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Bobby Koefer, steel guitar wizard, RIP
Steel guitarist Bobby Koefer, one of the last surviving members of the Texas Playboys who recorded and toured with Bob Wills, has died at the age of 95. Here is Bobby's obituary, written by western swing historian Buddy McPeters for publication here at BatesLine: John Robert 'Bobby' Koefer, passed away...
Fox 23 investigation: Tulsa fair board planning skyride demolition since 2019
Tulsa County Public Facilities Authority, also known as the Fair Board, has been discussing demolition of the historic Expo Square skyride since 2019, according to open-records research by Fox 23 reporter Spencer Humphrey, presented in a report on the July 7, 2022, newscast. (The text version of the story is...
Time Jumpers at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
Every year about this time, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco hosts a weekend of free performances from dozens of bands. It all started with bluegrass, but it expanded to include country, folk, Americana, zydeco, blues, western swing and who knows what all, and now it's known as Hardly...
Roy Clark, Jana Jae, Tulsa Playboys to perform at Gilcrease Museum Helmerich Center opening weekend
This coming weekend, September 6 and 7, 2014, is the opening weekend of the Helmerich Center for American Research, a unit of the City of Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum. The new facility is adjacent to the museum on Gilcrease Museum Road. A weekend full of free events is planned, including Native...
Emma Jane Pendleton CD release party Sunday
Championship fiddler Emma Jane Pendleton will hold a CD release party this Sunday, July 28, 2013, at 3 p.m., at Tulsa's Spotlight Theater (Riverside and Houston Ave.), featuring a performance followed by a reception. There's no cover charge, but RSVPs are requested to vmp@igeo.com, or you can text or call...
Primary night at Sullivan HQ
We pulled into the Sullivan HQ parking lot shortly before 9 p.m. on election night. We were just coming back into Tulsa after five days away. We voted Friday morning at the election board, then headed southwest to hear the magnificent final performances of the choir and orchestra at...
Riders in the Sky at the Home of Bob Wills
If you weren't at Cain's Ballroom on Saturday, April 14, 2012, you missed an evening of family-friendly fun and great music, starting with the induction of Woody Paul, Herman Johnson, Keith Coleman, and Kenny Baker (the latter two, posthumously) into the National Fiddler Hall of Fame, and ending with a...
Riders in the Sky at Cain's, April 14, 2012, for National Fiddler Hall of Fame Gala
The world's premier cowboy band, Riders in the Sky, will perform at this year's National Fiddler Hall of Fame gala on April 14, 2012, at Tulsa's historic Cain's Ballroom. The Riders' fiddler, Woody Paul, the King of the Cowboy Fiddlers, is one of this year's inductees into the hall of...
Cowboy poets, public radio, and unfunded pensions
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is upset about the Republican House budget plan, which would eliminate federal funding to the National Endowment for the Humanities, which funds the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering every January in Elko, Nevada. "The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1 ... eliminates the National Endowment of the...
Cheaper to buy all the riders a Prius?
Via Gerard Vanderleun, I found a provocative blog entry on the cost of light rail and other forms of fixed-route mass transit: When Phoenix was building its light rail system, I made the following two-part bet: I could take all the money spent on construction and easily buy a Prius...
Lullabyes of the West
My kids listen to CDs at night, usually one CD on infinite repeat, and over and over again for several weeks. Over the Christmas holidays they listened to piano instrumental versions of carols. I introduced them to the soundtrack of A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. We...
Gene Autry centennial celebration
One of the greatest singing cowboys of all time is just six weeks older than the great State of Oklahoma, and this weekend the town named for him is hosting a big celebration in his honor, the Gene Autry Oklahoma Museum Film and Music Festival. Gene Autry (the town) is...
Joel Kotkin on civic improvement schemes and city policy
This morning on KFAQ, Gwen Freeman and Chris Medlock interviewed real estate expert and urban critic Joel Kotkin. Last week in the Wall Street Journal, Kotkin wrote a pointed takedown of cities that chase the "Creative Class" with civic improvement schemes -- arenas, convention centers, government-planned entertainment districts, light rail,...
The Texas Cowboy Reunion fiddle contest
As exciting as it was to see our 10-year-old win the Harry Potter costume contest last Friday night (thanks, Dawn -- we think so, too), we were even more excited and proud about something he accomplished earlier this month. Right before Independence Day, we drove down to Stamford, Texas, to...
Not dead yet
Yes, I'm still alive, despite not posting to the main blog in a few days. (You might have noticed that I have published some items on the linkblog in the meantime.) It's been a busy (and sick) few days for our family. My wife has a chest cold. The 15-month-old...
Sliced Veggies
I know this is an old story, but anyway: NBC will be airing episodes of Veggie Tales on Saturday morning, but they've made some alterations. Initially, NBC claimed that the edits were to meet the time constraints of commercial TV, but later they 'fessed up: “NBC is committed to the...
Oh, hear that process server, from down the avenue
In a case somewhat reminiscent of the Tulsa Whirled's threats against this blog, attorneys representing humorist Garrison Keillor have sent a cease-and-desist letter to MNspeak.com over the sale of T-shirts bearing the phrase "A Prairie Ho Companion". MNspeak.com says the T-shirts are parody and therefore covered under fair use. Keillor's...
On the radio in a few hours
My regular Monday morning chat with Michael DelGiorno on 1170 KFAQ was postponed until Tuesday this week because of the holiday, so tune in this morning at 6:40 CDT, or listen online live or every three-and-a-half hours thereafter for the next 24. (You'll have to download the Surfer Network application...
Eclectic lullabyes
"He has the most eclectic taste in bedtime music," my wife just said. My eight-year-old son is drifting off to sleep to cries of "sit down, John!" from the original Broadway cast album of "1776". For the previous couple of weeks, it was the best of the Chieftains, which Rocky...
Orthodox dreams
One of the lovely things about my room at the Hampton Inn in East Aurora is the Sony Dream Machine -- a twin-alarm clock radio and CD player. The alarms are easy to set. It has a "nap" function -- you can set an alarm for so many minutes from...
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