appreciated was that most of the general admission rows were close to the front. That meant that the front rows were packed out and excited to be there. A few people got a little too excited and made a golden calf to worship so we smote them. Whoa. It must be late at night. Time for bed ... Seattle (July 19-21) Next stop on the tour was Seattle, the Fertile Crescent of coffeehouses, grunge music and evil software empires. We saw the Space Needle (and the fuzzy Sneedle mascot), rode the monorail, explored the fish-scented Pike Street Market and found the Admiral Twin movie theater. It's just called the Admiral Theater now. Too bad for them. That evening, we dined in sumptious splendor at a quaint little local bistro called Denny's. We're really expanding our horizons. The audience at the Key Arena was the best yet. We were back up to our seven song set and the crowd didn't seem to mind. After 30 minutes of screaming, jumping, clapping, and even blowing kisses, we said goodnight. Some of the audience members were doing those things as well. Milwaukee and Detroit (July 23-29) After Seattle, we made a quick trek back home. It was an overnight flight, so we left the Key Arena and took a taxi straight to the airport. John, who's nervous enough about flying, particularly enjoyed the choice of "Titannic" as the in-flight movie. Why not just show "Airport '77"? For the first two legs of the tour, we flew from city to city. Now we're driving. Because of the drive, we didn't get to see much of Milwaukee, but we enjoyed what we saw. There was both a German fest and a Death Metal fest. Luckily the crowds didn't mingle. Our only previous knowledge of Milwaukee involved breweries and Laverne and Shirley. We learned that Mr. Whipple was from Green Bay and that this is the 70-year anniversary of Charmin so Mr. Whipple is going to start encouraging people to squeeze the Charmin. It's about dang time. Now, on to Detroit. There were lots of people there who have previously posted on our newsgroup and corresponded with us via email. They seemed excited to see us and we always like putting faces to names. We shook a lot of hands and signed stuff until carpal tunnel set in. After the show, we had one of those moments that you never forget. Behind the venue there were hundreds of people lined up hoping for a glimpse of Hanson as they left. Isaac came out to the tour bus and we looked on in amazement as an avalanche of people crashed the barricades and swept past the the security guards. Ike ran. Then people started looking around and recognized us so we prudently decided to step back inside. It's always an adventure. By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World There's a big underground rock show in town Friday night, but Flick is not on the bill. It's probably just as well, because these kids — now with their major-label debut on shelves — won't be underground for very long. They'll be playing at the Fur Shop on Friday night, the band's first Tulsa appearance despite living just up the turnpike in Stockton, Mo. That's near Springfield. Don't worry, you're not missing much, according to the band. It's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of town, and that's exactly the environment in which Flick enjoys creating its slow, serious, patient rock rhapsodies. "It's a town of about 1,500 people. There's not a lot going on," said Flick guitarist Oran Thornton of his hometown during an interview this week. "Trevor and I work better writing-wise being in someplace really quiet instead of someplace fast-paced like New York or L.A. It's nice to work in the middle of the night and walk outside to dead silence, stars and crickets rather than some busy street." Giving polish to the American-dream side of the music business, Flick has reached the big time without straying too far from its southern Missouri hamlet. Before the four members — Oran, his lead singer brother Trevor, bassist Eve Hill and drummer Adam McGrath — had graduated high school, they had major-label scouts finding their way to Stockton to hear them play. The band landed a few opening slots for artists like Duncan Sheik, most of whom went back to their record companies raving about "the kids in Missouri." A deal with Columbia Records was a quick rescue from a struggle to find place to play and an audience to fill it in a rural area not known as a magnet for modern rock. "Around here, it's pretty much all country music," Thornton said. "I think there are a few bars outside of town. If they even have live music, it's probably some country band that doesn't even play good country like Hank Williams — it's that awful, hip new country." With his distaste for country's current regime tucked snugly under his cap, Oran and his bandmates ironically recorded the bulk of their Columbia debut, "The Perfect Kellulight," in a studio outside of Nashville. Nashville turned out to be the perfect place to hone and record the album — again because of the Thornton brothers' desire to be away from any hustle and bustle. "Down in Nashville, we were away from label pressures and opinions of too many other people," Oran said. "It's frustrating when too many people get around you while you're trying to complete a thought. They try to put in their input when you haven't really gotten your whole thought out. We were able to finish our thoughts down there, so the record came out more like we'd envisioned it." Not that the members of Flick harbor any resentment toward Columbia, a major among major labels. The company has taken its time with Flick. Instead of snatching up the band of youngsters, flinging an album onto the shelves and shoving them out on the road, Columbia has given the band the time and resources to develop, releasing an EP early on and giving them space to shape the album. "Making that EP was the learning experience," Oran said. "At the time, we weren't completely happy with what was happening. If we didn't go through that process, we wouldn't have ever learned for sure what we wanted and what we didn't want. You have to figure that out early on or else other people will make you into what they want you to be." Oran is a sprightly 19 years old. His brother Trevor is his younger brother, and the other bandmates teeter similarly around that median age. Somehow in the '90s (after the '80s, during which most of the chart-toppers were retooled boomers) we've come to think this is an awfully young age to be snatched up by the record industry. Oran disagrees. "Back in the '60s and '70s, if someone was in a band at 17, 18 or 19, that was normal," he said. "That's what most rock bands were — young guys. That's why it was cool to want to be in one. Jimmy Page was 19 when he started. Tommy Stinson was 14 when he made the first Replacements record ... "It's an advantage in some ways because you can relate to your audience more. It's a disadvantage in others because of the hype around it. People want to compare us to Hanson or something, just because we're young — which is all we have in common with Hanson." For now, these young'uns will be touring around the region, casually supporting "The Perfect Kellulight" until the record is officially released to radio next month. Then stand back and watch as they shove the Smashing Pumpkins off the modern rock chart. Just a prediction. Flick With Fanzine and the Kickbacks When: 9 p.m. Friday Where: The Fur Shop, 320 E. Third St. Tickets: Cover charge at the door Braggin' rights: Who better to put tunes to a stack of Woody Guthrie lyrics than a Labour man?7/12/1998
By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Last fall, British folk singer Billy Bragg was kicking around Green Country chasing the ghost of Woody Guthrie. He'll be back this week — and this time he's bringing his guitar. Bragg will be performing a special kind of Guthrie tribute. In fact, it's less a tribute than a collaboration with the late Okemah-native and legendary American folk singer. At the request of Guthrie's daughter Nora, Bragg wrote music to several dozen Guthrie lyrics — verses whose music was stored in Woody's head and died with him in 1967. With the backing of premier American roots band Wilco, the results of the collaboration were released a couple of weeks ago on a CD named for the location of Guthrie's New York City home, "Mermaid Avenue." His solo show in Okemah this week — kicking off the first Woody Guthrie Free Folk Arts Festival — brings full circle his study of Woody's still-struggling legacy. We caught up with Bragg again last week to talk about the finished project, and he tore himself from a televised World Cup game to talk about the album, his crash course in Oklahoma history and the irony of the continuing struggle of the country's greatest songwriter to find acceptance in his home state. Thomas Conner: Before you started working on this album, how much of America had you seen? Billy Bragg: I've seen more of America than most Americans. I've traveled here two or three times a year since 1984, and I've been through every state except six. I don't like to fly, either, so I drive it. You see more that way, you know? If you just fly over it, how do you know what's different about it? If I hadn't been looking at a map and driving, for instance, I wouldn't know that the Texas panhandle is not really a panhandle at all. It's Oklahoma that's got the real panhandle. TC: And how much did you know about Woody before embarking on this project? BB: We've driven through Oklahoma before but never stopped there. When we drove down from Pittsburg last fall, I read Woody's biography on the way. Before that, I knew as much as anybody, I guess. I knew he influenced Bob Dylan, he died of a terrible disease and he wrote "This Land Is Your Land." I'm used to hearing his music performed by other artists. I first heard "Pretty Boy Floyd" done by the Byrds, and I heard "Do Re Mi" done by Ry Cooder. This project is sort of a continuation of that tradition. TC: Tell me about some of the experiences you had exploring Oklahoma last fall. BB: Well, I'd never been to Tulsa before. When we visited the Cain's Ballroom — that stuck with me. The whole idea of Bob Wills and the Sex Pistols all wrapped up in one place — it really speaks to something ... TC: What does it speak to? BB: The — what is it? — the melting pot of America. All that melting stuff of humanity seems to do its mixing in the center of America, in Oklahoma. The whole state tends to stand out, whether it wants to or knows it or not. Oklahoma doesn't fit easily into the categories of Midwest, Southwest or the South. It's very much a crossroads. TC: Indeed, much to the dismay of chambers of commerce and tourist departments that try to find a marketable identity for the state. BB: But they've got it. Woody Guthrie is your Mickey Mouse. Those chambers of commerce have resisted the man who wrote "This Land Is Your Land." If the person who wrote the actual national anthem came from Oklahoma, you'd call yourselves home of the national anthem. Thirty or forty years ago, you could have called yourselves the home of Woody Guthrie. TC: No signs like that in Okemah, eh? BB: We went to Okemah and walked the streets — some still sort of brick cobble streets — and walked to the ruin of the Guthrie house, just getting the vibe for it. It's really rolling hills around there, not flat as everyone pictures it from images of the Dust Bowl. My preconceptions about Oklahoma were about as correct as my preconceptions about Woody Guthrie. We went to Pampa (Texas), too, which is flat as a pancake. Looking out my hotel room window on the third or fourth floor, just before the sun came up, in the distance I could catch the lights from Calgary or Edmondton ... TC: What did you learn about Woody that really surprised you? BB: I learned that if you think of Woody Guthrie as a character in a world like the movie version of "The Grapes of Wrath" you're only getting half the picture. He also belongs as a background character walking onto subways in Manhattan, in the background of a movie like "On the Town." TC: I understand you found a few folks around Okemah who don't think much of their native son because of his socialist politics. BB: Yeah, we found some people with rather strong views about Okemah's favorite son. They're dying off, though. It's very much a generational thing. If this project leads to a reassessment of Woody's life and career, the place it needs that most is in Oklahoma. One day it may come to pass that people there begin to be unashamed of him as they are. TC: How did you approach the writing process — putting music to words already written, and written by someone you respect so much? BB: The process was really very simple for me. When I write songs, I slave over the lyrics, but the music just flows. I suppose it's some sort of intuitive thing, and I just sort of tune into it. I just sat down with these lyrics and in some ways just felt the tunes. You sit down and feel what you feel. If there's nothing, you turn a few pages, and maybe the next one gets you somehow. TC: Was it your idea to work with Wilco, or was that a record company strategy? BB: My idea. When Nora approached me, the deal I made was that I chose the musicians. She was very concerned that this not sound like a tribute record. Tributes are nice ideas, but they're often focused on the personalities of the people who record them. We wanted to focus on the artist. TC: So why Wilco? BB: They sound like the ultimate Midwest Americana red-dirt band. (Wilco leader) Jeff Tweedy is a marvelous songwriter, too. He really understood what we were doing. TC: And why did it take a Brit to get such a firm grip on Woody's ethos? BB: Well, there are very few people out there performing today who talk openly about unions. Maybe that's why they needed me, a foreigner. There's really nothing we have in common as artists. But even though the political situation I went through in Britain in the 1980s was different from what Woody was experiencing in the '30s, the conclusions we came to are quite similar. TC: Will you have another go at this kind of collaboration? BB: Well, we recorded 40 tracks, so there might be another disc. I'd like to think others might go in there and work with Nora, though. Woody wrote for everyone, and there's plenty of room for interpretation. BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World Boy, the boys are glad to be home. "Finally, we've figured out what day and month it is, and where we are. We're home!" said Zac Hanson, youngest of the fraternal trio Hanson. The group returned home Wednesday for its first hometown concert since the group's major- label debut record, "Middle of Nowhere," hit No. 1 around the world last year. For the last year and a half, Hanson — that's Isaac, Taylor and Zac — has been racing a whirlwind schedule of promotional appearances and brief performances around the globe. The three boys spoke with the media at a pre-show press conference and said that this summer's tour is the most fun they've had yet. "People always ask us, 'Is being on tour such hard work?' Actually, being on tour has been less stressful than the last year and a half," Isaac said. Each young singer voiced and showed visible relief at being among familiar surroundings. The group — which usually travels with both parents and some or all of four other siblings — return to Tulsa on rare occasions, but the bulk of their time since "Middle of Nowhere" hit shelves in May 1997 has been spent in hotels and buses from Birmingham to Buenos Aries. In fact, there were fans young and old at Wednesday night's concert who traveled all the way from, well, Buenos Aires. "It's amazing that people would come that far," Isaac said. "I wouldn't go that far," Taylor added. It's amazing that these three Tulsa youths have come this far, too. Just two years ago, the under-age boys were still finagling gigs at Tulsa clubs and wondering how they would ever get their career off the ground. "Our last gig in Tulsa was just two years ago," Taylor said. ". . . at the Blue Rose," Isaac added. "I remember it distinctly. We said to each other, 'This is going to be our last show. We're going to go to L.A. and make an album.' " The amazement at their own good fortune seems genuine. These are three kids who have conquered the world and matured remarkably but still somehow remained bright-eyed and cheery. "We're still just so psyched about getting to play," Taylor said. "If it all stopped right now, we'd be totally psyched to say we have had the greatest year and a half ever." When asked what they missed most about Tulsa, Zac was quick to answer, "The food." Outside the press conference — held in a room at the Warren Place DoubleTree Hotel — was the usual gaggle of young girls hoping for a glimpse of the three stars. They screamed when Hanson entered the room, and they screamed when the boys left. The Hansons said they've gotten used to that sort of hysteria and haven't allowed it to hamper their normal lives too much. "We still go out — we just go in big groups of friends. We still do all the things we used to do — we're just more cautious," Taylor said. "It's cool to just have fans at all." Pop quiz: Hanson and the media BY THOMAS CONNER © Tulsa World They're just kids. That's the first thing you notice when you see Hanson in person. For a year and a half, those of us who pay attention to the goings-on of these three talented guys have been conditioned for their Celebrity Status. They must be bigger than life, right? Nah. They're just three kids. They laugh. They joke. They punch each other. And — I was thrilled to see — the rigors of fame haven't seemed to dull their spirits one bit. The three boys sat down with the Tulsa and state press a few hours before their Wednesday concert at the Mabee Center. The questions came fast and furious, and they handled them all with impressive aplomb. For those who simply must know everything, here are the juicy bits: Q. What do you think of being a role model for so many kids? Isaac: "If we influence people in a positive way, help them get inspired to do things they want to do, that's cool." Taylor: "We're really just psyched about getting to play. It's cool just to get to make your music." Q. You added a second show in Detroit. Why no extra show here? Isaac: "That was a fluke, really. We had planned to travel back toward the East Coast, and Detroit happened to be on the way. The scheduling just won't allow it here this time." Taylor: "We want to come back and play Tulsa again as soon as we can. There will be a more extensive tour after the next record. We'll probably play Oklahoma City, too." Q. Do you still horse around together as brothers, or are you sick of each other? (They each punch each other playfully. Hard, but playfully.) Zac: "We actually get hurt more when we're joking about that." Taylor: "We were doing a TV show and Ike nailed me in the face. We were trying to demonstrate (the punching)." Q. Are you worried about being a flash-in-the-pan? Taylor: "We can't worry about that. We can just do exactly what we've always done. It's up to the fans whether they want to buy the records or not." Q. Is anyone's voice changing? Taylor: "Duh." Isaac: "People have been asking us that a lot lately. That was news about a year ago." Q. Who's the most thrilling person you've met so far? Taylor: "Probably the president. That was the highest-ranking one, at least." Q. How do you keep up with school? Taylor: "Well, it's summer now. Our parents have always been our private tutors. We get to do cool things on the road." Isaac: "We went to the CDC (Center for Disease Control) the other day. Seeing all these pictures of people with the Ebola virus, I was, like, eeeuuwwww! I think I'll wash my hands now." Q. Do you get an allowance? Taylor: "Well, we're not doing any chores ..." Q. Is this Tulsa show the highlight of your world tour? Isaac: "It's hard for it not to be." Taylor: "We have a lot of friends and family who haven't seen us live yet." Q. What do you miss most about Tulsa when you're on the road? Zac: "The food. Literally, the food." Q. Any restaurant in particular? Isaac: "We'd love to tell you, but if we did everybody would go there at once." Q. Anyone got a girlfriend? All: "No." By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World One of the many bonuses of being a Loudon Wainwright fan is discovering his immensely talented children. On Loudon's previous record, he sang a duet with his daughter Martha, a formidable singer on her own and currently being courted by record companies. Martha's brother Rufus, however, beat her to the punch. The ballyhooed DreamWorks record label this month released Rufus Wainwright's astonishing self-titled debut to the accolades of critics across the continent. "I definitely have the writers under my spell," the younger Wainwright said in an interview earlier this month. "My favorite review said that I sounded like a cross between Kurt Weill and the Partridge Family." It's an apt description if you can fathom it. Rufus Wainwright's "modern standards" or "popera" is worthy of its other high comparisons, such as to Irving Berlin and especially Cole Porter. "I really want to be the next Wagner," he adds. Rufus plays piano, unlike his acoustic guitar-playing dad. Loudon divorced Rufus' mother — another noted folk singer, Kate McGarrigle of the McGarrigle Sisters — when Rufus was very young, and Rufus was raised chiefly by McGarrigle in Montreal. That accounts for a good deal of the operatic and French influences on his rich, warm songs. But is Generation X ready for this kind of sweeping, orchestrated pop? "Are you kidding? They need it. They're dying for it," Rufus said. "My main objective is to be in that great American songwriter tradition, like Porter and Gershwin ... Some reviews say I'm retro, but I'm not. I'm just doing the art of songwriting, which really hasn't changed much in thousands of years. I'm not doing sounds, I'm doing songs." But while Loudon spent a career singing mostly autobiographical songs about "Bein' a Dad," Rufus doesn't go for the first-person approach. He can't spend his life writing answer-songs to his father, he said. "He goes right for the nugget, my dad," Rufus said. "Sometimes I thought he used the family in a vicious way when he wrote about us, but then I realized that it's just the way he does it. It's whatever gets your goat. He wrote beautiful songs about the family, as well. "My songs are more innate. I'm still pretty much the central figure in all of them, but I tend to portray myself in songs as more omniscient, perhaps just as an observer of things around me. Then the listener can more easily place themselves into that position. The songs are still about me, but I'm more hidden. I don't want to embarrass myself." Rufus now launches his own series of concerts across the country to support the debut record. His dad said he gave Rufus a little advice, but not much was necessary. "I told him to get a good lawyer. But he doesn't need advice. He's a good performer and funny and nice looking and an egomaniac. If you ain't got that last one, you might as well hang it up in this business ... Plus, he and his sister have watched their parents make so many mistakes, and that suffices as advice. I'm just hoping in the end that they'll buy me a house." And how did Loudon react when he found out that Rufus was an openly gay performer? "He didn't care one bit," Rufus said. "One day he just turned to me and asked, `So do you like guys or girls or what?' I was a pretty flamboyant little child. He claims he knew from age 4." By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Loudon Wainwright III isn't bitter. Nominated for two Grammy awards, he lost both times ('85 and '86) to the same dead guy — the equally humorous and compassionate folkie Steve Goodman. For his latest album, "Little Ship" — his 17th — Wainwright worked with John Levanthal, who just won two Grammys with his songwriting and production partner Shawn Colvin. "He was very gracious and did not flaunt his trophies," Wainwright chuckled in an interview this week, "though I suppose he's got one for each ear." Wainwright is the oft-overlooked wry songwriter once hailed, among many others, as the New Bob Dylan (also, the Woody Allen of Folk or the Charlie Chaplin of Rock). He couldn't quite live up to that title, though, because he's got too great a sense of humor. That same sense of humor also cursed him with his one and only "hit" song, 1972's "Dead Skunk," which remains a perennial favorite on Dr. Demento's radio shows and CDs. "It was a novelty. People thought it was funny, and they played it. It surely had more to do with payola than anything," Wainwright said. "I'm being facetious, but not entirely. If you recall, Clyde Davis was kicked out of Columbia for the payola scandal not long after my song got around. Thing is, we start this leg of the tour in Arkansas where 'Dead Skunk' was No. 1 for six weeks. So surely it wasn't all payola." Today, radio support for Wainwright's confessional, sometimes cheeky folk music is tough to find, though Wainwright said a few major cities boast acoustic-oriented stations. "There's still college radio and NPR stations, and there's this format called triple-A. That's the Automobile Association of America, as far as I'm concerned. Fortunately, I am a member, but it doesn't guarantee me airplay. In fact, that's why I joined ..." Wainwright, though, is one of those artists with a devoted cult following. Since his eponymous debut in 1970, he has crafted albums with laissez-faire care and razor-sharp wit, frequently turning out deeply personal songs with the ability to touch the heart and bust a gut -- sometimes within the same verse. His small but mighty legions of followers have charted his course through minor novelty hits to sorely underappreciated masterpieces (1988's "Therapy") and his occasional acting whimsies, such as his three appearances on "M*A*S*H" as Capt. Calvin Spaulding, the singing surgeon. Still, he keeps in mind the goal of branching out to attract new audiences, and he said he hopes that his work with Levanthal on "Little Ship" — one of his most fully realized records — bolsters a few new fans. "I've been only marginally successful in my career. It actually helps me to be fairly flexible when recording," Wainwright said. "For instance, the song 'Mr. Ambivalent' (on the new record). I went to John with a lot of songs -- things I'd thrown out, forgotten about, old stuff I hadn't gotten to — and just played him stuff for days. 'Mr. Ambivalent' was one I wouldn't have recorded, but John liked it because it had a chorus and a hook and was fairly catchy. I decided to try something different, you know. Whether or not we fooled some new people, I don't know." Teaming up with Levanthal came about as most musical collaborations do: they were mutual friends of someone — in this case, Colvin — and after several years of casual suggestions that they should work together, finally mustered the time and energy to do it. "I've known Shawn for 15, maybe 20, years since she came to New York City. They were living together in those days, and I'd heard he was interested in working with me," Wainwright said. "His contribution to this record was substantial. He has his stamp on the way it sounds, and it's a way that I like very much. It was a different way of working for me. “John's got this little funky East Village pad with foam rubber gaffer-taped to the door, and he records in there hoping all the while that the people upstairs stop stomping around and the buses don't go by. It's primitive, I suppose, but it's relaxed. He works in his own way, too. You record with him, and then he sends you away. You come back in a few weeks and hear what he's done to your songs. He's kind of a mad scientist kind of guy." Wainwright continues touring this summer in support of "Little Ship." Loudon Wainwright III When: 8 p.m. Thursday, Old Fort River Festival, Ft. Smith, Ark. Where: Harry E. Kelley Park near downtown. Admission: $5 at the gate, with children under 12 free. When: 8 p.m. Saturday Where: City Arts Center in Oklahoma City (at the fairgrounds, gate 2-26 off of May Avenue). Tickets: $8 in advance or $15 on Saturday. Call (405) 951-0000. 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." By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Someone just had to have the Dwight Twilley rubber stamp. She's probably got it by now, too, and is currently stamping all her correspondence, memos and personal papers with the old Dwight Twilley band logo. And she's happy as can be. The stamp is just one of many such vintage trinkets available for sale on Twilley's new web site (http:/members.aol.com/Twillex/), in the Twilley Store. Twilley — the Tulsa pop star noted for such hits as 1975's “I'm on Fire'' and 1984's “Girls'' — set up the site as a way to communicate directly with his fans and to clear out his inventory of rubber stamps, old stickers, Dwight Twilley pendants and classic posters. Oh, and records, too. “I've just always kept really good archives,'' Twilley said this week. “I was digging through some video stuff a while back and found some old films that I had transferred to video. One of them turned out to be a rehearsal film of the Dwight Twilley Band preparing for the 1977 tour. I think it was shot at Channel 8. It's real nice footage of us clowning around. That's a big seller. People have got to have that one.'' Yessir, to a certain segment of bright-eyed pop fans, Twilley hung the moon. He was, after all, a big-shot on radio for a good decade. He claimed Tom Petty as a close, personal friend. People in other countries know who Twilley is. Heck, he performed on “American Bandstand'' three times. So he must be a big, untouchable star, right? Probably just sits at home on a pile of royalty money, playing around with his web site. Nah. Since Twilley returned home to Tulsa a few years ago, he's let everyone know that he's just another Tulsa musician. He mostly sits at home writing new songs and enjoying the lift the recent resurgence in power-pop has given his career. He hopes to further prove the point with this weekend's shows — two in a row at Steamroller Blues and BBQ, with the raucous Brian Parton and his Nashville Rebels opening each night. “I like to get out every now and then and play, just like anyone else. It's not feasible to get out an play clubs every weekend, but I play when I can ... I kind of get jealous when my friends — all musicians — are talking about their Friday-Saturday gigs around town. I wanted one, especially because most of the shows we've been doing lately are the big Balloon Fest and centennial shows. I just wanted to get out and be one of the guys. I'm a Tulsa musician, too,'' Twilley said. The Twilley band this time around will include Tom Hanford and Jerry Cooper on guitars, Dave White on bass, Bill Padgett on drums and Twilley's longtime stand-by percussionist Jerry Naifeh. Fans ought to enjoy the live performances while they can. Twilley is currently considering a contract with a record label to record a new album. Since his rousing performance at last year's South by Southwest music conference perked up the ears of scouts, some major labels have been toying with the idea of signing Twilley. At this point, though, Twilley said he just wants to put out a record. “I've got a lot of songs building up,'' he said. “If this goes through, we'll probably be out from in front of the microphone for a while.'' Meanwhile, you can check out some of those new songs on the cassette packages available on the Twilley Store. And don't forget those key rings. And the imprinted vinyl editions. And the ... Dwight Twilley With Brian Parton and the Nashville Rebels 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday Steamroller Blues and BBQ 1732 S. Boston Ave. $5 at the door By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World The bands that best uphold the traditions of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are those that don't holler about it. Your basic '80s hair metal band was no doubt a staunch purveyor of that triumvirate of debauchery, but how subversive can your fans feel about the experience when you're waving your fist in the air at every opportunity and giving away the game with a whooping, "Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roooooooooll!''? The warm, wily wash of the Dandy Warhols' trippy roar is more comfortable — and truly subversive. The sex in the feeling of these songs isn't employed as a domination strategy. The rock 'n' roll has less noise, more melody and, as Tom Wolfe might write, O! the kairos! the vibrations! The drugs are, well, definitely a factor — though the Warhols' hot single, "Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth,'' and particularly its garish, "Price Is Right'' kind of video, presents a more poignant case against heroin than anything the Partnership for a Drug-Free America could stick on your television. This is, after all, a band that takes its cues from the Velvet Underground and T. Rex — and they may be the first band of the '90s to claim those influences and genuinely deserve the prestige they transfer. Last week, Eric Hedford got on the phone to shed some light on the Dandys experience. Hedford is the band's drummer and occasional Moog noodler, and he cleared some of the haze surrounding the band's talent for mooching, its troubled effort making the current album ("The Dandy Warhols Come Down'' on Capitol Records) and its chance defiance of categorization. Thomas Conner: You're in Portland (Ore.)? How did you score this rare moment at home? Eric Hedford: Three weeks in sunny Portland, then we go out for another three months ... We'll be concentrating on the South, because it's winter. Smart, huh? Last winter we were touring the north, and we broke down in 70-below weather outside Minneapolis. We fired our road manager on the spot. We plan to hit Florida this winter in bathing suits. TC: How's the tour been going? EH: We put 30,000 miles on our van. Someone told me that's once or twice around the whole planet. We've played with Blur, the Charlatans, Radiohead, Supergrass, Spiritualized ... TC: Those are all British bands. I thought you were trying to avoid being called Brit wanna-bes. EH: There aren't too many American bands we're compatible with right now. Our mission is to find an American band to tour with. The closest we got is this Canadian band we've got with us next. I can't remember their name. (Note: It's Treble Charger, the opening band for the Tulsa show.) TC: Do you enjoy life on the road? EH: It's a trippy way to live. We've got a contest we play called Guess What the Date Is. I never win, and I've got a watch with the date on it. TC: What's different about this tour and your first jaunts with the debut album, ""Dandy's Rule OK''? EH: Well, since we just went around the world cramped in a van, not much. For this next leg, though, we've got a big, rock tour bus. I'm hoping it's going to have some big, cheesy eagle painted on the side. TC: Courtney (Taylor, lead singer) frequently confesses to the band's winning ability at mooching. Isn't that one of the great fringe benefits of being a rock star? EH: All I know is that people are always giving us stuff. I don't know if this happens with every rock band in America. Maybe we just attract people doing this. The people who really count are the ones who give us things like clean socks or fresh food. Those people become our friends. They'll get invited onto the bus. We get plenty of beer and stuff, but it's those things we don't get from home that win us over ... Someone actually gave us socks once after a show. We thought that was the coolest thing. We threw away our old ones. TC: Is there an art to mooching? EH: Don't take advantage of the small people. Go after the corporates, the ones with deep pockets. When we started getting courted by the record companies, we took full advantage of the thing. We didn't say no to a single person. Every label in existence was flying us back and forth to L.A. and New York, buying us these ridiculous dinners and trying to impress us. You have to jump on that because once you get signed the label doesn't give you anything. Then you have to sell a bunch of records before they even send you a bottle of champagne on your birthday. TC: Wow, a spirit of hedonism in a band — how refreshing. What happened to that hedonism in rock 'n' roll? EH: A lot of bands just turned into a big bunch of pansies. I can't figure it out. But then, we think we party a lot and you look at someone like Fleetwood Mac — and, man, we're nothing compared to that. People back in the '70s, like Elton John, they were crazy. They knew how to live. We work hard, too, though. We're pretty good at rehearsing, and we play relatively sober, saving the fun for afterward. TC: How responsible of you. Well, if this reckless spirit is creeping back into rock 'n' roll, does that mean grunge is dead? EH: The mentality lives on, though, as far as that do-it-yourself spirit goes. I mean, the grunge people were pretty good at not being pretentious at first, and I liked how most of them had a good sense of humor. Those are the things we stole from it, and we grew up around it in Portland. We just never dressed like that or tried to think we were cooler than everyone else. TC: Did you consciously try to avoid being like the then-hot grunge bands? EH: We started when grunge was still around. It was the opposing force for us, and we just tried to distance ourselves from it — not because we didn't like it, really, but because it just wasn't us. Grunge died out and then we realized that the rest of the world thinks that if you're from the Northwest, you're a grunge band. They don't realize that there were a lot of different styles going on here. TC: There was some trouble in the making of the new record. What happened? EH: We had a false start. We got done with a big tour (after the first record) and didn't have enough material prepared. We thought we'd just go into the studio and do an experimental record. It didn't work. Some of us were stoned all the time, and some of us didn't care. Capitol heard the record and didn't think it had any songs on it, so we basically canned it. We still have the option of releasing it. I don't know if we will. We went on tour again and wound up focusing on writing good songs. We still used some of the experimental things we'd learned and just applied them to the new songs for this record. It worked out well. It's got new angles -- it's not just 12 pop songs. The video helped make the single ("Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth'') pretty big, but now we've got all these people coming to shows expecting them to be all pop. We usually start a show with a trippy, psychedelic jam, and those people stand there not knowing what the hell is going on. We like to take people on a trip — bring them up, bring them down, make it move a bit. We don't have a set list. We just get a feel for what mood the crowd is in and start picking songs. Sometimes that (screws) us up, and sometimes it's incredible. TC: You're a club DJ there in Portland, too, right? EH: Yeah. I was doing that Halloween night. I'm still hungover from that. TC: How does DJ-ing relate to what you do in the band? EH: When I'm a DJ, I don't have a set list, either. You just read the crowd. Also, a lot of my drumming comes from a DJ perspective. I like that monotonous kind of groove. I'm not a big rock drummer who likes to do big crashes and solos; I like just sitting in the background and grooving out. As a DJ, I got into that monotonous thing. And everyone's saying that electronic music and stuff is going to be this next big thing, but I don't like seeing the bands live. They're boring. I do, however, love seeing a DJ live. TC: Does the monotonous groove come from the Velvet Underground influence? EH: I haven't listened to them a lot myself. Courtney and Zia (McCabe, keyboardist) listen to them. It's that same idea, though: the three-chord mentality and not a lot of changes in the song. You just sink into that trippy groove. Plus, a lot of it comes from the fact we're just not good players. We're quite basic, and we admit that, but there's a lot you can do with the basics and still have fun. That way, we're not up there worrying about the big, complex chord change that's coming up. TC: And the Andy Warhol allusion in your name? EH: It's just a cool name. That whole pop art scene was amazing, though. We're notorious for nicking things out of other decades and throwing them together, and that's what the pop artists were doing -- taking what people recognized and presenting it without pretension. You can steal everything and put it together and say it's a brand-new creation. Then sit back and watch people run around trying to categorize you. TC: Been there, done that. EH: What, the categorizing? TC: Yep. It can't be done anymore, though. I don't think there are categories anymore, at least not on the scope for mass culture. EH: Wow. See? You just come to our show and let all that fall away. Fall, fall away. Dandy Warhols With Treble Charger When 7 p.m. Sunday Where Cain's Ballroom, 423 N. Main St. Tickets $5 at the door By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Let's take a song from David Byrne's latest CD, "Feelings,'' as an example of our post-postmodern everything-and-the-kitchen-sink era of art. Knitting together the unabashed, knee-slappin' country-and-western chorus are delicate, jittery jungle techno rhythms. Sounds absurd, but it works beautifully. Or "Daddy Go Down'' — a Cajun fiddle see-saws on a playground of droning sitars and tell-tale scratching. Walk into your local record label office and pitch that to a talent scout. See what kind of looks you get. David Byrne is used to strange looks. In the 20 years since the debut of the Talking Heads' first album, he has led that band and his own solo career through a series of unbelievable and harrowing stylistic twists and turns, and every time he pitched one of his art-student ideas, he met numerous odd looks. He's racked numerous successes — personal (a wedding — at which Brave Combo played -- and a daughter) and commercial (you know the hits — "Once in a Lifetime,'' "Wild, Wild Life,'' "And She Was,'' etc.) — in those 20 years, though, and there's no good reason to stop now. "I'm used to the look of bewilderment,'' Byrne said this week in a telephone interview from a tour stop in Florida. "I just have to explain that I'm from the same planet you are — you just don't realize how strange it is out there. You're living in some TV dream world.'' Fortunately, Byrne has reached a position from which he can act on his whims with relative freedom. For instance, his record label, Luaka Bop (a subsidiary of Warner Bros.) signs and produces artists from around the world that normally wouldn't get looked at twice by American labels. It cuts out the middlemen and those looks of bewilderment. "Look at the new Cornershop record. It looks like it's making some kind of impact, but if you went to someone and said, 'We have this band with an Indian singer and their single is about Asha Bosley, this woman who stars in Indian musicals, and we think it's a hit record,' they'd look at you like, 'What planet are you from?' But it worked. Every now and then one of them clicks,'' Byrne said. Cornershop found success for the same reasons Byrne continues to astound listeners: they both realize the patchwork potential of pop music now. They mix styles. They bridge the gaps between musical genres. They play to our expanding awareness of the world. It's not intentional, of course. Byrne doesn't hunker down next to his wall of gold Talking Heads records and plot ways to better communicate with today's collage minds. His consciousness is a collage, too, so the music comes out that way. Upon the release of "Feelings,'' Byrne explained it this way: "We all seem to have these musical styles and reference points floating around in our heads, things we've heard at one time or another that rub off on us — sometimes in small ways, as a feeling in a melodic turn of phrase, other times in the overall style of a song. There's a subconscious cut-and-paste going on in our heads that doesn't seem strange at all. It seems like the most natural thing in the world. It's the way we live now ... borrowing from the past and future, from here and there.'' It's the way Byrne lives, anyway, and he said the ideas for style-melding sneak up on him. "It doesn't come when you have your forehead furrowed, figuring out what to do with a song. It comes when you're not paying attention, when you're making coffee late in the afternoon and there's a record playing in the background,'' Byrne said. " 'The Gates of Paradise' is an example of that. I had a jungle record playing while I was in the kitchen, and my ear caught something. I realized that the rhythm I was hearing was the same basic beat of the song I had just been working on.'' In the making of "Feelings,'' those moments came with greater frequency, Byrne said, because of the way the album was made. The songs were recorded with musicians and producers all over the world — the dance trio Morcheeba in London, the Black Cat Orchestra in Seattle, Devo in Los Angeles, Joe Galdo in Miami and Hahn Rowe in New York City. No big studios, either — everything was economical, in home studios. That contributes largely, Byrne said, to the natural, relaxed gait of the songs. Nowadays, with advancements in technology and lower prices, home recordings sound as good or better than those from big, complicated studios. This is not breaking news to musicians, but it's a new dynamic to the musical marketplace. "All artists have gone through this — you make a demo at home that sounds great, that has this intensity and feel and spontaneity, and it gets scrubbed clean in the studio. They listen to the final product and go, "There's something missing here. Why doesn't this sound as exciting as the demo?' That's an old story,'' Byrne said. "Now we're coming around to where if you take a little more care when recording the demo, you can release that as the record.'' That's what Byrne did this time around. The result is an album that packs a suitcase of musical styles that ordinary musicians wouldn't be able to carry across the room, but the disc holds together with a surprising fluidity and coherence. It may be the most enterprising effort Byrne has tackled since the heady days with his old band. "In the beginning, the Talking Heads were always kind of beat-oriented. Always in the living rooms and the loft there was R&B in the air as well as experimental music and rock stuff. That resulted in the same fusion that I think I still capture from time to time,'' Byrne said. "It's a natural tendency to end up putting together the different things in your experience. You act out what you love. That's how different music comes into being. What we call rock 'n' roll is a patchwork of many different things. It's not like Elvis Presley had no roots.'' Byrne prefers continuing on his own path, too. The other three members of the Talking Heads reunited last year without him, calling themselves simply the Heads and using different vocalists for each song on the resulting CD "No Talking Just Head.'' Bad blood still exists between Byrne and his former bandmates, so his part in the reunion was never an issue. "Years earlier I had tried to talk to them, and they didn't want to even talk to me,'' he said. "It's been going on for a very long time. It just finally got to the point where I realized I was not in this as a masochist and that I don't need to be whipped and berated. Music should be a joy. It was time to move on.'' Even when Byrne gets venomous or angry, though, his music somehow maintains an air of cheer, optimism and hope. Even with a foreboding lyric like that in "Daddy Go Down,'' the song's rhythmic momentum instills a crucial air of confidence. In fact, it's that rhythmic element that pulls off that trick, Byrne said. "You can dance to it,'' he said. "For me, you can say something very bleak and pessimistic, but if you counter it with a groove, it implies that the human being is going to persevere and survive. At least, that's what it feels like. Despite what ominous clouds gather, the groove and the life force is going to pull you through.'' David Byrne with Jim White When: 7 p.m. Thursday Where: Cain's Ballroom, 423 N. Main St. Tickets: $20 at the Ticket Office at Expo Square, Mohawk Music, Starship Records and Tapes, the Mark-It Shirt Shop in Promenade Mall and the Cutting Edge in Tahlequah By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Rick James' career never stopped — how could it, what with all the rappers sampling his songs? — it was just put on hold for a couple of years. “I wasn't dead. I was just in prison,'' James said in an interview from his Los Angeles home this week. “I was still in the minds of the people — I just wasn't functioning. Now I'm back, and I did an album and I'm on tour. That's all I've ever done.'' Since the 1960s that's indeed all he's ever done. James' career spans the whole of modern R&B, from his beginnings in a Toronto band called the Mynah Birds (which included rocker Neil Young, of all people) through his steady stream of hits in the late '70s and early '80s — most notably, “Super Freak'' — to his most recent reincarnation as a slightly more humble but no less powerful Mack Daddy. It's a life to reckon with, for sure, but James had more to reckon with in the '90s, making more headlines than music. After some problems with drug addiction, he wound up jailed on assault charges and served nearly three years in a California prison. Fortunately, James emerged from his sentence a sober man -- literally and figuratively. “Jail was rough. It was like being in the middle of a Ku Klux Klan meeting,'' James said. “I've never been one for people to be telling me when to eat and when to shower and how to walk, and that (stuff) went on for three years. It was a very degrading state, but it was a curse that turned out to be a blessing. “The experience brought racism into my life all over again. I grew up in a working-class town (Buffalo, N.Y.), in the ghetto, and I knew about racism then, but I became successful and never encountered that anymore. I was totally removed from that. Prison slapped that back in my face real quick. There are some racist, sadistic, ignorant (people) in the world.'' James was bitter about the experience at first, but that soon gave way to hope. During his incarceration, he wrote nearly 400 songs — “some political, some spiritual, some sexual, some introspective.'' Fifteen of those new songs are on James' newest release, “Urban Rapsody'' from the Mercury and Private I record labels. (Private I was launched by Joe Isgro, a former indie record promoter whose 1986 arrest on payola charges shook the music business. The charges were dropped last year, and both men are eager to put their legal entanglements behind them.) The first single, “Player's Way,'' features Snoop Doggy Dogg. Throughout the record and its liner notes, James emphasizes his desire to return to his “urban roots.'' Roots, though, are just what many in the current crop of R&B kingpins are lacking, James said. Despite a slight debt to many for keeping the idea of Rick James alive through samples of his riffs and phrases, James is not at all impressed with the state of R&B today. “I think it's pretty ... weak,'' he said. “I'm not thrilled with what the young kids are doing. How can I be? I miss the melodies in the songs, the lyrics — all these kids are doing is sampling other people's (stuff) and trying to sound like Stevie Wonder or Charlie Wilson. I can't appreciate that ... Most people I grew up with had a vast knowledge of music, lyrical structure and melody, and they played instruments. These kids have licks but no melodic sense. But they're making money, so where do you draw the line?'' Case in point: M.C. Hammer's “U Can't Touch This,'' a 1990 hit built on the sampled riff from James' “Super Freak.'' The sample was legit, and James made a nice chunk of change when the single hit No. 1, but he's not thrilled about it. “(Heck) no I wasn't impressed with that (garbage). I was impressed with the money I made, and I was baffled that that song could come back and make so much money, but I was shocked more than anything. Hammer didn't come to me, he went through my company. If he'd come to me, I would have refused him. After that, I told my people that I didn't want anymore rappers using my stuff. The (rappers) should come up with their own material.'' James launched his own career by trying to come up with his own material — something new and innovative. He recognized from the beginning that infusing R&B with other genres would not only create that new sound but open him to a much wider audience. Working with a base of Parliament-Funkadelic groove, James began adding rock, soul, jazz and even classical elements to his songs. The result was a long and varied — if not always as innovative as he'd hoped — career featuring numerous hits in addition to the “Super Freak'' smash, songs like “You and I,'' “Give It to Me Baby'' and “Fire and Desire,'' a duet with Teena Marie many consider one of the finest love ballads in R&B. Other songs showed James deftly applying his hybrid techniques. “Fool on the Street,'' for instance, is a smooth R&B number with a decided Latin influence. “Dance With Me'' uses vibes to create a clear jazz mood. “Mary Jane'' — a song about marijuana which James said he still sings (“I Still sing it, I just won't smoke it'') — mixes R&B with rock 'n' roll, a formula that brought James most of his success. “George Clinton was always an inspiration to me, and we're very close,'' James said. “He was always experimenting with new sounds, new textures, and it always enthralled me the way he could mix, like, sci-fi with funk. “I always wanted to take that groove to a new level. Like the Beatles took rock to a new level, I wanted to do the same to R&B ... I didn't want to be stereotyped into the R&B genre. I'm not a funk artist, and I don't like being labeled a funk artist. That's too small a world. I want to do more than that.'' It must have worked. Most R&B stars today speak reverently of James as the original bad boy. Even the late Marvin Gaye once said of him, “I studied Rick's writing and stole some of his licks. We all did.'' By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World It took an Englishman to resuscitate the heart of an Oklahoma legend. A few thousand miles from his native Britain, folksinger Billy Bragg explored Green Country this week, visiting various remnants of Woody Guthrie's legacy, from old friends to the site of his Okemah home. It's part of Bragg's effort to understand Woody and his music completely and in context, to sweep up whatever memories remain of the Dust Bowl days that inspired America's greatest folk singer, and to investigate evidence of the political climate that nurtured a left-wing unionist almost as staunch as Bragg himself. That perspective will be necessary when launching the next great Woody Guthrie project: at the request of Woody's daughter, Nora, Bragg is writing music for several dozen long-lost Guthrie lyrics that have none. The Woody Guthrie Archives in New York City maintain more than a thousand “unfinished'' Guthrie songs — lyrics with no chords or musical notation written with them, only vague notes about the feel of a particular song or Woody's mood and location when he wrote it. Bragg, along with Jeff Tweedy and his Americana rock band Wilco, is gracing several dozen of these songs with new music for an album to be recorded in January and released next spring. “It seemed to me that if we were going to get in close to Woody then we needed to come and at least see Okemah and Pampa (Texas), these places where he lived. You can read so much both of what Woody wrote about Oklahoma and what subsequent biographers have written, but we wanted to actually come down here and see what it looks like now — take that contemporary feel away with us — and to go out to Okemah and walk the streets that Woody walked and talk to the people about how they feel about him ... We're just trying to get a feel for it.'' Part of the history Bragg wanted to visit was Tulsa's Cain's Ballroom. He sat down on the Cain's stage this week and spoke with the Tulsa World about his trip, the Guthrie project, the immortal legacy of Guthrie's music and politics, and why exactly it's taken a Brit to get a firm handle on a crucial piece of American history. The pairing is actually quite perfect. Bragg might as well be the Woody Guthrie of England. Spin magazine referred to him as “a cross between Woody Guthrie and Wreckless Eric,'' and writer Gary Graff said “his fiery mixture of the Clash's energy and Woody Guthrie's political fervor (is) ... irresistible.'' Rock journalist Ira Robbins describes Bragg this way: “Playing a solitary electric guitar and singing his pithy compositions in a gruff voice, Billy Bragg reintroduced the essence of folksinging — not the superficial trappings, but the deep-down Woody Guthrie activist/adventurer type — to the modern rock world.'' From his 1983 debut through last year's mature “William Bloke'' album, Bragg has used utterly simple musical tools to create enormous strength and depth in warm love songs (“Love Is Dangerous,'' “A Lover Sings'') and trenchant, socialist political commentary (“From Red to Blue,'' “Help Save the Youth of America'') alike. Sound like any folksinger you know? An Okie leftist (his guitar bore the legend, “This machine kills fascists''), Woody Guthrie was an activist whose politics were anything but theoretical; he had suffered the wrongs he strove so passionately to correct. His stated goal was to raise people's consciousness and esteem every time he sang. “Woody's kind of activism is still going on today, but it's being done in different ways,'' Bragg said. “A band like Rage Against the Machine is making ideological and political music in a non- ideological society. It's not easy. There's not the popular front organizing now that there was in the '30s and '40s that Woody was feeding off. You can't make political music in a vacuum. “I made political music in the 1980s because Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister, and she was forcing everybody to take sides and manifest their ideas in a more political way. She was a great inspiration to us.'' He nearly betrayed a smile. “I'm accomplishing the same thing as Woody inasmuch as I'm taking information from one part of the world and moving it around to another part — that kind of balladeer tradition. I feel I am very much a part of that and that Woody and I at least have that in common.'' Politics aside The two troubadours also share political perspectives — views from the left. Bragg began his drive to Oklahoma immediately after a Sept. 24 concert at an AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh. During this interview, Bragg wore a T-shirt for the Detroit Sunday Journal, a newspaper that was published by striking union employees at the Detroit Free Press. He's well-acquainted with union politics and is well-equipped to perform and shape the music of the man who wrote, “Oh, you can't scare me / I'm sticking to the union.'' Still, Bragg acknowledges that the lack of ideological polarization in the '90s makes Woody's music seem, perhaps, quaint. So much of Guthrie's songs were topical, they must be viewed in context and in light of how that context has altered over the years. “The important thing about Woody is that he represents one of the few periods in American history when there was some kind of left-wing cultural agenda,'' Bragg said. “When you listen to his stuff you can see that that was pretty important at the time. He gives us a sort of pre- McCarthy vision of America. So much of American history was rewritten around the time of the McCarthy witch hunts, and I think Woody suffered a lot from that.'' Indeed, Bragg said that during his visits last week to Okemah, he noticed that people still bore some shame over Woody's socialist affiliation. “I'd like very much to ask the people who feel that way what they think a communist is. I think you'd find that their definition of a communist was not what Woody stood for at all ... He was right at a time when the ideas of popular-front communism were very relevant to the working people of America. Here in Oklahoma, the socialists were the third party before the war. But because of McCarthy, people have forgotten about that or simply left it out of history. "But when you listen to Woody today, you understand that this did exist. If he has a message for us today it's simply that once there was a different political agenda, and it was more left- leaning, and that despite what the media tells us these days the left in America and the idea of unions and organizing and working people having a say is actually as American as mom and apple pie.'' Woody's rarities The current working title for the album of new songs is “Union,'' chosen by Nora Guthrie. “She thinks it fits with the union between our generation and Woody's, as well as the strong relevance to what Woody wrote about,'' Bragg said. Some of the unheard Woody songs are “what we think of as typical Woody protest songs,'' but many have little to do with politics. Bragg said he's trying to include a broad range of lyrics — “songs that perhaps you wouldn't expect Woody Guthrie to sing.'' For instance, there's one about flying saucers. There's also one about Joe DiMaggio. Bragg said that Nora Guthrie's goal for this project is to use these lyrics to bring a new dimension to Woody. Bragg already has tried out some of the new songs. Last fall, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame hosted a week-long seminar, “Hard Travelin': The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie,'' culminating in a star-studded tribute show. On a bill including Bruce Springsteen, Ani DiFranco, Indigo Girls, Pete Seeger and Woody's son Arlo Guthrie, Bragg performed three songs, one of which was Woody's “Farmer Labor Train'' to the tune of “The Wabash Cannonball.'' Then came the two new ones. “The Unwelcomed Guest'' is the tale of a Western Robin Hood explaining — to his horse — why he robs from the rich and gives to the poor. Bragg then applied a shuffling rockabilly groove to a lyric called “Against the Law,'' in which Woody bemoaned that everything, even breathing, seemed to be illegal. In collaborating with Woody, Bragg has to rely heavily on intuition and the notes Woody scribbled in the margins of these manuscripts. “For instance, on the one about the flying saucers, he actually wrote on the manuscript, ‘supersonic boogie,' '' Bragg said. “It's a short song, only a couple of verses, and I found myself playing it kind of like Buddy Holly thing — not the same kind of chords but that same sort of rhythm. It fits because, a) it was written during the '50s and, b) Buddy Holly was from Lubbock, not far from Pampa. “The music I'm trying to write for these songs is like a frame. I don't want to put modern rock on these songs, though I'm sure that, playing them with Wilco, there will be that angle to them. But that's not the point. The point is to cast these songs — frame them, if you like — in the music of popular America, in the music Woody was listening to while he was alive. You have to remember that Woody didn't die until 1967, so being in New York, he would have heard Beat poetry; he would have heard electric guitars, Chuck Berry, everything that was on the radio in the '50s; he would have heard R&B, as well as Bob Wills and Will Rogers.'' Welcome reception Bragg said he feels no great weight about “collaborating'' with Woody. There are, after all, still a thousand lyrics available for other artists to interpret if Bragg's take on his dozen or so don't meet with popular approval. Plus, Bragg said he received a lot of encouragement after his Hall of Fame performance. “It was a good opportunity for me to try out these songs on a very critical audience of Woody scholars and friends and see what the reaction would be, see if they'd come up to me and say, ‘Forget it, son. You're wasting your time.' They very kindly didn't, and they gave me a lot of encouragement.'' Enough encouragement that Bragg dove headlong into the project and made this trip to Oklahoma to see some of the places Woody mentioned in his lyrics and life. It's a trip Bragg felt compelled to make if he were going to approach this project with respect. “I could have just sat in England and read the manuscripts, but I do feel I would have left out a very important aspect,'' Bragg said. “Woody Guthrie is a quintessential American character, and he began here in Oklahoma, which isn't in the West, isn't in the Southwest, isn't in the South or the North; it's this giant crossroads. He ended up in New York, but he took his roots with him. He never really left Okemah and Pampa behind. So to do this project without coming down here, I wouldn't have been doing the full monty.'' By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World Up, up and away ... yada yada yada. There are lots of reasons to check out the Gatesway International Balloon Festival this weekend, but one of the best barely has been mentioned in the advertising and the hubub: the festival features a fantastic line-up of local music acts. For all those harping into thin air about how much Tulsa would benefit from a music festival of all-local rock acts, this is it. On Friday evening and all day Saturday, two stages at the festival will be packed with the creme de la creme of local bands — from hot pop and rock on the Z-104.5 FM “The Edge'' Stage to more down-home and bluesy sounds on the KVOO Stage. Rocker Dwight Twilley is scheduled to headline the festival on Saturday night, and it's a rare opportunity to see this underappreciated pop master burn up a stage. Twilley, whose top 20 hits were 1975's “I'm on Fire'' and 1984's “Girls,'' currently is enjoying the revivalist crest of the power pop movement. Those two hit singles are popping up on compilations around the world, solidifying Twilley's importance in rock 'n' roll history. “It's great. It kind of let's these songs take their place in history in the pack with all the ones being remembered,'' Twilley said this week. The first two albums from the Dwight Twilley Band, “Sincerely'' and “Twilley Don't Mind,'' are scheduled for rerelease in October from The Right Stuff record company. Twilley, though, is no nostalgia act. Saturday's show will feature a good chunk of new material, songs that Twilley has been writing since he moved back to Tulsa last year and then raised eyebrows with his showcase at the South by Southwest music festival in March. “We've got a lot of new songs that we'll be doing this weekend, stuff we'll be trying out before the centennial show in September,'' Twilley said. Twilley and his band will open for Leon Russell on Sept. 19 as part of Tulsa's centennial homecoming celebration. Twilley's band includes guitarists Pat Savage and Tom Hanford, plus the rhythm section that doubles for two other Tulsa bands (Crown Electric, Brian Parton), bassist Dave White and drummer Bill Padgett. “I came back (to Tulsa) because I wanted to create another band of Tulsa musicians,'' Twilley said. “I think this is the best band I've had since the Dwight Twilley Band,'' which included the late Phil Seymour. Also on the bill, the Mellowdramatic Wallflowers have a full set of shimmering new pop songs in advance of a new CD due any time now. Jenny Labow, formerly of Glass House, is still supporting her solo debut CD of breezy acoustic pop, and Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey once again steer their ever-winding wandering around the country for another hometown gig. Jify Trip is returning to form, too, after some juggling of guitarists. After losing their original axman, Steve Francen -- formerly of Mellowdramatic Wallflowers — sat in with the band, but his current project, Flapjack Cancer Co., didn't allow the extra time. A sharp, award-winning player from Oklahoma City, Tony Romanello, will be playing with the band for the balloon festival. He's a great player, worth checking out. The styles run the gamut, too, from the slightly wacky rock of the Cactus Slayers to the intelligent jazz of the Jazzbos. The festival's music schedule offers a fine sampling of what's going on around town every weekend right under your nose, and the event benefits the Gatesway charity. What's to lose? Gatesway International Balloon Festival When 3-10:30 p.m. Friday, 6 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Saturday and 6 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday Where Occidental Center, 129th East Avenue and 41st Street Tickets Admission is free Parking Available near the sight; plus a shuttle bus will be running from the sight to Expo Square and Broken Arrow High School |
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
May 2014
Categories
All
|