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
Today is the birthday of two of our greatest horror-fiction and pop-culture figures, Robert Bloch (b. 1917) and Roger Corman (b. 1926). Both wielded a huge influence on tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of so-called monster kids, those fantasy-obsessed youngsters who came of age in… Read More »Robert Bloch and Roger Corman, born April 5
This Saturday, as is our custom, artists represented on the SWING ON THIS playlist range from the familiar — Bob Wills, Hank Thompson, Asleep at the Wheel, etc. — to the undeservedly obscure, like Oscar Aleman and Donnie Rohrs, who otherwise have little in common… Read More »3 April 2021
Today is the Christian faith’s Good Friday. This year, it’s also the birthday of Lawton, Oklahoma native Claude Russell Bridges, known to the world as Leon Russell. So, if you’re listening to Holy Week-appropriate music, I humbly suggest you mix in Leon’s “Roll Away the… Read More »Leon Russell, born April 2, 1942
MARCH 30 — On this date in 1999, Ed Galloway’s Totem Pole Park, a few miles east of Foyil, Oklahoma, was named to the National Register of Historic Places. I have a real affinity for that particular roadside attraction; growing up in Chelsea, about six miles… Read More »March 30, 1999, Ed Galloway’s Totem Pole Park Named to the National Register of Historic Places
MARCH 29 — The honky-tonk piano player, vocalist, and songwriter who allegedly (and famously) said “You’ve gotta make the bottles bounce on those tables” was born on this date in 1909 in Polk County, Texas. Aubrey “Moon” Mullican’s propulsive style at the keyboard did just that,… Read More »Moon Mullican, born March 29, 1909
As western-swing fans know, Bob Wills and Milton Brown performed together in a band out of Fort Worth called the Light Crust Doughboys, whose main purpose was to advertise the Burrus Mill’s Light Crust Flour. Brown left first to start his own band, followed shortly… Read More »27 March 2021