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Texas Playboys under new leadership
Tomorrow night (Saturday, March 2, 2019) is the annual Bob Wills birthday celebration at Cain's Ballroom, the site of weekly dances and daily radio broadcasts for bands fronted Bob and his brother Johnnie Lee for a quarter-century, from 1934 to 1959. Doors open at 6 p.m. Western Swing historian John...
Billy Cowsill, Gary Lewis and Tulsa's "Mazeppa Scene"
The poster at right was posted on the KAKC - Memories of the Big 970's Page and the Tulsa Memories of the '60s and '70s page and spurred by a comment that Billy Cowsill and Gary Lewis had a band in Tulsa in the early 1970s. The Cowsills were...
Curly Lewis and Reece Anderson, RIP
We've lost two more western swing greats in the last couple of weeks. Tulsa fiddler and vocalist Julian "Curly" Lewis died Sunday at the age of 88. Lewis spent much of his career with Johnnie Lee Wills's band in the late '40s and '50s, but he also toured and performed...
Busy week in Tulsa: Music, politics, movies, and more
I'm really not trying to encroach on Tasha Does Tulsa's territory -- she has the definitive guide to Tulsa area pumpkin patches, by the way -- but there are so many interesting things to do in and around Tulsa this week that I decided to put a bunch of events...
Greenwood Swingout begins tonight
In addition to Mayfest and the Blue Dome Festival, there's a new event this weekend in downtown Tulsa, starting tonight, Thursday, May 17, 2012. Here's the press release for the first-ever Greenwood Swingout. GREENWOOD SWINGOUT DANCE FESTIVAL PROMOTES RACIAL RECONCILIATION Tulsa, OK, May. 14--The Vintage Swing Movement, a nonprofit organization...
Tulsa Playboys kick off Johnnie Lee Wills centennial year, September 10, 2011
The Tulsa Playboys western swing band will be back at Cain's Ballroom, Saturday night, September 10, 2011, for a special performance to kick off the centennial of Johnnie Lee Wills, with featured guests John T. Wills (Johnnie Lee's son), guitarist Roy Ferguson and vocalist Candy Noe, and Billy Parker, legendary...
"A Salute to Curly Lewis: Tulsa Western Swing Reunion" Thursday, July 21, 2011
This Thursday night, July 21, 2011, the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame will host a Tulsa western swing reunion to pay tribute to fiddler and vocalist Julian "Curly" Lewis, who performed for many years with Johnnie Lee Wills and His Boys, Leon McAuliffe's Cimarron Boys, and Hank Thompson's Brazos Valley...
Oklahoma Swing'tennial tonight
John Wooley writes to be sure we know about a special event tonight (Friday night) at the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, in the old Tulsa Union Depot, downtown at 1st & Boston. John Wooley & Chuck Cissel will bring you an evening of big band and western swing. The...
Swinging Saturday -- Texas Playboys, Billy Mata in Bristow
Yes, I know it's Dfest weekend, with bands playing on 13 stages in the Blue Dome District until 2 a.m., but if your tastes run more retro than metro, you won't be left out. Saturday morning from 8 to 10 on KXBL 99.5, legendary country DJ Billy Parker will be...
National Fiddler Hall of Fame launched
Last Friday night, I had the privilege of being at Cain's Ballroom for the inaugural gala of the National Fiddler Hall of Fame with my wife and son, both of whom play violin/fiddle. We got to meet Bob Wills's daughter Rosetta, who was there to accept the induction of her...
Happy Birthday, Bob Wills
An edited version of this column was published in the March 1 - 7, 2007, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. Posted April 11, 2024. Happy Birthday, Bob By Michael D. Bates It looked like a typical scene in an...
"Coyote Blues" times two this Saturday night
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned listening to a Johnnie Lee Wills transcription and hearing the announcer call out "Coyote Blues," by Lewis Meyer, best known to Tulsans for his bookstore and weekly book review show on TV. Tomorrow night (Saturday), John Wooley will be playing two versions of...
Found while browsing
About the only brick-and-mortar shopping I do any more is around gift-giving season. I found several books that got me to stop and thumb through them for a few minutes: Tulsa architect and author John Brooks Walton, who has published a series of books on Tulsa's Historic Homes, has several...
A little musical history lesson
Took a couple of hours off work today and went with my wife and five-year-old daughter to a special hour-long program at the Performing Arts Center about the life and music of Bob Wills, featuring John Wooley, a writer and music historian, and Ray Benson and Jason Roberts of Asleep...
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