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
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
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
MARCH 10 — It’s the birthday of the superlative cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, born in Davenport, Iowa in 1903. Sadly, he’d be done in by John Barleycorn well before he could make the age of 30, but he still managed to play on some 250 records,… Read More »Bix Beiderbecke, born March 10, 1903
With the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre justifiably receiving national and international attention this year, we remember another Oklahoma-related centennial, acknowledging the first movies made especially for Black audiences in our state. Get the story in my latest OKLAHOMA Magazine column, available HERE.
Like their former boss, Hank Thompson, the current members of the western-swing-based Brazos Valley Boys have never shied away from a little musical experimentation. That certainly holds true for their new album, SWINGIN’ OUR WAY. I talk with bandleader Morey Sullivan about that disc and… Read More »Swingin’ Our Way