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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...
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys: <br /><em>For the Last Time</em> at 50
Earlier this month was the 50th anniversary of the last time Bob Wills recorded with his legendary band, the Texas Playboys. The sessions that became the album known as For the Last Time were recorded at Sumet-Bernet Studios (aka Sumet Sound Studios), 7027 Twin Hills Avenue, Dallas, on December 3...
A bidding prayer for Christmas, A. D. 2023
Edited from the version originally published on December 25, 2012 Merry Christmas to anyone who happens by BatesLine today. This Advent (2023) I renewed an earlier attempt to turn the 4-arm, 5-globe reproduction Victorian streetlamp in front of our house into a kind of Advent candelabra. I installed three purple...
Al Clauser and His Oklahoma Outlaws and Patti Page
Another blog article started long ago, July 26, 2021, but never quite finished, until now. In 1982, Oklahoma was celebrating its 75th anniversary, the Diamond Jubilee of statehood, and it was one of the focuses (along with Korea) of the Smithsonian Institution's 1982 Festival of American Folklife. The program book...
Memorial Day weekend 1973: Saturday night in Tulsa
For fun, I decided to look up the local newspaper from 50 years ago this weekend. I was particularly curious to see what kind of live entertainment was on offer, and what people were watching on TV. (News clips below are from newspapers.com. Click the image to see the original...
Sapulpa Route 66 Christmas Chute, Rhema Lights final nights
The Route 66 Christmas Chute on Dewey Avenue in downtown Sapulpa, Oklahoma, has just two more nights to run, but it continues to be a popular attraction two months after its opening on November 3, 2022. Ten overhanging steel structures decorated with a variety of themes stand in the...
<em>Vale, Pia Regina</em>: Queen Elizabeth II, RIP
John Byron Kuhner pays tribute to Queen Elizabeth II as an exemplar of pietas -- not piety in the strictly religious sense, but dutifulness, after the fashion of Aeneas, hero of Vergil's Aeneid, the epic journey of the founder of Rome from the ashes of Troy. It is generally acknowledged...
9/11: Twenty-one years
Today is the 21st anniversary of the Islamist attacks on America. We pause to remember the husbands and wives, sons and daughters who died that day and in the years since in the pursuit of the evil movement that perpetrated the attacks. Please take a moment to remember Jayesh Shah,...
Local talk radio returns to Tulsa on 1300 the Patriot
Local (almost), live conservative talk radio has returned to the Tulsa airwaves, on the frequency that was the first full-time talk radio station in Tulsa over 40 years ago. AM 1300 KAKC, owned by iHeartMedia, has rebranded itself as 1300 The Patriot, as of September 15, 2021. The station's line-up...
Urban Tulsa Weekly archive additions
If you went looking for BatesLine recently and found nothing, it's because the server was offline from late Tuesday, July 13, 2021, until sometime Wednesday evening, July 14, 2021. According to BatesLine's hosting provider, the downtime was "due to a MAC address conflict after a chassis swap. However, they were...
HB 1775 and Critical Race Theory
The substance of HB 1775 occupies a mere page and a third, 282 words by my count. So why should mainstream media mischaracterize the bill, when they could easily quote the entire text?
Tulsa COVID-19 policies threaten Bob Wills Birthday Bash
A Facebook post from Bob Wills' Texas Playboys under the direction of Jason Roberts: Many of you have asked about the annual Bob Wills Birthday Bash at the historic Cain's Ballroom. We have been working with the folks at Cain's for the past couple months trying to figure out a...
Election Day 2020: Notes
I voted in person yesterday at 9:35. The line was out the door, but not very far, and I slid my ballot into the scanner and was finished in 20 minutes. The other, larger precinct that votes at the same church had a line across the parking lot, but I...
Tulsa Election 2020: Ty Walker for Mayor
What looked like a sleepy re-election run, for Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum IV as recently as the beginning of May, with one declared opponent and a perennial candidate in jail, turned into a free-for-all. As soon as he had some tough decisions to make, the smiley guy that everyone...
Tulsa Election 2020, District 4: Kathryn Lyons questionnaire
Back on August 12, I sent the three eligible candidates for City Council District 4 a questionnaire using the email addresses provided in their declarations of candidacy or on their websites. The questionnaire included the 18 questions I asked the mayoral candidates, plus a question about neighborhood conservation districts and...
Tulsa animal ordinance rewrite slights public input
UPDATE 2020/04/27: CCP Bat Virus has delayed the Tulsa City Council's final vote on the new animal ordinance, which is now set for the regular council meeting on May 11, 2020, 5 p.m., at City Hall. If you raise backyard poultry in the City of Tulsa, if you sell...
Jacob Howland speaks at Hillsdale: University of Tulsa, GKFF, and the surveillance state
Back on February 4, 2020, Jacob Howland, University of Tulsa professor of philosophy, and a leader in the fight against the corporate takeover of the university, spoke at Hillsdale College on TU's restructuring, on the influence of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, on GKFF's view of Tulsa as "beta city"...
Tulsa School Board Office 5: Kelsey Royce questionnaire response
Kelsey Royce, candidate for Tulsa Public Schools Office 5, responds to the BatesLine questionnaire.
Crosbie Heights neighborhood threatened by blight claim, slashed property values
Homeowners in a revitalizing historic neighborhood west of downtown Tulsa are feeling threatened by a sudden drop in the County Assessor's valuation of their lots and the persistent interest of the Tulsa Development Authority, the agency that seeks "blighted" property for redevelopment.
UK Elections 2019
The United Kingdom will hold a general election tomorrow, Thursday, December 12, 2019. All 650 seats in the House of Commons, the popularly-elected house of the national legislature, will be on the ballot. Voters cast a ballot only for their local Member of Parliament (MP), but the leader of the...
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