Plenty of Okies in the Music Industry

No one can seem to figure out why Oklahoma produces so many top-name musicians.  There have been 8 times as many Billboard artists as any other state except Tennesee.  Ballerinas, songwriters, music promoters, Broadway stars, conductors and classical music performers abound. The Tulsa Philharmonic organized a documentary on this and it is estimated that OK has grown10 times as many well-known performers in their history as an average state.

             Take a look at Country Western/Folk Music alone. Gene Autry of Chelsea started his singing career as a 5-year old soprano in his grandfather’s church choir.  He bought a Sears guitar and became the premier Singing Cowboy of Hollywood. Will Rogers encouraged him, KVOO of Tulsa sponsored him, Ken Maynard got him a job in a movie after hearing him sing on WLS Chicago. The singing cowboy genre was created for his talent by MGM.  A wise money manager, he went on to own a major league baseball team and establish Los Angeles’s Western Heritage Museum.

            Uncle Wallis and Aunt Minerva Willis from Doaksville started the popularization of negro spirituals in the 1830s (Yes, before Indian Territory!). “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Steal Away to Jesus” and “I’m A-Rollin’” were their compositions. In the 1920s Jimmy Wilson and the Cat Fish String Band were a musical group of Rotarians from Sapulpa who raised money for charity. They practically invented charity fundraisers over radio.  Disaster relief and church enterprises were their specialties. Albert Brumley, dean of the gospel songwriters, was raised on a tenant farm near Spiro. “Turn Your Radio On,” “I’ll Fly Away” were among hundreds of gospel songs he wrote.  Smithsonian Institution labels him the “The greatest white gospel songwriter before WW II.”

            Many greats are still alive.  Wanda Jackson of Maud became popular in Oklahoma City, hired a mixed race band and became a pop-country (rockabilly) star.  But later she turned primarily to religious songs.  Joe Diffee sang with a gospel group before he turned to bluegrass then to C/W.  Ronnie Dunn, Tulsa, of Brooks and Dunn fame studied theology first.  He won a Marlboro Country talent contest along with Kix Brooks and they began to sing together.  Roy Clark of Tulsa was hired by Wanda Jackson to help with her faith songs in 1960, then began a career as actor and comedian (Clean Jokes!) as well as C/W song.  Do you see anything faith-wise in common with all these people?

            The list becomes enormous. Reba McEntire, Chockie, grew up on a ranch with her rodeo champion father and sang for rodeos.  Red Steagall heard her sing at National Finals Rodeo in OKC, hired her on the spot and she went on to be a successful soloist.  Toby Keith, Clinton and Moore, taught himself to play guitar at age 8, played semi-pro football and worked in the oil fields, before he began doing platinum records.  Roger Miller, Erick, was raised by an uncle and became a local traveling musician.  Nashville was a stop where he collected 6 Grammys.  Garth Brooks was born in Luba, raised in Yukon, schooled in Stillwater and now resides in Owasso.  Three of his albums sold over 30 million copies. Tommy Allsup, the guy who flipped a coin with Richie Valens to get on Buddy Holly’s plane and lost (but thereby won!) became a country music producer, promoter, and artist. He now leads the senior Texas Playboys.

            Those guys aren’t retired yet. But the old-timers were live performers on radio before there were records.  Hank Thompson spent 30 years in Tulsa and performed over a record 7 decades. He had 42 #1 recordings, was the first to take C/W overseas, first to record a live album, and first to do stereo. Bob Wills, another transplanted Texan, did not invent but popularized the genre of Western Swing at KVOO.  Leon McAuliffe, his lead guitarist went on to a C/W career, then returned to lead the Texas Playboys when Bob could not continue in the 70s. Otto Gray and the Oklahoma Cowboys were first to feature genuine folk cowboy music. Byron Beline promotes the International Bluegrass Festival. Merl Lindsay went on television with his music, 1947. Collins Kids, Al Clauser and the OK Outlaws started on KTUL, Tulsa. Conway Twitty, Willie and Gene, Jimmy Wakely, Vince Gill, Willis Brothers—the list is long.  Stoney Edwards an Afro-American became the first black C/W star in the 50s. Woody Guthrie sang folk/protest songs.

            So why is OK so musical?  Tulsa Philharmonic thought it was the rural life and hard times before WW II making your own entertainment, and so many cultures mixing, C/W competition by Tulsa radio stations aided—but then Okies just like to have fun.  As upbeat Western Swing star Bob Wills would say, “Take it away, Leon!”

Socialism in Oklahoma

Socialism was first tried in Oklahoma,1907-1920.  It came about because of the grinding poverty in the aftermath of the land runs.  Relatively few Oklahomans had been there for more than a few years at the time of statehood. Many had arrived as adults gambling everything on Oklahoma. But those who had been around decades before often locked up ownership of Indian lands as the reservations were dissolved in the Indian Territory (East of a line from approximately Lawton to Ponca City). Grafting (getting your name on title to an Indian’s allotment) was one of the sharkish legal techniques and gives us the modern connotation for the word “graft”. The result was that most farmers in the east were tenant farmers who sharecropped.  In the west, homestead land ownership was more common but enormous debt was normal as people tried to establish themselves in raw land. 70% of the total farmers in OK were tenants.

            And so the Socialist Party grew, garnering 30% of votes in gubernatorial elections from 1912 to 1920. 1914 was the year that scores of Socialists won local and state representative elections. Two dozen socialist newspapers came into being, including the Kay County Populist, from Newkirk, OK.  There were more Socialists in OK than in NY. In 1917, a few rebels in the Canadian River valley refused to register for the draft for WW I.  Called the Green Corn Rebellion, it did not amount to much.  This Socialist rebellion was soon put down by state officials.

            But then after 1920, socialism rapidly died.  Why? An agricultural recession hit farm prices right after the war. Wouldn’t that have spurred socialism?  But the true demise of socialism was from the churches. Socialism is counter to faith in a personal Savior who puts one on a personal mission in life.  It is evil to confiscate property which is another man’s stewardship from God.  Pulpits clashed with newspapers and the Bible Belt won.  Elsewhere, the Red Scare overtook USA as atrocities in the Soviet Union became known and union radicals fell into distrust. Socialism went down fast.  But a few never gave in, such as Woody Guthrie, the atheist singer who went on to write for Communist Party USA’s newspaper.  Again, socialism demands a sort of godlessness that most people choked on. A softer version of help-thy-neighbor overtook hard politics and as a result, when the dust bowl struck in the thirties, Oklahomans became resoundingly FDR Democrats at the expense of the socialist movement. Though hurting at times, Okies were at heart very independent yet charitable. Ayn Rand, an agnostic, nonetheless said it well, “Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to him, but belong to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal collective good.”  Jesus said, “Where a man’s treasure is, there his heart will be.”  

Who's polarized?

Did you see all those guys at NASA celebrating the Martian landing?  They are cheering for their saved jobs for the next two years.  Then Obama has scheduled a big layoff in 2014. Tom Coburn has released his latest Worst Things the feds spend money on.  Most agravating was $120 million per year that the feds send to dead federal workers and never recover.  Most humorous is the $600,000 study of why chimpanzees throw their poop at other chimps.  Soooo--next time some Dem says something stupid, just say, "that's a bunch of chimp poop you're throwing".  There's always something fun that comes out of the Limp Picks.  Yesterday it was the British pole vaulter who, like so many others was having trouble completing a vault in the high wind.  She didn't medal, though favored, and broke down in tears.  Until her boyfriend came to her aid and asked her to marry him.  Now that changed the complexion of the day!  Wildest thing today was Glenn Beck interviewing some guy who graduated Columbia 1983 in the same Law/Politics cirriculum as Obama.  Didn't recall any Barry Soetoro and according to him neither did 400 other Columbia students Wall Street Journal asked.  No Barry to be found.  So his speculation is that Barry attended sporadically and as a foreign exchange student.  Grades or a scandal wouldn't be reason to keep the files locked at this point.  (No one would care if the President of the United States once flunked Esoteric Philosophy 101 or threw rocks at the dean's dog.) If he came from a humble background, how did Bare get Ivy League tuition money?  If he had scholarships, didn't he have to keep good grades?  But what if the mystery of finance was provided by untraceable foreign aid and his mother never bothered to get an American birth certificate so that he attended as a foreign student?  This would explain why he mysteriously went to Pakistan and Indonesia while in college and why his birth certificate looks quite faked. Oh, well, now the serious stuff...

There’s a big news media-induced moan going around about how we are such a Polarized Nation.  Fair enough.  Who is responsible?  It sounds like what "the public" longs for is life about 30 years ago.  I remember it well.  Tip O’Neill and RR jousting back and forth but at the end of the day having a beer together.  Or at least that is what people say nostalgically, although both O’Neill and Reagan said there was never a beer—a definitive statement from two amiable Irishmen.  And my memory is rancorous politics.

1980.  Republicans today say they long for the days of Reagan and principled constitutionalism which goes way back to the Founders.  Reagan was elected 32 years ago.  In Oklahoma, there were 3.5 registered Democrats for every Republican in those days. Recently I talked to the guy who had been Speaker of the House (D) during Gov. Larry Derryberry (R), and he avowed how bipartisan things were then.  Those 3.5:1 Democrats were old FDR Democrats who believed strongly in their principles.  Yet there wasn’t the polarization. At least that is what people choose to remember. 

Now follow the logic.  If R’s want Reagan and principled constitutionalism back, circa 1980, they surely aren’t looking to be polarizing, nor is there anything polarizing about such well-known traditionalism of American Values.  On the other hand, D’s here in Oklahoma have quit their party in droves.  The 3.5:1 registration ratio has become almost a dead heat at 1:1.  The Okies didn’t change, still the same people, so what did?  The national Democratic party has gone radically left.  “I didn’t quit the party; the party quit me,” as RR said.  And with the leftist shift it created huge polarization.  Moreover, this shift isn’t an Oklahoma phenom.  See the same thing happening in Texas, Missouri, Dakotas and other states.

And this leftist shift of the D's-- "corporate social democracy" NBC calls it-- is resoundingly like the social democracy or "national socialism' of Prime Minister Mussolini. Didn't we fight a war against this?  No wonder it is polarizing us.

Steve's Watermelon Feed

Steve's Watermelon Feed at Kaw City/Kaw Lake's Christmas in July was a smash hit. Steve didn't know if he got a single vote but there sure are a lot of watermelon eaters on the beach. I thought it was great fun, although the temperature was 102. Didn't the Beatles have a song that goes, "When I get home at hundred and two, will you lock the door?" One of the major attractions was people sticking their arms in the 60 degree water of the stock tank we were cooling melons in and going "AHHH!"

Reminds me of Bill Clinton. I never thought I would say this but I actually feel for him. $3-5 million for Chelsea's nuptial gig! And then it turned out that the guests were mostly her friends, not A-list celebrities. So were those college kids who just purchased their first neck tie? 500 people. I asked Miss Shirley how many guests we invited to our wedding in 1976. 425. So how much did it cost? She thought about 1500 bucks. Maybe I could give Slick Willie some tips for cost containment. Our guests weren't A-list celebrities either. $800,000 for food and beverages. Must have been some super eats! Steve got his melons given or at extraordinarily low cost by supporters--Josh Clinton and his grandpa, Doug Klufa and some lady at the Waverly fruit stand who said they just wanted to support his campaign.

Speaking of Clinton jokes (Gosh I miss 'em!), we heard a good Obama joke from one of our booth patrons. It seems that Obama's relatives from Kenya sent him a lion skin. Barack got excited and had always wanted a lion skin coat. So he took the pelt to a coatmaker in DC. "There is only one problem," the coatmaker said sadly. "You don't have enough here to make a coat once I match the fur colors and use the mane for a collar." Dejected Obama went home. But the next day he was scheduled on a flight for Oklahoma so he took the lion skin with him. He had heard about an Okie in Tulsa whom it was said, could make a coat out of anything you could shoot--possum, squirrel, anything. So he stopped in to see the guy. "Well sir," the Okie said, "You've got enough fur here to make not only yourself a coat but also one for the missus and the two kids." Obama was astonished and he said, "But a famous furrier/coatmaker in Washington told me he didn't have enough." The Okie looked him in the eye and noted, "Well out here in Oklahoma, you ain't near as big as you are in Washington."

And if you give Steve Vaughan for State House a donation, we will let you dive into that cool tank along with the watermelons.