Along with his wife, Linda, my friend Christopher Lewis was a pioneering filmmaker in the made-for-home-video market, directing — among other things — what was maybe the first truly successful feature film not intended to be shown in theaters . I remember Chris and his… Read More »Saying Goodbye to an Icon
Longtime listeners know that they’re liable to hear just about anyone on SWING ON THIS. However, in the 18 years that the show’s been on the air, I honestly don’t believe we’ve every had Johann Sebastian Bach on the playlist. Well, all of that changes this… Read More »1 May 2021
Now here’s a fun couple for you: Eldon Shamblin and William Castle. As far as I know, the master of the horror-movie gimmick and one of the greatest guitarists who ever lived never met one another. However, they were both born on this day, two… Read More »Eldon Shamblin and William Castle, born April 24
This week on SWING ON THIS, we celebrate the presence of women in western swing and cowboy jazz with an hour emphasizing their vocal and bandleading contributions to the genre. And yes, I admit to getting a little far afield a time or two —… Read More »24 April 2021
Long before there were the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards, well in advance of the availability of old horror movies online, on DVDs, or even on VHS tapes, there were kids who could only dream about seeing the fright films and stars of a bygone… Read More »Rondo Hatton, born April 22, 1894
This Saturday on SWING ON THIS, I seem once again to have an unusual amount of pop and jazz cover tunes done western-swing style. The discriminating listener — and if you’re reading this, I know you’re one of ‘em — will hear swinging versions of… Read More »17 April 2021
To her dying day, my mother could not understand my love of John Steinbeck’s work — especially GRAPES OF WRATH, which was published on this day in 1939. No matter how much I tried to talk to her about the shabby nobility and innate goodness… Read More »THE GRAPES OF WRATH, Published April 14, 1939
Saturday on SWING ON THIS, we celebrate one of the great ones — Meherrin, Virginia native and longtime Tulsa resident Roy Clark, born on April 15, 1933. Roy, of course, was hardly confined to the western-swing genre — although he certainly did some good work… Read More »10 APRIL 2021
I am a fan of not one but two movie people named Bert Gordon. One is the producer-director Bert I. Gordon, whose extensive motion-picture resume includes such monster-kid-era favorites as THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN, BEGINNING OF THE END, and TORMENTED. I once ran his fan… Read More »Bert Gordon, born April 8, 1895
As the TULSA WORLD’s country-music writer for 23 years (from 1983 through most of 2006), I was privileged to see and hear many of our great veteran artists. I remain convinced that today’s birthday boy Merle Haggard — dubbed, among other things, The Poet of the Common… Read More »Merle Haggard, born April 6, 1937