Page 49 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2023 Digital Edition

I’ll have to settle for highlighting just a few, with the help of
Hugh W. Foley, Jr.’s article “Blues” for the Encyclopedia of
Oklahoma History and Culture. 5
Hart Wand of Oklahoma City actually published “Dallas
Blues,” the first 12-bar blues on sheet music, in March of 1912
− the same year W.C. Handy published “Memphis Blues,”
widely considered the first blues song.
There were several territorial bands that played a circuit in
the early 1900s across Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas,
Missouri and Nebraska. The best of these bands was the
Oklahoma City Blue Devils, which later became the core
of the Count Basie Band out of Kansas City. Truly the bluesiest
of all the touring jazz bands, I would say.
Jay McShann supplemented his passion for the blues v
with what he learned in the Manual Training High School Oklahoma legends Verbie Gene "Flash" Terry and D.C. Minner.
band of Muskogee, OK, and went on to lead one of the great Starr and Captain Beefheart, as well as four of [his] own solo
blues-based big bands of the 1930s and 1940s out of Kansas albums.” 5
City. His “Confessin’ the Blues” was one of the biggest selling Larry Johnson and the New Breed (with D.C.
records for a Black artist in the early ‘40s. Minner on bass) were the house band at the Bryant Center in
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Joe “The Honeydripper” Liggins charted a Oklahoma City, playing several nights a week and backing up
number of singles, including “The Honeydripper” and “Pink touring headliners like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley for almost
Champagne,” during the late 1940s and early 1950s with his 10 years.
streamlined rhythm and blues. His brother, Jimmy Liggins, Lowell Fulson is probably Oklahoma’s most widely
led an amplified R&B group that preluded rock ‘n roll with recognized blues guitar star. “By adding a horn section in
hits like “Cadillac Boogie,” “Saturday Night Boogie Man,” the mode of swing bands to his electric blues lineup, Fulson
“Drunk” and later, his now-classic blues song “I Ain’t Drunk.” created what is typically called the ‘uptown blues’ sound,
Bandleader, drummer and songwriter Roy Milton’s “jump which B.B. King made famous. Fulson’s huge 1950 R&B hit,
blues” served as a precursor to rock ‘n roll. ‘Everyday I Have the Blues,’ became King’s theme song” −
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Jimmy “Chank” Nolen was another of Oklahoma’s surfacing the Texas-Oklahoma “Hot Box” guitar sound once
important blues guitarists. Credited for inventing the “chicken again to evolve into what we know as the popular blues style!
scratch” guitar style, Nolen is considered the “father of funk Foley concludes, “Anglo-American blues men who emerged
guitar.” The chord on the guitar is played in such a way that primarily from the Tulsa scene in the 1960s include pianist
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is very percussive, like a drum beat. Since it makes guitar Leon Russell and guitarists J.J. Cale and Elvin Bishop.” 5
rhythms very danceable, James Brown picked Nolen up to I could keep going − multi-award-winning Watermelon
record as primary guitarist on several major hits. Slim, extraordinary blues belter Dorothy “Miss Blues”
Gospel and soul-blues singer Ted Taylor experienced Ellis, Jimmy Rushing of the Blue Devils and Count Basie’s
success with his falsetto-driven voice in the 1950s−‘70s. Orchestra, and so many more − but I’ll end my abridged
Guitarist Wayne Bennett worked with Elmore James, Jimmy round-up with my late husband, blues guitarist D.C. Minner.

Reed, Otis Spann, Otis Rush and Bobby “Blue” Bland.Verbie D.C. was raised in Rentiesville by his grandmother, who
Gene “Flash” Terry recorded the hit, “Her Name is Lou,” owned and operated a grocery store/juke joint called the
and later toured with T-Bone Walker, Bobby “Blue” Band, Cozy Corner in the 1940s−‘60s. Here, he was exposed to
Floyd Dixon and others. 5 all the music coming through. He toured, playing with Larry
Guitarist Jesse Ed Johnson and the New Breed, Lowell Fulson, Chuck Berry,
Davis, a Native American Freddie King, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed and Eddie Floyd before
with Comanche, Kiowa and starting our own band, Blues on the Move. In 1988, we got
Muscogee heritage, toured tired of the road and moved from the California Bay Area
with Conway Twitty in the back to Rentiesville, and reopened his grandmother’s old juke
early ‘60s before moving to joint as the Down Home Blues Club.
California and joining Taj In 1989, we established the Blues in the Schools program
Mahal. Davis’ “reputation through the Oklahoma State Arts Council. In 1991, we started
led to sessions for Leon the Rentiesville Dusk ‘Til Dawn Blues Festival to feature local and
Russell, Jackson Browne, Eric regional blues artists, and it has become the longest running
Clapton, John Lennon, Ringo blues festival in the state, and renowned nationwide. It’s here,
Lowell Fulson, perhaps Oklahoma’s where I also still run our other projects − the Oklahoma Blues
most widely recognized blues Hall of Fame and the D.C. Minner Rentiesville Museum.
musician. iv In 1999, we received the Keeping the Blues Alive Award from

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