Page 71 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2025 Digital Edition

Beginning in the 1940s, the aircraft plants in Wichita
needed workers. Many musicians came during this decade
and the one following it. The 1950s was the best time for
blues in Wichita, but it was built on the foundation set by
Walton Morgan and Gene Metcalf.

The Sound: 1930s-1940s

Walton Morgan, alto saxophone
Morgan formed the Syncopators in his teens. “This was in
‘34 or ‘35. We started playing for Black dances. We played at
the Masonic Hall on Main. On Friday nights, the Syncopators
had it. Ten-cent and 25-cent dances. That’s where we had the
blow out. We had a cleaners, Ed Sexton, who furnished us
uniforms. It was a community effort. There wasn’t much for us
to do. Look at what the kids are doing nowadays.”
“Charlie Parker lived with me for two weeks. Jay McShann
brought him down here. That didn’t last long. Jay McShann
had a bass, and Parker; just a trio. Charlie was good. He was
nice to live with. I couldn’t understand what he was doing. I
used to ask him how he got those notes. He said, ‘If you learn
a number, learn to play it backward and forward.’ I never
could do that.”

Gene Metcalf, drums and vocal
“Blues goes back, that I can remember, to 1939. We
had Lil Green, ‘Romance In The Dark.’ That’s the traditional
type of blues that we been playing ever since. Walter Brown,
‘Confessin the Blues.’ And ‘Black Gal.’ I can’t remember who
played it. We gave the public what they wanted to hear.
We’d play two or three songs till we hit the right thing, then
we’d go from there.”
“We had a style. It’s hard to explain what type it was.
You’d have to hear it [he hums a boogie beat]. From there,
then we’d go down to a natural blues, something like Roy
Brown, ‘Rocks is My Pillow.’ Fast and slow, back and forth.
They liked slow dance, then they liked jitterbug.” Remona Hicks. Photo by Arthur Kenyon, Courtesy of University Press of Mississippi

1950s winner of Britain’s Laurence Olivier Award], who played
During the 1950s, the Oklahomans came to town, piano, came to Oklahoma and got me and Sam Franklin
bringing a mix of rhythm & blues, urban blues and some and Floyd Grim, a drummer, and a saxophone player. ‘You
rural. Wichita was still full of employment opportunities in want to go to Wichita, play in a band?’”
the aircraft plants and supporting industries. This facilitated “I said yeah. I think it paid about $35 a night, room and
many venues for live music. Nine of the 19 African board. That was a lot of money to a 26-year-old man driving a
American musicians interviewed in Wichita Blues were from cab in Muskogee. The music I was playing back in Muskogee,
Oklahoma, six from Kansas and three from other states. in a 12-piece orchestra, was ‘Satin Doll,’ and the clubs I was
Most Oklahomans transplanted the Territory style – electric playing here wanted the [Hank Ballard and the] Midnighters
guitar as lead instrument, accompanied by saxophone and ‘Work With Me, Annie.’”
(which could also play lead), organ and sophisticated Berry hung out with Kid Thomas [Thomas is featured in
vocal stylings. #388 of Blues & Rhythm magazine] and Albert King when
they were living in Wichita.
Berry Harris, guitar and vocal
Berry Harris was of prime importance in the initial Remona Hicks
interviews (1996-97). He suggested performers and contacted One of the two women in the study, Remona was born
them first, giving the ‘okay’ for the project. on a farm in Oklahoma, later moving to Wichita. She was
“This friend of mine, Jerry Burns [uncle of Karla Burns, discovered this way:

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