johnwooley

Noted jazzman and educator Tommy Poole has put a Grammy-winning trombonist together with several of his most talented OSU students to create a brand-new CD. You can read all about it here.

Oklahoma musician Jay Lankford has played and toured with, among other recording acts, the late country star Johnny Duncan. He’s called upon those experiences with a years-in-the-making novel he’s just published. Jay is the subject of my latest OKLAHOMA Magazine column, and you can read… Read More »The Sideman

Pryor, Oklahoma may seem an odd location for a comic-book convention that drew hundreds of people last year, but a closer look reveals that it’s actually just right. Read all about how a couple of cousins, both named Jim Tramel, figure into the proceedings in my… Read More »A Jim-Dandy Comic Con

The legendary country-music impresario Jim Halsey — with whom I have had the pleasure of co-authoring a couple of books — reflects on the holidays, some of his famous clients, and his one-of-a-kind collection of show-biz memorabilia in my OKLAHOMA Magazine column this month. You… Read More »TRUCKING IN MEMORABILIA

Barron Ryan of Tulsa is a breathtakingly good piano player who just about ended his career trying to reproduce Art Tatum’s knuckle-busting 1933 version of “Tiger Rag.” You can read all about that, as well as learn his unorthodox approach to jazz music, in my… Read More »Pain is Part of the Process

I’m very glad to be a part of what is, at this writing, Amazon’s No. 1 bestseller in the Antique & Collectible Magazines and Newspapers category: IDW’s THE ART OF THE PULPS: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY. Edited by my pals Doug Ellis and Ed Hulse, along… Read More »THE ART OF THE PULPS

Back in 2007, my friend Leo Evans (HELL HIGH, CAFE PURGATORY) and I, along with a cast and crew that included my videographer son Jonathan and future FORGOTTEN HORRORS PODCAST producer Joey Hambrick, shot a documentary on the life of our friend, Bill Boyce — who,… Read More »BILL BOYCE: MONEY ACTOR

The story of how filmmaker Jeffery Haas brought the new Leon Russell DVD to life is as remarkable as the footage itself, which captures Leon at the height of his musical powers even as it shows the influence of TV and radio preachers on his… Read More »Out of a Mercedes Trunk and Deep Freeze

Most of us know Bartlesville’s Becky Hobbs as a country-music recording artist, songwriter, and playwright. In my OKLAHOMA Magazine column this month, Becky tells us about a not-as-well-known facet of her early show-biz, career, when she organized the first all-girl rock ’n’ roll group in… Read More »LIFE AFTER GIRL BANDS

My OKLAHOMA MAGAZINE column for August 2017 tells the story of actor Gar Moore, a guy from Chelsea, Oklahoma who became a matinee idol in Italy following World War II and, unfortunately, found himself unable to duplicate that success in his home country. You can… Read More »A Shooting Star