Tulsa World Magazine Spring 2023: The Music Issue

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Spring 2023

LIVE MUSIC GUIDE

24

Meet the local musicians who are drawing the biggest crowds in Tulsa. Find your new favorite live music venue.

54 Oklahoma Made: Guitar maker Ben Liggett finds song in wood grain.

58 Quick Quiz: Epic moments in Tulsa music history.

60 Tulsa Trailblazers: Why Bob Wills was the Father of Western swing.

ALSO INSIDE

20 The Moment: Photographers tell the story behind a photo.

12 We talked with the Tulsa-raised actor about growing up here, his new novel and big projects on the horizon.

FLOWER FARMS

7 For the freshest and most unique flowers, buy locally grown blooms.

71 Best Bites: Where to find our favorite Easter treats.

75 Let’s Go: The biggest and best events of spring.

62 District: There’s always something new happening in Kendall Whittier.

67 At Home: Crafting studios make your creative dreams come true.

Magazine

Cover photo of Branjae Jackson by Ian Maule Cover design by Tim Chamberlin, Tulsa World

TIM BLAKE NELSON

A NATION OF CULTURE

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FROMTHE EDITOR.

Holding our own

Three years ago, the revered music magazine Rolling Stone featured an article, “Why Tulsa Might Be the Next Austin.”

In a series, Rolling Stone examined eight cities, including Tulsa, where live music exploded, from legendary hubs to rising hot spots. Writer Jonathan Bernstein called Tulsa a place “where history, social consciousness and barroom jamming make it one of the most fun places to visit right now.”

The story referenced a past Tulsa World interview with Jack White and music-related attractions like Cain’s Ballroom, the Woody Guthrie Center, the Bob Dylan Archive and the Church Studio.

It’s always nice to get a national shoutout.

So in these three years, has Tulsa become Austin? Or even more Austin-ish?

We certainly get and appreciate the reference, and we don’t dispute the comparison.

We still have jamming barrooms packed with top musicians and plenty of live music fans. Those barrooms tend to be spread out throughout the Tulsa area, not clustered on a strip like Austin’s Sixth Street. Even burbs like Jenks are rockin’ thanks to Maggie’s Music Box.

Our live music scene certainly continues to grow.

We have more venues and more musicians playing Tuesday through Sunday now than ever before. The talent and history here in Tulsa is weighty, hefty enough to make any music city in the country envious of us.

And we have just what you need in this spring edition to make the most of Tulsa’s musical treasure trove — a live music guide featuring local musicians and the best neighborhood live music venues.

There is also a story about an Owasso guitar maker who crafts instruments that are as beautiful to look at as listen to. And don’t forget to take our quiz about Tulsa’s biggest music moments.

This edition also features an interview with one of the best Tulsa-raised actors of our time — Tim Blake Nelson. Nelson has a new novel out and always has something in the works, including the blockbuster “Dune 2” coming out this fall.

For your spring season fix, we feature local flower farms, even one smack dab in the middle of midtown. How’s that for hyper-local? And this edition puts a spotlight on the Kendall Whittier District, easily one of the hardest working districts in the city.

We hope you enjoy the spring edition and have a chance to hear some local live music soon.

Tulsa World Magazine is a specialty publication of the Tulsa World, 315 S. Boulder Ave., Tulsa, OK 74103. This magazine is published with the March 26, 2023, edition of the World. All content copyright Tulsa World 2023. The contents may not be reproduced without permission.

NICOLE MARSHALL MIDDLETON Editor

nicole.marshall@tulsaworld.com

STACEY DICKENS Assistant Editor

stacey.dickens@tulsaworld.com

JOHN WALBLAY Page Editor

Additional copies of Tulsa World Magazine can be found at the Tulsa World or at local retailers. Annual magazine subscriptions are $19.80 for four issues. To subscribe or have single issues mailed for $4.95, go to tulsaworldmagazine.com or call 918-581-0921.

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POWER LOCAL FLOWER

Nicole Marshall

// Tulsa World Magazine

There’s a new trend blooming, literally, all around Tulsa. Local flower farms are the next wave in the buy local movement.

So from a field of dirt to your favorite vase, these beautiful blooms may have only traveled in a couple of miles. Many local florists are seeking flowers from these newly sprouted farms. And through subscriptions, there are ways you can have them delivered to your door direct.

Each farm has its own rules about deliveries or pickups, so be sure to read about them on their websites and social media.

Here are just a few farms that are making Tulsa a more beautiful place, one freshly harvested bouquet at a time.

Farm-to-vase flowers are a fast-growing trend

COURTESY MIDTOWN MICRO FLOWER FARM

Middleton

WILD LARK FARM

Claremore wildlarkfarm.com

Located in Claremore, Wild Lark Farm is a small-scale flower farm providing flowers to florists, designers and flower enthusiasts since 2017. Owner and grower Terri Barr produces flowers from March through June and September though mid-November.

While not open to the public, the farm o ers a flower subscription through its Friday Night Flowers, and in the spring, it o ers a tulip market. Spring and summer flower subscriptions sell in the winter, and fall subscriptions sell in the summer. Also, follow their social media to find out when they have an abundance of flowers to purchase for bouquets.

MIDTOWN MICRO FLOWER FARM

Midtown Tulsa midtownmicroflowerfarm.com

Starting a flower farm in the middle of midtown Tulsa might not seem likely, but when you have an abundance of flowers — on Mother’s Day, no less — it is a perfectly natural thing to do.

Genevieve Burk and her mother started flower gardening in 2019. By the time the pandemic quarantines started in full force, they had a yard full of flowers in the spring of 2020, and gardening was a great way to spend the extra time at home.

“On Mother’s Day in May, I thought it would be perfect to arrange them and sell them out near the street. I sat in the driveway and sold them. I think I sold six bouquets and felt very accomplished,” Genevieve, a sophomore at Booker T. Washington, said.

unique flower varieties and o er prepaid subscriptions as well as custom orders.

Each prepaid flower plan entitles you to a monthly arrangement of flowers during the growing season, May through November.

Locally sourced flowers are a growing trend, Barr said, benefiting local flower shops and flower lovers alike. If they are not locally grown, flowers purchased here are typically sourced from South America or California, she said.

“But there has been a trend, along with the local food movement, to grow local flowers,” Barr said. “Local flowers tend to last longer, and with local, you can actually experience the flowers in their natural state.”

Barr said she tries to keep up with the color schemes on demand, and she always has something unique growing at Wild Lark.

“We often do softer colors for events and weddings, but we are seeing a trend toward bolder, punchier colors, too” Barr said.

Farm

And the Midtown Micro Flower Farm was born.

From the front of their house in the Utica Square area of town, it just looks like another home with an attractive landscape.

just attractive

But the backyard is where the magic happens. It’s filled with rows of raised flower beds and straw bales. The Burks love growing rare and

You can choose from multiple price points, as the options come in three- or sevenmonth increments, and small, medium or large sizes. Bouquets include anunculus, anemones, tulips, peonies, poppies, alliums, hydrangeas, strawflowers, zinnias, roses, dahlias, heirloom mums and many others.

Subscribers pick up the arrangements from their farm on a Saturday morning.

COURTESY, MIDTOWN MICRO FLOWER FARM

Genevieve Burk sold bouquets from her driveway in May 2020, and the Midtown Micro Flower Farm was born.

PHOTOS COURTESY, MIDTOWN MICRO FLOWER FARM

There is always something to do at the flower farm, Barr said, despite what people might think of it being a fair-weather enterprise.

“People don’t realize, when you are farming flowers, you really do not stop,” Barr said. “A lot of plants are planted in the fall. In the winter you have to make sure they are not freezing to death, it is a continuous process.”

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PHOTOS COURTESY, WILD LARK FARM

Wild Lark Farm owner/farmer Terri Barr grew up on a farm in Kansas, where her parents grew and harvested corn, wheat, soybeans and milo. They also had a large garden, and that’s where her love for flowers formed. Barr loves to grow unique flower varieties and colors.

SLICK CHICK BLOOMS

Near Slick slickchickblooms.com

Flowers are a new addition to the historic Fisher family farm near Slick, where the Fisher family has been farming the land for over 100 years and is well-known for its eggs.

Allyson Lambert grew up on the Fisher farm. She spent many days driving tractors, grading eggs, riding horses, taking care of animals and working in the garden. In 2015, she graduated from Oklahoma State University with a doctorate in veterinary medicine and moved back to the farm to be a large-animal veterinarian.

In the summer of 2015, she got married, and, with the help of her cousins, grew all the flowers for the wedding. She soon realized how much she loved growing flowers.

Lambert planted a vegetable garden with a row of flowers and found that the row of zinnias and sunflowers was

her favorite part of the garden. So many people asked if they could pick the flowers she recognized the demand and she started Slick Chick Blooms in 2018.

“I have two little girls, and one reason I do this is to have something I can do with them,” Lambert said.

During the growing season, she sells to many local florists and o ers fresh flower subscriptions that are delivered weekly to the Bristow and south Tulsa areas.

Tulip subscription deliveries start the first week of April. That includes four weeks just of tulip bouquets. She also sells a twice-a-month or once-a-month subscriptions that include tulips, ranunculus, peonies, sunflowers, zinnias, lisianthus, dahlias and more that are delivered in the months of April-September.

“I try to grow really unique tulips, double and peony varieties... a lot of them I had never seen before I started growing them, even at florists,” Lambert said.

“I have also DIY buckets, where you can come out to the farm and pick them up.”

PHOTOS COURTESY, SLICK CHICK BLOOMS Allyson Lambert sells her flowers to some of Tulsa’s more popular local florists, and you can buy them through subscriptions.

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Novel

A consumer and creator of stories, Tulsa-raised actor Tim Blake Nelson adds novelist to resume

Jimmie Tramel Tulsa World Magazine

Let’s start with a mom story. Decades ago, Tim Blake Nelson was a student at Brown University. Mom — Ruth Kaiser Nelson — inquired about his summer plans.

“I said I was going to come home and stay in that house with her where I had grown up and get a job and be in Tulsa for the summer, which seemed pretty appealing to me,” Nelson said.

Mom was apparently thinking beyond that summer. She asked Tim what he wanted to do after college. He talked about becoming a Latin teacher or professor, or perhaps an underwater archeologist.

“What about acting?” she said. “You did that in high school.”

“That feels unlikely,” he replied.

Mom wisdom: “Now is the time when you have no family to whom you’re responsible,” she said. “You don’t even have a girlfriend. And you can go do anything and be anywhere and take a chance. Why don’t you try to get on at one of these summer theaters?”

That’s what he did.

“And then I returned to college that fall with a completely different mindset,” he said.

“I was going to pursue acting in college. By the time I was a senior, I was still majoring in classics, but I was intent on going to graduate school as an actor. I’m one of those rare people whose parent encouraged that he go into the arts.”

Tim Blake Nelson’s first novel is “City of Blows.”

COURTESY, HENRY NELSON

Also rare: entering the arts and achieving what Nelson has achieved. An actor, playwright and filmmaker with more than 100 screen credits, Nelson was asked what qualities he possesses that helped him “make it.”

“I think undeniably with people who succeed in the arts, there is a measure of talent, but that’s only part of it,” he said. “One also has to play well with others, particularly in the collaborative arts. One has to continue to challenge him or herself, and one has to be there fully when the opportunities present themselves.”

Nelson embraced a new challenge and became a novelist in 2023. His debut, “City of Blows,” is a group portrait of four men grappling for control of a script in a radically changing Hollywood, alias the City of Blows.

When writers give advice on their craft, they suggest writing what you know. Nelson knows Tinseltown, though he had to research other locales in the book.

“The industry stuff I know intimately, and I certainly leaned on my decades of experience,” he said.

Nelson returned to his hometown to attend a Feb. 8 book launch event, presented by Magic City Books,

at Congregation B’Nai Emunah. Organizers set 420 chairs in front of the stage, and there was a body in every chair. Quotes from Nelson in this story are from a book launch Q&A moderated by Jeff Martin and from an interview that took place the following day.

Near the end of the next-day interview, Nelson was asked if there was anything he wanted to say he hadn’t gotten an opportunity to say yet.

“I’ll be very open with you that it’s very difficult to get people to read a novel — even people who love to read, because we are more and more distracted by the immediate and the easily consumed with more and more screens in front of us,” he said.

“And so I just hope people will take the time to give this book a try because I think they’ll find it engaging. I think as gratified as I will be during this entire process was the turnout in Tulsa on a cold, rainy night to listen to two guys talk about a book. And that’s why I love Tulsa.”

AN ACTING CAREER: ‘MAYBE I COULD DO THIS’

The movies Nelson watched while growing up in Tulsa were mostly Westerns that aired Sunday afternoons on TV. He saw first-run movies in theaters, but not art films.

“My first encounter with art films was watching Sergio Leone Westerns, which I do consider art films because they are so subjectively made,” he said.

Nelson, asked if he saw any movies that made him say “I want to be on movie screens,” again referenced Leone’s Westerns.

“I really loved watching Lee van Cleef,” he said. “And I did envision that as one of the most rarefied lives imaginable, to be able to travel the world, such as going to Italy or Spain to shoot a Western set in the United States, as an ideal sort of life.”

At the book launch event, Martin asked Nelson if he was initially resistant to Western roles. Being from Oklahoma and all, a person wouldn’t want to get typecast.

IAN MAULE PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE Tim Blake Nelson answered questions from Jeff Martin of Magic City Books during a Feb. 8 book launch and signing for “City of Blows” at Congregation B’nai Emunah.

The question led to Nelson telling a story about feeling blessed to have any kind of career. He prefaced it by saying he did a lot of theater at Holland Hall and, when sharing the story, he namedropped two teachers, Karen Henry Clark and Ron Palma, who encouraged him in his endeavors.

“Every single person in this room can probably point back — I hope, anyway — to teachers who are incredibly

meaningful to them,” he said.

“Even with that support, I didn’t imagine having a career as an actor because I just thought, ‘well, I’m kind of sawed o at 5-foot-5 and a half.’ That half inch is very important to me,” he said.

“And I wasn’t going to win any beauty contests. I just thought (an acting career) just feels so remote and unlikely to me. So I thought I was

gonna be a Latin teacher or a Latin professor or maybe an English teacher, again going back to Karen Clark and Ron Palma because they meant so much to me and I thought ‘I want to do that for other kids.’”

When Nelson pursued acting in college, he met kids from New York and Los Angeles and Chicago who had been exposed to theater and film in ways he wasn’t “because back then,

IAN MAULE, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Tim Blake Nelson spoke to a crowd of more than 400 when he appeared at a book launch event in February.

COURTESY, HOLLAND HALL Ron Palma (left) is among former Holland Hall teachers who supported and inspired Tim Blake Nelson.

“City of Blows” is Tim Blake Nelson’s first foray into becoming a novelist.

we didn’t have an institution in this city like Circle Cinema, which is just an incredible place. It’s the Magic City Books of cinema in Tulsa. I met these kids, though, who had been exposed in that way, and I thought, ‘oh, maybe I could do this.’ And there are weird-looking people in movies. You need them to make the lead look more handsome and tall. It was only then that I realized maybe this is possible. So any career at all was appealing to me.”

Nelson pursued postgraduate studies at Juilliard. In a past Tulsa World interview, he said he and fellow Tulsan Jeanne Tripplehorn tried out the same day for Juilliard: “We had two of us from Tulsa (picked for) a class of 20, out of more than 1,000 auditioning for the slots.”

Nelson’s first listed credit on IMDb is for recurring characters on “The Unnaturals,” a sketch comedy show that aired around the dawn of the 1990s on Ha!, one of the first cable comedy channels in the U.S. Ha! merged with The Comedy Channel to form Comedy Central.

“I was on that with this wonderful comedic actress who ended up on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Siobhan Fallon, and also with Paul Feig, who has become one of our leading comic directors,” Nelson said of his “Unnaturals” experiences.

Though uncredited, Nelson made his first film appearance in a shot-in-Tulsa motion picture. He auditioned for a spot in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders” and became an extra in “Rumble Fish,” a Coppola film shot immediately after “The Outsiders” in 1982 (the same year Nelson picked up his high school diploma).

Nelson’s first speaking role in a film came in Nora Ephron’s directorial debut, 1992’s “This is My Life.” At the starting line of his career, he was in a cast with Dan Aykroyd and Carrie Fisher.

“What was most exciting for me was to be on set with Julie Kavner,” Nelson said of the film’s star, best known for playing the lead character’s sister in the TV series “Rhoda” and for voicing Marge Simpson in “The Simpsons.”

“I think she’s a beautifully natural actor. Smart. Kind. Funny. And just so gorgeously watch-able. And then Nora was going to put her at the center of

the movie. It was incredibly exciting. Even more exciting was to be on set with Nora Ephron.”

Even gifted actors need to catch a break along the way. For Nelson, that break is the obvious one — the 2000 Coen Brothers film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” It opened the floodgates for things to come his way.

“And it hasn’t stopped,” he said.

But something else did.

“I pretty much stopped having to audition after ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ came out,” he said,

acknowledging that he disliked auditioning.

“I know a few people who like to audition, but I’m glad I did it for 10 years, which I did do. Most of all, it taught me to appreciate getting work at all. If I had the success immediately coming out of drama school that ‘O Brother’ brought me, I don’t think I would be as appreciative of the career that I have.”

It’s called acting for a reason, but Nelson — Ivy League-educated, ultra-literate — seems nothing like his character in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Guess what? Delmar was no dummy.

“One of the most important lessons I learned at Juilliard was to advocate for the characters I play and always to look up to them and not down on them,” Nelson said.

“So I never considered Delmar to be stupid or dimwitted or dull, but rather to be innocent of knowledge. My wife and I had just had our first son, Henry, and I saw that in him. His fascination with the world was my guide with Delmar. And Joel and Ethan wrote the character that way because they also

COURTESY, TOUCHSTONE PICTURES/ UNIVERSAL PICTURES

John Turturro (left), Tim Blake Nelson and George Clooney are shown in a scene from “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” The film was a life-changer for Nelson.

PHOTOS COURTESY, HOLLAND HALL

Tim Blake Nelson, shown with classmates, attended Holland Hall before embarking on a career as an actor, playwright, filmmaker and novelist.

advocate for the characters they write. So all of that made it easy to close any distances between Delmar and me.”

Talking about the personal impact of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” Nelson said it was a life-changer — and, bonus — he learned a lot of life lessons.

“There was a period there when I feel that I became complacent,” he said. “I’ve now been doing this long enough to where I can see a kind of trough in my acting. Some jobs I had — mainly jobs with James Franco on his smaller indie films, and then working with

Daniel Day Lewis — brought me out of that trough, because I suddenly understood I had become complacent and I had taken a lot for granted, and I felt like I kind of had it figured out as an actor and that made my work less interesting. I’m now committing more to roles than I ever have, and that makes the work a lot more exciting.”

In the aftermath of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” Nelson appeared in 18 films released between 2002 and 2006, including “Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.” He did that one for Henry.

Said Nelson, “A movie I was going to direct fell through, and I called my agent and said, ‘Look, I now have this free summer. Is there anything you can find me?’ Two days later, my manager and agent called and they said, ‘Well, we have an offer for you to do ‘Scooby-Doo 2.’’ I was on the phone in my son’s room. ... And I said, somewhat derisively, ‘Scooby-Doo 2?’ And then Henry (then age 6) looked up at me, and he said ‘You can be in ‘Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?’ And I said ‘All right, I’m going to do this.’

COURTESY, NETFLIX

Tim Blake Nelson played the title role in “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” a film by Joel and Ethan Coen.

“But I also feel incredibly lucky to have been in what I consider one of the great young adult movies ever made, which was ‘Holes,’ and I wouldn’t trade that for anything because it was so well directed by Andy Davis, and I got to work with Jon Voight and Sigourney Weaver and it was a young Shia LeBeouf’s first movie, and that was a real high point.”

Nelson is, like Ryan Reynolds, among actors who have been in projects that sprang from both the Marvel and DC comic book universes. As a kid, Nelson was more into Archie and Doonesbury than superhero comics.

His DC-linked project was the 2019 HBO series “Watchmen,” a spin-off from Alan Moore’s acclaimed graphic novel of the same name. “Watchmen” was nominated for 26 Emmys and won 11.

“I’m just proud to have been a part of what is now considered to be a landmark TV series, and I give all credit to Damon Lindelof and Tom Spezialy and Nicole Kassell and, of course, Regina King, who were leading that show,” he said. “To be able to play a supporting role was an honor and also to represent the state of Oklahoma in a story about Tulsa that emanated

from the race massacre and had characters who were grappling with that in constructive ways.”

Nelson is a two-time Marvel character. He was Samuel Sterns in 2008’s “Incredible Hulk” starring Edward Norton, and he was the Mole Man, the Fantastic Four’s first villain, in 2015’s “Fantastic Four.” He’ll soon reprise one of the roles.

“At the end of Hulk, my character, Samuel Sterns, Mr. Blue, is irradiated and is set up to become the Leader,” Nelson said. “They didn’t make Hulk 2. And so I thought, ‘well, that’s that.’ And then I got a call about a year ago saying ‘Would you like to come back into the MCU?’ It was all very mysterious. And I said ‘Yes.’ And I didn’t know what it could possibly mean because I hadn’t heard they were going to do a Hulk standalone movie with Mark Ruffalo. And the producer called me and said, ‘Well, we want to bring back the Leader as the villain for Captain America.’”

So, Sterns will return in “Captain America: New World Order,” starring Anthony Mackie as the Sam Wilson version of Captain America in 2024. Look for Nelson also in “Dune 2” later this year.

“I actually wish that more people were going to movie theaters,” Nelson said during his book launch event. “I still go to the movies because I think there is no substitute for that sound and the big screen and being with strangers in the dark. I really do like going to movie theaters with people I don’t know. It’s a collective experience.”

Writing a novel? That’s a solo mission.

NOVICE NOVELIST

Nelson has written and published three plays produced off-Broadway in New York, and he has directed five films, including four that he wrote.

“When I started writing a novel, I didn’t put any pressure on myself that it be something anybody else would ever see, because I have never written a novel before,” he said at the book launch event.

“I also grew up in a household that venerated books. We had a substantial library in our house. We were always reading. We were always expected to talk about what we were reading. I certainly didn’t want to sully the form with an effort that wasn’t creditable.”

COURTESY, MARK HILL/HBO

Tim Blake Nelson starred in HBO’s “Watchmen,” which was inspired in part by the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

COURTESY, UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Tim Blake Nelson played scientist Samuel Sterns opposite Edward Norton in the 2008 Marvel film “The Incredible Hulk.” Nelson is returning to the role in an upcoming Captain America film.

Continuing, Nelson told a story about being in a play in which the playwright had included an “inadvisable” line. “Does the world really need another play?”

“Somebody in the audience where we were performing it shouted ‘no.’ So I always had this admonishing voice in my head: Does the world really need another novel?”

Nelson kept typing anyway and, again, if nobody ever lays eyes on this novel, that’s OK.

“Removing that pressure on me helped the process immensely,” he said.

About three-quarters of the way through the original draft, Nelson decided he might have something worth publishing.

“It was exciting to get the first hardback in the mail,” he said. “I was utterly floored by that. I have to give a lot of credit to my mother, who just passed away. She taught my siblings and I to appreciate what a book really means. And so to be able to hold one of my own is incredibly meaningful.”

About that library in Nelson’s childhood home: He said it was two full walls of books, and it was in a room that doubled as an office for his mother. All those books could be seen from the vantage point of the dinner table in the next room.

“It was both intimidating and enticing, and it instructed all of us to respect the power and importance of the written word,” Nelson said.

Young Tim scoured the library for something he might like and chose Peter Benchley’s “Jaws.” Just about everyone this side of Amity and back has seen “Jaws,” but the book is racier than Steven Spielberg’s film.

“I was just entering puberty at that point and, man, that was crazy,” Nelson said. “Hooper, the marine biologist, he is getting it on with the wife of Roy Scheider’s character in the book. ... And then I thought, ‘well, I like these books.’ So I started looking for books that looked like that. So I read (Peter Maas’) ‘Serpico.’”

Nelson suspects he has always wanted to try to write a novel. It just took — if you start the clock from the time he was 10 — 45 years and a lot of reading to get to this point. Factor in life experiences, too.

“I really believe that had I tried to do this in my 20s, 30s or 40s, it really wouldn’t have worked,” he said.

His book about the complications of

getting a film made owes its existence to the complications of getting a film made. When he started writing the novel, he had three screenplays he was trying to get made. If any of them had gotten a greenlight then, he probably wouldn’t have tackled the novel, which was three years in the making.

Martin asked interesting questions at the book launch event, including this one: Who did Nelson first ask to read the novel? The answer was a friend, “fantastically talented” actor and former Juilliard classmate David Aaron Baker.

In telling the book launch crowd about Baker, Nelson said Tulsa used to be a test market (and maybe that’s still the case) because of its middle-of-thecountry status.

“The people here are smart, cool, authentic,” he said. “That’s the way I like to think of us. I think of David that same way, and he’s from Normal, Illinois, which to me feels like an adjunct of Tulsa. He is always my first reader for everything — plays, screenplays. I said, ‘well, David, I’ve got a big one for you.’”

Nelson said Baker read it and said “This works. I was engaged. You’ve got to put this out.”

One of the reasons Nelson wrote the book is to capture Los Angeles from an insider’s point of view. Chronologically, the setting is what we all just endured. Nelson recalled being in Los Angeles as the COVID-19 pandemic was on its way. He was there for about two weeks

doing promotion for “Watchmen” and the film “Just Mercy.”

“I looked around at this place about which I was writing, hopefully in a deep way,” he said. “And there was the approach of COVID, there was the Me Too movement, and, even pre-George Floyd, BLM — Black Lives Matter — and also wildfires. I thought, ‘well, I have to specify when this takes place, and it’s right now.’ So I went back and revised the timeline of the book and then kept writing forward through that as COVID really became something.”

Nelson hopes that, 20 years from now, people will look at the novel as kind of an archive (even through there are satirical aspects) of that specific moment of time in Hollywood.

Nelson’s takeaway from writing the book?

“I want to write another one,” he said. “And I’m already doing that. I’m not sure when I’ll finish it because I’ve got a lot of other stuff going on, but I think I’ve written over half of it.”

Nelson said he feels more productive than ever, but what excites him most is his two oldest sons are beginning to create (youngest son is interested in international relations).

“And they are Vesuvian in their offerings in that the ideas keep coming and they’re explosive and hot and surprising and suffused with lava and fire,” he said. “If I don’t write another word, it really will be enough for me just to watch them do it.”

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

Actor and writer Tim Blake Nelson is pictured with actress Alfre Woodard, both former Tulsans, prior to him being presented the Greenwood Cultural Center’s Legacy Award in 2010.

Winning

MIKE SIMONS // Tulsa World Magazine

I spent years covering big-time sports, from Division I college teams to the National Football League and Major League Baseball. It was fun at first, but it got old pretty quickly. The athletes and coaches are kept so isolated from the media. For the past five or so years, I have grown to love photographing sports again, but not the big-timers. I love preps. You have access to the athletes, and coaches don’t seem to hate you yet. You can watch a team win the regional basketball championship and just ask the coach, as she walks o the floor, if it would be OK to step into the locker room with the players. That’s what happened when the Bixby girls basketball team defeated Owasso for the regional championship. The players erupted with happiness when coach Tina Thomas entered.

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Sound city

Meet the Tulsa musicians defining this era of live music.

In Tulsa World Magazine’s first issue dedicated to music, we wanted to go local. Not only is the local music scene alive today, but it also has deep roots. Some of the biggest names in rock, country and pop got their first shot on the stages of Tulsa. Tulsa’s own Paul Benjaman says it often: Music has always been Tulsa’s greatest natural resource. While you do hear a lot of cover songs as you scan the music scene, you can also hear Tulsa bands playing songs written by other Tulsans. By other Oklahomans. Many are hits. Others are tunes that keep giving Tulsa a place on the schedule at the South by Southwest festival in Austin and other national stages.

“The Tulsa music scene is second to none,” said Kevin Smith, co-owner of Maggie’s Music Box in Jenks with his wife, Amy, who has spent the past 12 years booking bands in Tulsa. “You can go to Nashville and see up-and-comers who our guys would blow away.”

So, in the home of legendary Cain’s Ballroom, perennial national arena of the year candidate BOK Center, century-old Tulsa Theater and state-of-the-art casino venues, we dispatched Scene Writer Grace Wood, Columnist Bill Haisten, Editor Jason Collington and Staff Photographers Ian Maule and Daniel Shular to find the smaller local stages, watch bands and talk to musicians who keep bringing the crowds. Here is your guide.

Wanda Watson, shown performing at Maggie’s Music Box in Jenks on Feb. 1, has drawn comparisons to Janis Joplin.

Jason Collington, Bill Haisten and Grace Wood Tulsa World Magazine

Wanda Watson Band

Anative Tulsan and 1978 graduate of Will Rogers High School, Wanda Watson one day was singing in her car.

“You’re pretty good,” a friend said. “You should sing for an audience.”

At 23, Watson discovered she has a special voice. Within two years, she was providing vocals for a local rock band. As she became “more seasoned,” as she puts it, Watson developed an identity as a powerful blues vocalist.

The definition of a “loyal following:” when many of the same people who attended Watson gigs in 1987 are still there for Watson gigs in 2023. She has recorded her own music, worked as a background singer on the recordings of others, covered the classics of other artists, opened for big-name headliners at the BOK Center and dazzled fans at hole-in-the-wall Tulsa taverns.

It makes perfect sense that uniquely talented singers such as Aretha Franklin, Kim Carnes, Etta James and Bonnie Raitt are among Watson’s primary influencers.

And, Watson adds, “Janis Joplin always got tagged on me — whether I liked it or not. I was pretty wild in my younger days and, by pure coincidence, our mannerisms were quite the same.”

A typical Watson setlist would include covers of Humble Pie’s “Fool For a Pretty Face,” Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around and Fell In Love” and Raitt’s “You’re Gonna Get What’s Coming.”

“I still get butterflies before every gig,” Watson admits. “The anticipation gives me a bit of anxiety until I hit that first note, and then I relax into it. I get nervous before festivals because there’s not much room to screw up. You’ve got to be on.”

Watson is open about her mid-’90s recovery from drug dependency and the personal devastation of March 29, 2020, when her husband and drummer Virgil Broyles died only 39 days after having gotten a cancer diagnosis. Before Broyles passed away, he and Watson had been a couple for nine years and married for nine more.

After deciding to retire from the music business, Watson was

encouraged by local artists Rick Huskey and Barrett Lewis to get back onstage.

“I was pretty sad and lost,” Watson said. “Barrett shared his gig with me. It spun off into me pulling myself together with this newest (Wanda Watson Band).

“I’m so grateful for those guys and

for all the people that have lifted me up in my grief. It’s been quite a blessing, and I never dreamed that I would be surrounded by so many angels now.”

Follow Watson on Facebook at facebook.com/wanda.w.band and find more information at wandawatsonband.com.

Wanda Watson, shown performing at Maggie’s Music Box in Jenks, is a powerful blues vocalist.

IAN MAULE PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD “I still get butterflies before every gig,” Wanda Watson said.

Brent Giddens Band

As a 6-foot-1 Tiger athlete at Cleveland (Oklahoma) High School, Brent Giddens played four seasons of varsity baseball. As a senior basketball player, he averaged 26 points.

Giddens became a basketball coach and in 21 seasons, in communities like Morris, Beggs and Webbers Falls, racked up a career total of 345 victories. He twice drove the Morris Eagles to the state tournament and coached an All-State team.

While defined as a sports figure, Giddens always tinkered with music as a hobby. For fun, he impersonated Elvis Presley at a coaches’ clinic. The feedback was so positive that it developed into a side gig, and he enjoyed the music so much, it wound up becoming a second career.

Giddens remains an educator as a middle-school teacher in Glenpool, but he no longer coaches. For one of the busier music figures in the Tulsa area, coaching would clash with weekend gigs.

“I didn’t get into the music scene until my late 30s,” Giddens explained. “We were doing country covers when we didn’t have Elvis shows, and then I started to write my own music. Writing songs kind of became an obsession.”

Today, the Brent Giddens Band has a Red Dirt identity while having mastered the art of danceable, classic country music.

A recent Giddens gig at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino’s Track 5 venue is believed to have attracted the largest crowd in the four-year history of what the Hard Rock markets as its “honky tonk saloon.”

Also, Giddens emphasizes, “the Drunken Rooster on Grand Lake is also one of my favorite places to play.”

The 49-year-old Giddens’ fourth studio album — titled “IV” — was released in 2022 and features classic lyrics and arrangements. The beautiful “Welcome Home” is as much a Baptist hymn as it is a country tune, while the guitar break on “Shades of Texas” sounds like something you’d hear in a Mavericks or Dwight Yoakam song.

During a Giddens Band performance, the listener pretty immediately detects George StraitDon Williams influences on Giddens’

vocals, the support of an extremely polished band and their harmonies and the perfect-touch involvement of steel-guitar player Terry Day. Michael Thompson (fiddle), Jared Salsman (drums) and Jeff Howell (bass) also are at high levels of proficiency.

Giddens himself has played the same Martin acoustic guitar for 10 years. “It’s starting to look like Trigger,” he said, referring to Willie Nelson’s famously scarred guitar.

A Giddens audience embraces not only his covers of country standards but also his originals like “Why I’m Single,” “Cleveland Home” and “A Lot of Things To Drink About.”

Another Giddens original is “Coach,” a tribute to Cleveland and Jenks football legend Allan Trimble. When Giddens’ father was a teacher in Cleveland, Trimble was among his students.

Giddens and his crew are regulars at the Hard Rock’s Track 5 venue and the River Spirit Casino, and at Maggie’s Music Box in Jenks and The Stumbling Monkey in south Tulsa. Go to brentgiddens.com for information on upcoming shows.

DANIEL SHULAR PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

The Brent Giddens Band performs as members of the audience dance at the Track 5 concert venue inside the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Giddens was in his 30s when he broke into the music scene.

Brent Giddens might be known for his sports background, but he has made a name for himself as a musician, too.

Cassie Latshaw

In her latest music video, Cassie Latshaw sings while walking to the Mercury Lounge stage that “Everyone’s a big deal in Nashville. That’s why I prefer living on Tulsa time.”

The folk siren with big hair from Bristow is a singer-songwriter who you can find many Friday nights at Mercury Lounge. She and her band are heading on tour this spring but will always find a way to play in Tulsa at the same time.

“You get some street cred when you say you play in Tulsa when you are out and about,” she said. “My heart is in Tulsa. It lives and breathes music and is getting bigger and bolder by the day.”

She said her shows are mostly originals with some covers performed

in their own way.

“You should expect to have a good time and listen to some vulgarity,” she said. “I try to bring as much honesty and my life to the stage. If you come to one of our shows, don’t be surprised when we pull others on stage. We all want each other to make it.”

Latshaw added that one of the great things Tulsa has going for it isn’t just the local music talent.

“We have great producers and engineers here,” she said. “We have all been fed this dream that if you want to be big, you have to make it in Nashville. We have a ton of talent here to make great records.”

Check her out on Apple Music and at youtube.com/@OkieCassie and facebook.com/okiecassie.

Steely Dan is so interesting because of the combination of great songs, highestlevel musicianship and a complete disregard for rock-star pretense and nonsense.

If Tulsa has a Steely Dan equivalent, it would be Pilgrim — a Beau Roberson-driven group armed with elite players clad in beanies, hoodies and faded jeans.

From Pilgrim patrons, there aren’t “Free Bird!!!” requests. At the band’s shows, there’s an understanding that it’s a performance of mostly original songs — so many of which are immediately likable or even lovable. “Hallelujah Moment” is a Roberson masterpiece. So is “Darkness of the Bar.”

Some bar bands simply provide background noise as customers enjoy a night out. During your first Pilgrim experience, you’ll marvel at Roberson’s brilliant lyrics and vocals, Jesse

Aycock’s beautiful steel-guitar fills and John Fullbright’s occasional presence on the piano.

If you value style over substance, there are flashy bands all over town. If

you want substance, find Pilgrim.

Pilgrim’s usual spots include The Colony, Vanguard and the Mercury Lounge. Visit facebook.com/ pilgrimband for more information.

Cassie Latshaw is a singer-songwriter who you can find many Friday nights at Mercury Lounge. She and her band are heading on tour this spring. COURTESY, MOLLY MCELWAIN

COURTESY, PHIL CLARKIN

A perfect example of a local band that strives for substance: Beau Roberson and Pilgrim.

John Fullbright

There was a live debut album in 2009. In 2012, there was a studio debut release — “From the Ground Up” — that became a Grammy nominee in the Best Americana Album category.

In 2014, there was a third album and a “Late Night with David Letterman” appearance. Subsequent to that, there were countless gigs but not another album until 2022, when John Fullbright’s fans were thrilled with “The Liar” — a masterpiece collection of fresh recordings.

If you’re determined to wedge Fullbright’s music into a specific genre, it’s impossible. A pianist, guitarist and songwriter, he’s been described as a folk artist. There are tinges of country in his music and voice.

The 34-year-old Okemah native does shows all over the country and recently headlined a two-night event in Perkins. When he is scheduled to play a Tulsa venue, you should capitalize by being there. You should hope for several cuts from “The Liar,” the recording of which spanned only four days.

The album’s opening track is “Bearden 1645,” a breathtaking bundling of Fullbright’s piano and voice with steel guitar, slide guitar and harmonica. If the great George Harrison had been challenged with writing a perfect American song, he might have responded with something that sounds like “Bearden 1645.”

Find more information and tour dates at johnfullbrightmusic.com.

COURTESY, PHIL CLARKIN

John Fullbright is a pianist, guitarist and songwriter with a style that blends folk and country sounds.

“The Liar” is John Fullbright’s third studio album and first since 2014.

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

John Fullbright is an Okemah native who has played shows around the country.

King Cabbage Brass Band

King Cabbage Brass Band certainly knows how to make an entrance.

The ensemble draws its inspiration from the New Orleans brass band tradition, a fact that becomes obvious as soon as the band enters the room, marching in tandem while playing “When The Saints Go Marching In,” setting the tone for the lively performance to follow.

“The spirit of the music is all about spreading joy,” band leader Greg Fallis said. “It’s what people need right now.”

King Cabbage is the creation of Fallis, a native Tulsan who pursued music in New Orleans for several years before returning home during the

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

King Cabbage Brass Band, shown performing at Cain’s Ballroom on July 23, is inspired by the New Orleans brass band tradition.

King Cabbage is led by front man Greg Fallis, who started the group in 2021 after living and performing in New Orleans for years.

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

COVID-19 pandemic to be closer to family and friends. With his musical aspirations still top of mind, Fallis sought out — and found — a diverse community of Tulsa musicians who also wanted to bring the New Orleans sound to Oklahoma.

In June 2021, King Cabbage was born, and the group played a show just two weeks after its first rehearsal. The band is made up of Fallis, Nicholas Foster, Dave Johnson, Jordan Hehl, Bishop Marsh, Andy McCormick, Kristin Ruyle, Ryan Hatcher, Isaac Washam and Dylan Ward, all talented professional musicians in their own right who play a mix of bass, drums, percussion and five different horns.

“I think a lot of bands have a ‘look,’ but I like that we’re all different — I take pride in the fact that we’re sort of a band of misfits,” Fallis said. “And our music is the same way. It reaches all demographics of people.”

At a typical King Cabbage show, you can expect to hear covers of iconic New Orleans music by Rebirth Brass Band and Paul Barbarin, as well as some of Fallis and the band’s own original compositions. The ensemble also employs a number of pop, R&B and rock covers ranging from “Hey Ya!” by OutKast to “Bulls on Parade” by Rage Against the Machine.

“We’re always changing up our setlists, so you’re never going to see the same King Cabbage show twice,” Fallis said.

Giving back to the Tulsa and New Orleans communities is an important part of the band’s ethos, Fallis said. King Cabbage has held several fundraisers for organizations such as Imagine Water Works in New Orleans, as well as Reading Partners Tulsa and The HEARD Alliance.

“I think something that makes us a little different is that this band really believes in supporting the community,” Fallis said. “It’s important to us.”

For more information about King Cabbage and for upcoming show dates, visit kingcabbagebrass. com or follow them on Instagram @kingcabbagebrass. Check out their album, “Live at Cain’s Ballroom” on Spotify.

LEX

Although she’s only 21 years old, Lexi Onyango, known as “Lex,” has been carving out a name for herself in the Tulsa music scene for years now.

The gifted singer-songwriter hails from Owasso and has steadily made waves with her unique pop sound since she picked up a guitar at age 15. Quickly recognized as a massive talent, Onyango played her first show opening for a pop-punk band at The Vanguard just a year later.

Citing music as her true passion, Onyango made the choice to abandon a traditional career path and pursue her artistry full-time. Though she was in college on a premedicine track, Onyango took a bet on herself and walked away — and hasn’t looked back.

“My parents always said that I needed to find a plan B, but make it my plan A, because music doesn’t usually work out,” Onyango said. “But I realized I can do anything that I want to do, as long as I work hard. So, I decided to go all in and invest in myself and see what happens.”

Onyango describes her sound as indie, experimental pop, and

her songs feel much deeper than what you might hear on the radio. Songwriting for Onyango is “like writing in a diary,” and her tracks like “manifesto,” “Skin Off My Back” and “FOMO” take on deep subject matter such as heartbreak, anxiety, the difficulties of childhood and growing older. Onyango names Phoebe Bridgers as one of her biggest influences, especially her ability to write poignant, emotional lyrics set against upbeat, poppy melodies.

“I use music as therapy,” Onyango said. “I write about everything, and I always try to take things to the next level, like ‘How can this all fall apart?’ I’ll write about the scenario falling apart, but it’s totally a release for me.”

After a packed year of shows at places like Mercury Lounge, The Colony and Guthrie Green, Onyango is taking 2023 to focus on writing more music (she plans on releasing another EP this year) and working on building up more confidence on stage.

“I really want to feel comfortable with who I am as an artist,” Onyango said. “I want to work up to playing shows in different states and feeling confident performing … just not giving a s—- and being who I am, no matter what’s going on.”

Lex’s latest EP “NOW” is available on Spotify and Apple Music. Follow her on Instagram @itslexintheflesh.

COURTESY, MADI RAE PHOTOS

Jake & The Idols

During the late summer and fall of 2020, as live-music bars resumed outdoor entertainment in responsibly safe ways, one particular band benefited from wordof-mouth recognition: “You’ve got to hear these guys. The front man is really young. The other band members are older guys. They cook.”

It didn’t take long for Jake & The Idols to develop a loyal fan base and become one of the more in-demand bands in the Tulsa area.

A guitarist and lead vocalist, Jake Karlik is the 23-year-old founder

of the group. The Idols are Barry Seal (guitars, lap steel, vocals), drummer and vocalist Jeff Smith, bassist Sky Slater and recent addition Michael Baxter. “Papa Bax,” as he is nicknamed, completes the band’s sound with piano and soulfully old-school organ fills and solos.

Seal graduated from high school 28 years before Jake was born, and yet they are soulmates musically.

Jake’s father also is a guitarist and a huge influence on his son’s musical preferences. With Jake Karlik on lead guitar and vocals, the Idols play at the casinos and draw big crowds to

south Tulsa venues like the 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar, PJ’s, The Stumbling Monkey and Encore. A few months ago, Jake & The Idols had a recording session in Tulsa’s legendary Church Studio.

During a gig at Maggie’s Music Box in Jenks, the Idols’ opening set included songs by the Allman Brothers, Joe Walsh, Grand Funk, Jimi Hendrix and Bill Withers. Also, there was a Jake & The Idols original: “Sweet Thing,” a tune that helped the band prevail in a Blues Challenge competition at Cain’s Ballroom. Follow the band at facebook.com/ JakeandtheIdols.

Jake & The Idols, shown performing at the 5 O’Clock Somewhere Bar inside River Spirit Casino, perform covers and original songs.

DANIEL SHULAR PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Charlie Redd and the Full Flava Kings

Astaple of any musician interview is a question about influences and whether one particular artist might have been particularly significant.

Charlie Redd responded to that question with a reference to his birth month: January 1966.

“When I was growing up,” he said, “the radio played everything.”

When you experience a Full Flava Kings performance, that’s pretty much what you might hear from Tulsa’s best variety group: a little bit of everything.

Redd fronts the Full Flava Kings and is the only original member of a band that was established in 2000. From the Kings, there really is no such thing as a “typical” setlist. If you’re there to dance, this band covers pop-funk classics from artists like Michael Jackson, Prince, Pharrell, the Ohio Players and Earth, Wind & Fire.

If you’re in the mood for something bluesy, you might hear something from Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Rap? There could be Snoop Dogg and Drake classics.

Classic rock? The Full Flava Kings can deliver hits by the Eagles, the Rolling Stones and Tom Petty.

When Redd was a kid in San Antonio, his vocal chops were developed in church choirs. His guitar-bass-keyboard talents were sharpened in gospel ensembles and his school’s jazz band.

Apparently, when his favorite radio stations were playing “everything,” Redd paid attention. Since moving to Oklahoma in 1998 and joining the Kings two years later, he has played everything in every imaginable venue and setting.

“It was a goal to create a group that could entertain everyone,” Redd says. “I’m still learning and loving new experiences.” Check out the band at reverbnation.com/charlieredd.

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

Charlie Redd and his Full Flava Kings play a “little bit of everything.”

Count Tutu is led by Branjae Jackson (right) and Nathan Wright (left). The band formed in 2015.

IAN MAULE PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Count Tutu

Count Tutu has been a quintessential part of the Tulsa music scene since forming in 2015.

Led by Nathan Wright and Branjae Jackson, the nine-piece band brings together bass, drums, guitar, horns and striking vocals to form a sound that transcends any one genre. While the band cites Nigerian Afrobeat icon Fela Kuti as its biggest influence, its music is also rooted in R&B, funk and Latin music.

Count Tutu effortlessly juxtaposes lively, dance-friendly music with lyrics rooted in community and social issues — a standout track, “Slammer Song,” takes a poignant, yet sarcastic look at the American criminal justice system — with the goal of raising awareness and bringing people together.

“We’ve written about

pharmaceutical companies, we’ve written about guns, but the topic has shifted toward unity, recently, because there seems to be a really disenfranchising division between people,” Wright said. “I think that probably our biggest political issue right now is a lack of coordination.”

If you have a chance to see Count Tutu perform live, take it. The group has an incredible stage presence, a testament to the talent and passion of each member on stage. In addition to phenomenal vocals, Jackson’s choreography — often employing colorful scarfs and ribbons as accoutrements — never fails to excite.

The band’s self-titled debut album was released in September and is available on all platforms. Follow Count Tutu on Instagram at @counttutu or on facebook.com/CountTutu.

Count Tutu is known for its unique sound, which is inspired by Afrobeat, R&B, funk and Latin music.

We’ve written about pharmaceutical companies, we’ve written about guns, but the topic has shifted toward unity, recently, because there seems to be a really disenfranchising division between people.”

- NATHAN WRIGHT

Jacob Tovar

With all the acts in town, hardly any are known to put on an old, classic country show. Jacob Tovar doesn’t get it.

“I mean, this is the home of Bob Wills,” said Tovar, who’s opened for Chris Stapleton. “We got Billy Parker. Roy Clark. Hank Thompson. Everyone was from around here. I don’t know why there aren’t others like me. Everyone is more pop-sounding. That’s not who I am.”

Tovar has played gigs since 2011, but one of his fans gave him a stage unlike any other: in an episode of the first season of “Reservation Dogs,” the shot-in-Oklahoma series on Hulu that follows the adventures of four youths.

“(Show co-creator) Sterlin Harjo was coming to my shows, and he was a big fan and asked if I wanted to be part of the show,” he said. “That’s how the band was able to perform on the show. He directed my music video for my single ‘I Felt Love.’ He’s a big supporter of local music. He believes in it.”

One of the songs Tovar played on the show, “Cleveland Summer Nights,” was written by another Tulsa artist, Wink Burcham, and recorded by another Tulsa artist, Isaac Hanson, one-third of the pop-rock trio Hanson.

“That helped Wink make some money, too,” Tovar said. “That’s what I am talking about. People are always blown away by how inviting we are around here.”

And it goes to the talent level that is around town. “We got great songwriters in this town along with performers. I mean, it wasn’t too long ago that Turnpike Troubadours and Zach Bryan were playing at Mercury Lounge. I could name several in town who will be stars.”

Listen to Tovar’s album “Another Time, Another Place” on Apple Music and watch him perform on Sundays at Maggie’s Music Box.

Barrett Lewis Band

When Barrett Lewis was a child, his mother took him to see Garth Brooks play at Drillers Stadium.

“There was a point where the crowd was doing the ‘Wayne’s World’ ‘we’re not worthy’ and bowing,” Lewis said. “After that show, I said ‘Hey, Mom. That’s what I want to do. Play guitar and sing songs.”

After years of taking guitar lessons and then teaching them himself, Lewis started performing at the old Bourbon Street Cafe on Cherry Street and Lanna Thai. He was doing acoustic shows and remembers how close he felt to the audiences sitting on the couches

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

At a Jacob Tovar performance, you’ll hear a classic country sound.

We got great songwriters in this town along with performers.”

- JACOB TOVAR

there at Lanna Thai.

Those shows helped him find his way to bigger stages and a living. He has been a full-time musician since 18, and the 35-year-old is considered one of the most talented playing in Tulsa. The Barrett Lewis Band is made up of Lewis and some of the most wellconnected and veteran musicians in town: Beau Charron, Rick Huskey and Alan Ransom.

Charron played arenas with Leon Russell and Elton John when they toured for the 2010 album “The Union.” Huskey owns the building that houses Maggie’s Music Box, Leon Russell’s Paradise Studio at Grand Lake and is a Tulsa Sound devotee and historian. Brandon Holder, who also worked with Russell, and EZ Mireles play in the band at certain shows.

“When I do my acoustic shows, most of it is cover music and geared more toward classic rock, country, blues and folk,” Lewis said. “When we get the band together, it’s blues rock.”

The band is known to take just about any requests from the crowd, but

“Freebird” is really going to cost you.

“Everyone has their wheelhouse, and there really is a community of music,” said Lewis, who also plays with Weston Horn & The Hush, an eight-piece rock band with a four-

piece horn section. “That is what I love about Tulsa. it is a very small, badass music town. There is always someone to go see.”

Follow the band at facebook.com/ barrettlewisband.

The Barrett Lewis Band, shown performing at Maggie’s Music Box, includes musicians Beau Charron (left), Alan Ransom, Lewis and EZ Mireles. Rick Huskey plays drums.

Barrett Lewis has been a full-time musician since age 18.

DANIEL SHULAR PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD

Paul Benjaman Band

Since getting his start in the late 2000s, Paul Benjaman and his ever-evolving band of local musicians continue to bring their unique blend of blues, rock and Americana — what Benjaman calls “boundary-free 1970s rock” — to the Tulsa music scene.

Armed with his 1959 Fender Stratocaster, Benjaman combines skilled guitar-playing with lyrics addressing topics such as family and heartbreak. “When I was a little kid, I went to see ‘Star Wars,’ and I wanted to be a Jedi,” Benjaman said. “Being a guitar player seemed to be the logical next step — I wanted the same power as the Force.”

Benjaman said he draws on the influences of pioneers of the Tulsa Sound like Leon Russell, J.J. Cale and Steve Pryor and constantly enhances his music by performing with a wide array of talent from Tulsa and beyond.

“That’s what keeps people coming back to the show — it’s a different experience every time,” Benjaman said.

To catch Paul Benjaman Band in

action, head to The Colony for his Sunday night shows or Mercury Lounge for his Thursday night gigs.

Paul Benjaman Band has two albums on Spotify and Apple Music, with a

third — recorded at The Church Studio — expected later this year.

For more information about the band, visit paulbenjamanband.com or follow them on Instagram @paulbenjaman.

The Paul Benjaman Band is inspired by pioneers of the Tulsa Sound like J.J. Cale and Leon Russell.

IAN MAULE, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

The Paul Benjaman Band has a varying lineup of musicians, so each show is a different experience, the frontman says.

R

After the death of his mother, the then-20-yearold Tulsa native turned his focus toward hip-hop music and exploring the history of Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Race Massacre. From there, Simon discovered his purpose: creating music with meaning that highlights Tulsa’s past while working to create a brighter future.

Through his personal music and collaborations like Fire in Little Africa — an award-winning collective of musicians and artists gathered to commemorate the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre — Simon sheds light on important topics and gives a platform to up-and-coming artists in the community.

“Hip-hop is community, hip-hop is social justice, hip-hop is outreach,” Simon said. “I’m trying to leave Tulsa

apper, producer and activist Steph Simon creates music with a mission.

better than I found it and give others a platform to make it better, too.”

Simon is also using his musical talents to inspire younger generations, teaching students at McLain High School of Science and Technology all about creative writing and recording.

“I love coming up with ideas that can help someone have a better situation than what I had,” Simon said. “I want

to help people create things that can change their lives for the better.”

Simon’s latest album, created with his collective World Culture Music, is called “What Would Jim Do” and is available on Spotify and Apple Music.

For more information about Steph Simon, visit fireinlittleafrica. com or follow him on Instagram at @stephxsimon.

Steph Simon Booker Gillespie Trio

When the University of Tulsa hosted a Blue & Gold fundraising gala at the Reynolds Center, classy entertainment was required. TU made the perfect choice: the versatile, talented Booker Gillespie Trio, generally known for being a jazz outfit but with the ability to add velvety touches to virtually any piece of music.

During the ’80s, Gillespie was a locally renowned vocalist even before his graduation from Cascia Hall. He sang with the Oklahoma State University Concert Chorale and the OSU Jazz Ensemble, and his talent has taken him all over the U.S. and to Europe.

This year, Gillespie commemorates 36 years as a singer and actor. He has

been featured in several high-profile musicals at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, and on many occasions he was a headliner on the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame stage.

Find Gillespie and bandmates Frank Brown (guitar) and Jim Bates (bass) at downtown Tulsa venues like the LowDown nightclub and the Sisserou’s restaurant.

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

Tulsa rapper Steph Simon creates music that sheds light on important topics, like the Tulsa Race Massacre.

A Cascia Hall graduate, Booker Gillespie has been a Tulsa music fixture for 36 years. COURTESY, UNIVERSITY OF TULSA

Seth Lee Jones

Bundling his prowess on the instrument, his ability to repair the instrument and his skill in building the instrument from scratch, Seth Lee Jones qualifies as Tulsa’s true Guitar Man.

Within the Tulsa music industry, there is no more respected figure than the 38-year-old Jones — a genius guitarist with a powerful voice that perfectly complements his playing.

At the age of 12, Jones was learning the piano. While in a music store, he watched a guy play the opening lick on the Yes hit “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” Jones picked up a guitar and perfectly replicated what he’d heard. In that moment, he became a Guitar Man.

Jones took lessons at a Firey Brothers store. At his family’s church, he played music with his parents, grandfather and uncle. At 16, Jones secured a student loan so he could

study at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, where he became a certified guitar expert and learned more about various tunings.

For the great majority of his playing today, his guitars are tuned to an open D major. He pulls a fascinating array of sounds from his favorite guitar — a tricked-up, beat-up and yet beautiful Telecaster. Jones is a brilliant player but still learns from other brilliant players. He has taken lessons from

Tulsa guitar wizard Paul Benjaman. There was the hope of a music career in California, but Jones ultimately realized that “there are a zillion guitar players out there. You’ve got to be connected to really make it (in a band) or as a session player.”

He returned to Tulsa, establishing SLJ Guitars — his guitar-repair/guitarbuilding workshop — while performing as a fantastic slide player and soulful vocalist. To sample the essence of Jones as a modest dynamo in a T-shirt and jeans, check out his “Tulsa Time” and “Long Distance Call” videos on YouTube. Jones builds 25-30 guitars a year. When he performs, he’s aware that

other guitar people are in the audience.

“If I’m playing a guitar that I made, and I’m playing the (expletive) out of it, then someone might say, ‘That

sounds pretty good. I want that guitar,’” Jones said. “Basically, being onstage is marketing what I can do with building or fixing guitars.”

During a standard Jones show, 30% of the setlist would be original tunes. He covers classics and hidden gems from all genres. He covers Jimi Hendrix and Dire Straits, but never “Mustang Sally.”

“I wouldn’t be caught dead covering a song like ‘Mustang Sally’ — a song that has been beaten to death by so many other bands in town,” Jones explained.

Find Jones every Thursday at The Colony bar at 2809 S. Harvard Ave.

Seth Lee Jones, who performs at The Colony each Thursday, can be considered Tulsa’s Guitar Man.

IAN MAULE PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Basically, being onstage is marketing what I can do with building or fixing guitars.”

- SETH LEE JONES

Rocket Science

During a standing-room-only gig at Lennie’s Club & Grill, Tulsa ’80s band Rocket Science opened with Whitesnake’s “Still of the Night,” a six-minute and more-complexthan-most metal hit from 1987.

It was a message to the audience: We’re not messing around up here.

“That’s kind of a scary song to open with because your fingers and voices aren’t warmed up,” Janna Squires said. “It was (Scott Squires’) birthday, so I said, ‘You make the setlist any way you want it.’ He gave us a good one.”

Janna Squires is the Rocket Science guitarist, and Scott Squires is the lead vocalist. They have been married since 2012. Rocket Science has been rocking

local venues since 2014.

After opening at Lennie’s with a Whitesnake classic, the band followed with a flurry of songs by Rush, Poison, Ratt and Bon Jovi. Most of the Lennie’s patrons seemed to be in their 40s and 50s, and Rocket Science delivered with

three hours of their collection of the heaviest rock hits of the ’80s.

Original drummer Je Williams designed an extensive video backdrop used by the band during some gigs. The entire backdrop would be an every-gig element if not for the size limitations of some stages. When it’s a smaller stage, there’s a smaller backdrop.

During the Lennie’s show, the full backdrop was used. Not many bar bands put this much e ort into the visual aspect of their performance.

When Williams retired from performing a couple of years ago, he allowed the band to keep the stage eye candy.

day, but it’s worth it.”

Janna as a 12-year-old had an older brother who showed her how to execute a few chords on the guitar. For several years after she was bitten by the guitar bug, she says, “I would play four or five hours each day.”

Each of the Rocket Science members has a day job. Janna is a buyer for the RL Hudson company in Broken Arrow. Scott Squires is a machine operator. Bass player Doug Weber works at a Kelly-Moore paint store. Drummer Justin Barber works in the shipping department of a Tulsa company.

Janna Squires graduated from a Tulsa private high school in 1992. Scott is a few years older. When they were kids, their radios were locked onto the music they play today.

“We’re all just trying to supplement our income a little,” Janna explained, “and have fun while we’re doing it.”

another a

“It was so generous,” Janna Squires said. “What we attempt to do is bring the big-concert feel to a small club. It’s a lot of work. It takes two hours to get it all set up and then another hour-and-ahalf to tear it down. It makes for a long

For more information about the band, visit rocketsciencetulsa.com and facebook.com/rocketsciencetulsa.

Rocket Science band members are (from left) bassist Doug Weber, guitarist Janna Squires, vocalist Scott Squires and drummer Justin Barber.

COURTESY, JENNIFER BIDDLE

Mark Gibson

Some of Mark Gibson’s albums have that singersongwriter feel. Others show off his bluesy roots. He recorded a full-length live album, “Live From Soul City,” in 2018, showcasing a seven-piece band of Tulsa and Oklahoma City musicians.

Now at 40, he’s finally carving out what his sound really is. He’s defined what he is as a solo artist and what he is with his band, Boomtown Revival.

Gibson “is as good as people you see on the Grammys,” said Kevin Smith, co-owner of Maggie’s Music Box. “He has the look. The girls like him. The guys love him. It blows my mind.”

Like any other 14-year-old with a guitar, Gibson wanted a life of performing in arenas and becoming a household name.

“I figured out, are you doing what

you love and doing it the way you love?” he said. “Overall, I have learned success in music is putting out the work that matters to you.”

After years in Tulsa, Gibson moved to Cincinnati for three years before coming back. The results of that

time showed up in his 2021 album, “Hymnals From the Plains,” which brought in some gospel into his blend of soul, blues and rock ‘n’ roll.

The years in Cincinnati also made Gibson change his show.

“You get used to your home court,” he said. “When I went to Cincinnati, no one knew me. It was a constant interview process. It taught me to bring a higher level of performance faster. You have to be on right away. In turn, I had to tour a lot. I struggle with anxiety, and it made me grow so much. Those years now help me be better at being vulnerable to strangers. I have also heard a lot of people say I’m a lot better on guitar.”

Gibson is on stage every other Tuesday at Maggie’s Music Box. Check him out on Apple Music and markgibsonmusic.com.

COURTESY, HILL TAYLOR

Mark Gibson “is as good as people you see on the Grammys,” said Kevin Smith, co-owner of Maggie’s Music Box.

I figured out, are you doing what you love and doing it the way you love? Overall, I have learned success in music is putting out the work that matters to you.”

- MARK GIBSON

STAGES SOUND

MAGGIE’S MUSIC BOX

Over the past 12 years, Kevin and Amy Smith have pioneered new venues for local music, from Studio 818 to Soul City Gastropub & Music House and now Maggie’s Music Box in Jenks.

The phone rings now more than ever with local talent trying to find a stage.

“We definitely have a new crop,” Kevin Smith said. “So many new kids like Jake and the Idols, but also a lot

of younger kids. I get 10 to 15 calls a day from different bands. A lot of them are Tulsa kids.”

That demand is one of the reasons why Maggie’s Music Box, 201. E. Main St. in downtown Jenks, keeps tearing down walls to expand space for the crowds. Smith said he’s starting a Saturday matinee show in April to help highlight young bands looking for stage for the first time.

Maggie’s Music Box has one of the

most consistent schedules of local acts throughout the week. Smith describes the venue as a House of Blues on a beach.

“Those are the places Amy and I look for,” he said. “I want to go into a place that looks like it’s been there 100 years. We purposely want to be different.”

Smith said midtown music lovers tend to really be into the music for the music. They want to hear original music. It’s opposite out south.

Tulsans have been showing up at these venues for years — decades in some cases — to hear the best live, local music around.

Maggie’s Music Box in Jenks provides a platform for local artists such as Barrett Lewis. IAN MAULE, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Jason Collington, Bill Haisten and Grace Wood Tulsa World Magazine

“But what’s great is that a lot of people want to hear covers, but we have some bands that play originals and they start to become covers,” he said. “Everywhere we have set up, we try to bring the best of the best. Tulsans have to understand there is a talent level here that doesn’t exist in Oklahoma City. As a whole, the talent level here is insane.”

Along with Maggie’s Music Box, here are some of the best venues to go hear local music:

ARENA BAR & GRILL

Owner Ted Andress opened Arena right across the street from the BOK Center at 201 S. Denver Ave. after Naples Flatbread closed in 2019. Thanks to the kitchen of the former tenant, Arena serves up one of the best menus in town when you want to sit and watch live music.

Arena offers live music during the week starting with Taco Tuesdays, featuring the Barrett Lewis Band, and after many BOK Center shows in case your party isn’t ready to go straight home.

Bad Decisions performs at Maggie’s Music Box on Feb. 4 in Jenks. The venue’s co-owner Kevin Smith said he receives 10 to 15 calls a day from bands wanting to play there.

DANIEL SHULAR, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

The Colony hosts live shows seven days a week and also features weekly open mic nights, allowing local musicians a place to perform and connect with a new audience.

BLACKBIRD ON PEARL

Blackbird on Pearl, 1336 E. Sixth St., is the Pearl District’s home to rock and singer-songwriter shows. This bar is notable for live music, as well as being the former home of punk and alternative music clubs Club Nitro and Eclipse.

CIMARRON BAR

Out front, there usually is an impressive collection of Harleys. Inside, you can throw darts, shoot pool and unwind after a long workday. Wednesday through Saturday, there always is live music. Longtime local favorite Imzadi is a hard-rocking

dance band and a Cimarron regular. Occasionally, the entertainment goes the direction of traditional country or rebel country. A Tulsa classic, the Cimarron Bar, 2619 S. Memorial Drive, is outfitted with an indoor stage and an outdoor stage.

THE COLONY

When you step into The Colony, 2809 S. Harvard Ave., you’re walking into an important piece of Tulsa’s musical legacy.

Opened in 1958 as The Colony Inn, this venue resembling an English pub

has a deep lore associated with it: Leon Russell once owned the joint during the height of the Tulsa Sound, and artists he collaborated with, such as George Harrison, Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale, performed there.

“One of the big things that sets The Colony apart from other Tulsa music venues is the deep musical history that our location has,” owner Heidi Tindle said.

Hosting live shows seven days a week, The Colony is working to continue that legacy today. Talented local acts such as WHiRLiGiG, R.R. Williams and Seth Lee Jones perform

IAN MAULE, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

Seth Lee Jones performs at The Colony, which has a rich musical history.

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

The Cimarron Bar has live music from Wednesday through Saturday.

there often. To get a taste of more Tulsa talent, drop into Open Mic Ministries hosted by Justin Paul Bloss every Tuesday.

Because of the venue’s intimate size, guests have a chance to easily see great music up close.

“There’s not a lot of separation in our venue between the musicians and the audience,” Tindle said. “Our stage is very low to the ground in the center of the room, and the artists don’t have a separate entrance or exit — they’re just people who happen to be very talented musicians who are there to entertain you that night, and they’ll sit and have a conversation with you.”

THE ELEPHANT RUN

Located in the Trade Winds Central Inn at 3141 E. Skelly Drive, The Elephant Run has been a popular destination for drinks and dance music since 1984. Although smoking is prohibited in many bars, it’s still allowed at The Elephant Run.

The stage is tucked into the southwest corner of the room — just like it was during the ’80s and ’90s. As it pertains to music genres, The Elephant Run runs the gamut with its bookings.

THE FUR SHOP

The Fur Shop is a music and event center in downtown Tulsa at 520 E. Third St.

It has two rooms and a large patio, which features three stages and a fullservice bar.

It hosted Fur Fest, Tulsa’s newest rock music festival, last fall to provide a platform for Oklahoma artists, citizens and vendors to congregate and have fun in the Tulsa spirit.

THE HUNT CLUB

The Hunt Club’s double-decker patio at 224 N. Main St. is one of the city’s best, giving a bird’s-eye view of live bands and action in the Tulsa Arts District.

The Hunt Club also regularly hosts Hometown Writer’s Round, a songwriter showcase with original music by Oklahoma songwriters.

While you’re there, enjoy South American cuisine by MASA. The menu consists of sandwiches and

empanadas, as well as appetizer-type dishes such as nachos, queso with chorizo, wings and the legendary bacon bombs.

LENNIE’S CLUB & GRILL

There have been several locations, but the current location — at the southeast

corner of the 51st and Harvard intersection — seems to be the best version of Lennie’s Club & Grill.

With a stage that is larger than most bar stages and ample seating for rockmusic aficionados, Lennie’s is a go-to place for local cover bands like Imzadi, Rocket Science, Jake & the Idols, Stars and Rockfisch.

IAN MAULE, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

The Fur Shop is a music and event center in downtown Tulsa. Last fall, it hosted Fur Fest, Tulsa’s newest rock music festival.

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

The Hunt Club’s unique patio makes for a great place to hear live music, especially on a nice night. Here, The Bourgeois perform in during Center of the Universe festival in July.

“Music is like medicine for a lot of people who come here,” owner Soncha Dowding said. “It helps everyone forget about the troubles of the day, and for a few hours, you don’t have to think about anything else.”

Like The Elephant Run, smoking still is allowed at Lennie’s.

MERCURY LOUNGE

For music fans of all ages, Mercury Lounge, 1747 S. Boston Ave., is way more than just a dive bar: It’s a place where seasoned artists and talented up-and-coming bands alike take the stage seven days a week.

Because Mercury Lounge has been a staple of the Tulsa music scene for nearly two decades, it’s home to many regulars. But due to the masterful booking of talent across all genres and monthly select showcases in partnership with Tulsa Creative Engine to highlight new local musicians, the crowd at this venue always feels diverse and excited to be there.

“We’re in this moment where we can do hip-hop shows, like Fire In Little Africa, with a punk rock show right after it,” former owner Bobby Dean Orcutt said. “We’re able to use the stage and the platform to create a cross-cultural experience and a feeling of community.”

Whether you prefer to sit outside on one of the two patios or in the cozy interior, outfitted with LED signs and taxidermized animals, every seat in this house is a good one.

On any day of the week, Mercury Lounge hosts free residency shows with Tulsa powerhouses like Paul Benjaman and Cassie Latshaw. Don’t miss Bluegrass Brunch with the Johnny Mullenax Band every Sunday,

People dance while Scott Pendergrass and Dale Armstrong perform at Lennie’s Club & Grill on June 21. The venue has a stage that is larger than most bar stages and ample seating.

IAN MAULE, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

IAN MAULE, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE Photos of past performers hang on the wall at Lennie’s Club & Grill.

ABOVE: Music artists such as Cassie Latshaw and her band (pictured) and Paul Benjaman play free weekly residency shows at Mercury Lounge. LEFT: Terry Datis dances to Cassie Latshaw and her band as they play at Mercury Lounge. The venue hosts a wide range of musicians, with country, rock ‘n’ roll and rap artists performing live every week.

where you can hear covers of John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” and “Codeine” by Trampled by Turtles. The venue’s tongue-in-cheek slogan is “This bar sucks,” but the fact that it’s brimming with music-lovers every day of the week says otherwise.

PJ’S PUB & GRILL

PJ’s offers the feel of a neighborhood bar that features local acts. Its location at 9999 S. Mingo Road offers Tulsans a place out south to hear local tunes without having to come downtown. It also offers a place to dance while also having an extensive menu.

SOUNDPONY

Located just down Main Street from Cain’s Ballroom, Soundpony Lounge opened in May 2006 and has been a Tulsa favorite ever since.

Started by Tulsa cyclists Josh Gifford and Mike Wozniak, Soundpony Lounge is decked out in homage to the sport: race numbers, cycling shirts and road racing bikes donated from Tulsa Tough racers from all over the world cover the walls and ceilings, providing a unique atmosphere.

Since the beginning, Soundpony Lounge has been a patron of the local music scene in Tulsa, known for providing a place for rappers like 1st Verse and Steph Simon to perform before many venues booked rappers regularly.

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE PHOTOS

South Tulsa’s PJ’s Pub & Grill offers a place to hear local music without having to go downtown.

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

“We were giving a voice to people who didn’t have a spot to have a voice,” Gifford said.

Soundpony Lounge hosts music acts, both local and national, nearly every night of the week. Guests can enjoy a wide selection of DJs, rappers, singer-songwriters, punk rock groups and more as they perform either at the front of the bar or on the outdoor patio, which is covered in murals designed by local Tulsa artists.

THE STUMBLING MONKEY

During the late summer and fall of 2020, as people were skittish about being exposed to COVID-19, most bars had only a fraction of their usual customer traffic. Located at the northeast corner of the 91st and Yale intersection, The Stumbling Monkey was an exception because of its large and nicely furnished patio area that includes a stage for musicians.

The Stumbling Monkey has live music all year, but because of its impressive patio, it’s a particularly popular place during the warm-weather months.

THE VANGUARD

Owner Simon Aleman opened The Vanguard 11 years ago with a singular goal in mind: platforming small, local bands as they got their start in the Tulsa music scene.

“It started out as a project with my son — he was in a band, but there was no place here for young kids to play,” Aleman said.

The venue at 222 N. Main St. has gone on to become an essential place for up-and-coming bands to perform, almost as a rite of passage. Tulsa-born bands such as the seven-piece punk group Cliffdiver got their start here and have gone on to perform shows and festivals all over the country. The Vanguard also attracts national talent: artists like The 1975, Riff Raff and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus have all taken the stage over the years.

“We like to bring in national touring bands and pair them up with locals on the bill, to provide some exposure for the local bands and to give the big bands a

IAN MAULE, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

Rock band Gadgets Sons perform on stage at The Vanguard. The Vanguard serves as a platform for many up-and-coming Tulsa bands who are getting their start, but it also attracts big national talent.

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

DJ Sir Mike performs at Soundpony Lounge. The bar and venue opened in 2006 and features local and national musical performers most nights of the week.

sense of our scene here,” Aleman said. Known for its high-quality sound system, Aleman said there’s not a bad place inside to see a show. And

last year, The Vanguard increased its capacity from 499 to 635, further cementing its place in Tulsa as a prominent music venue.

VENUE SHRINE

A fantastic room at 18th and Boston, the Venue Shrine is a one-stop shop for most genres of music. If you’re into tribute bands, the Venue Shrine brings good ones to town. For example: the Let’s Go! A Tribute to The Cars band, the Ultimate Doors band and My Posse in Effect — a Beastie Boys tribute trio.

If you enjoy the discovery of fresh, quality local sound, the Venue Shrine delivers with bands like The Plumbers (a high-energy group that performs with an actual toilet onstage) and The Golden Ones (defined as an alt-glam rock band).

The Golden Ones are driven by a big guitar sound (think Weezer), with talented vocalist-guitarist Sarah Frick out front. Venue Shrine is perfect for a band like The Golden Ones.

CASINO STAGES

Those who enjoy casinos can also hear local live music. Located inside Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa, 777 W. Cherokee St., Catoosa, Track 5 fills a specific niche for music lovers in Tulsa: It’s a place built for country music fans, where they can hear every iteration of the genre, from red dirt to outlaw to contemporary country and everything in between.

“Track 5 is truly the venue dedicated to Oklahoma and its rich country roots,” General Manager Martin Madewell said.

The name Track 5 comes from the realization that many of the fifth tracks on famous country albums contain references to Tulsa or Oklahoma

— take “Tell Me Something Bad About Tulsa” off George Strait’s 2003 album “Honkytonkville,” or “Tulsa Turnaround” from Kenny Rogers’ 1979 album, “Kenny,” for example.

Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa also offers Riffs, which is open daily at 4 p.m. with live music on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

River Spirit Casino Resort, 8330 Riverside Parkway, offers two stages for local live music: The 5 o’clock Somewhere Bar and the Volcano Stage next to the Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Restaurant.

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

The Kentucky Headhunters perform at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino’s Track 5. Track 5 opened with the goal of being a place where country fans could come together and enjoy all types of country music.

The Venue Shrine at 18th and Boston is a one-stop shop for most genres of music. Tahlequah-based Americana band Ragland is seen performing. TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

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It all starts with the wood. That wood could be something familiar, such as maple or spruce, or something more exotic, such as sapele from Africa or buckeye burl from California.

But whatever wood is chosen, it has to sing.

Ben Liggett holds up the body of a guitar he’s in the process of constructing. It is a model he calls “Pragmatist,” which has a shape reminiscent of the iconic profile of the Fender Stratocaster.

The guitar’s top is made from buckeye burl, known for its unique and wide-ranging colors; this particular piece has a distinctly aquamarine cast to it. The rest of the guitar’s body is constructed out of birds-eye mahogany.

“Listen,” Liggett says, as he gives the guitar’s top a tap with his index finger. The wood responds with a soft yet definite tone — an almost bell-like tone.

“And then,” he says, flipping the guitar body over and giving the back an equally forceful tap. This time, the tone is lower in pitch but just as resonant.

Even though the finished product will be fitted out with all sorts of electronics, and the music it produces will likely have to pass through various e ects of pedals and amplifiers before it will be heard by an audience, it still matters that wood from which a guitar is constructed is capable of making its own unique music.

That is part of the art of instrument making, which Owasso resident Ben Liggett has been doing for about a decade.

His company, Liggett Guitars, creates custom-built electric and acoustic guitars, as well as creating custom inlays for fellow luthiers or musicians.

“You may have seen country artists in the ‘50s and ‘60s who would have their names inlaid in the necks of their guitars,” Liggett said. “I think it was Merle Travis who started that, and it was a big thing for a while. And I’ve been asked to do that a few times.”

Liggett’s interest in guitars began as a teenager, when he took up bass guitar.

“It was just a hobby, something I did for my own enjoyment,” he said. “I was in a band for a while, but it wasn’t a very enjoyable experience — not because of the other people in the band, but because I was never comfortable with performing. I have great respect for people who are full-time musicians,

Owasso resident Ben Liggett crafts guitars and custom inlays

but it just wasn’t for me.”

Neither, Liggett confessed, was school. He knew he wasn’t the college type. “I’ve always been someone who likes working with my hands, making things,” he said, and chose instead to study machining at Tulsa Technology Center.

After graduating, he got a job making parts for tools used in the oil and aerospace industries. But after a few years, the drudgery of making the same objects over and over got to be too much.

“When I was at Tulsa Tech, we had a certain amount of freedom to make things we wanted to use,” Liggett said. “Some friends of mine and I made this workshop vise that I still use today. I also made a brass hammer that I still use.

“Besides,” he said, “Machine shops tend to smell of burnt grease, and dealing with metal shavings in your hands is not a very enjoyable experience. I wanted to do something that would allow me to be creative, and guitars seemed to be the answer.”

Liggett went to the Roberto-Venn

School of Luthiery in Phoenix, a fivemonth immersive course in instrumentmaking in which students had to build one acoustic and one electric guitar.

“The first few weeks I was there, I

was surrounded by all these people talking about guitar parts, types of wood, pickup wiring,” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘If this ever starts getting old, I’m out of here.’”

MIKE SIMONS PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

ABOVE: Ben Liggett of Liggett Guitars works on one of his custom-built guitars in his Owasso workshop. LEFT: Ben Liggett of Liggett Guitars poses with one of his signature models, the AbstracT.

The headstock of this AbstracT model, shown above and at left, features custom inlay work. Ben Liggett said his business is evenly divided between creating custom-built guitars and doing inlay work for instruments built by fellow luthiers.

Liggett paused, then grinned broadly. “It’s never gotten old.”

Liggett returned to Tulsa and went to work at Bishline Banjos, which is run by Rob Bishline, himself a graduate of the Roberto-Venn School. He worked there until February 2020, when Bishline closed the shop, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was a very amicable parting — we just decided to go our separate ways to do our own things,” Liggett said. “Of course, going into business for yourself full-time right at the start of a pandemic wasn’t what you’d call an ideal business plan, but that’s the breaks.”

Liggett Guitars come in four base

models: The Pragmatist; The AbstracT, a single-cutaway model that looks a little like a Fender Telecaster that went through a taffy-pulling machine; the Galaxy, which dispenses with the traditional headstock to create a more space-age look; and a new model Liggett calls the Sumi, a thin-bodied, single-cutaway design.

While Liggett’s designs involve original, even somewhat avant-garde, elements, he acknowledges that there is a reason why it seems that a few basic shapes dominate the guitar world.

“A lot of it has to do with ergonomics,” he said. “A guitar has to be comfortable to hold and play, and

there are certain shapes that lend themselves to that.”

Liggett also works to make his guitars as thin as possible, to keep the weight down. He also creates hollow spaces, or chambers, within his seemingly solid-body guitars, in part because of weight but mostly to give the instrument additional resonance.

Liggett said his business is equally divided between doing custom inlay work for others and creating custombuilt guitars.

“When I was at Roberto-Venn, one thing I learned from a lot of custom guitar makers we met and worked with was that it takes a good 15 or so years

before you get known,” Liggett said. He chuckled, then said, “So I guess that means I have about another 12 years to go.”

But his guitars are beginning to become known in the music world.

“I’m a big fan of Emil Amos, who has a solo project called Holy Sons,” Liggett said. “When I was at luthier school, I listened to his albums a lot and reached out to him to say I’d love to build a guitar for him.

“Emil also works as a drummer for groups like Om,” he said, “so when people would ask what I was working on, I’d tell them I’m building a guitar for my favorite drummer.”

FAR LEFT: Ben Liggett works on a custom version of Pragmatist design. This instrument is topped with a veneer of buckeye burl.

LEFT: “I always knew I wanted to work with my hands,” Liggett said.

MIKE SIMONS

PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Ben Liggett polishes the neck of a guitar he is building. The neck is made of bird’s eye mahogany and flame maple.

A veneer of buckeye burl adorns the headstock of this Liggett Guitar.

Do you know these epic moments in Tulsa

music history?

Find the answers on page 77

2

In 1994, at the age of 78, the “Chairman of the Board” Frank Sinatra played at the Mabee Center on the Oral Roberts University campus. During what song did Sinatra light up a cigarette, raise a glass and toast “My friend, Jack (Daniel)”?

KISS performed at the old Convention Center Arena at the height of its popularity in 1977, but the show was ended prematurely when what item was thrown onto the stage?

English punk band

The Sex Pistols played Cain’s Ballroom during a controversial U.S. tour. The concert included a bomb threat, protesters and one punch to the venue’s wall by lead singer Johnny Rotten. The evidence of the punch remains. What year was it?

3 4

, RICHARD GALBRAITH

TULSA WORLD FILE

Which music artist, regarded as one of the best guitarists in the world, was arrested in Tulsa in 1975 and taken to the drunk tank after an o cer witnessed him throwing suitcases o a balcony at the Tulsa airport?

COURTESY

COURTESY, RICHARD GALBRAITH

A crowd estimated at 65,000 flocked to Tulsa’s Expo Square racetrack on July 3, 1977, for an eighthour country music festival. Who were the featured performers?

Phone callers in a frenzy to claim tickets to five Garth Brooks concerts at Drillers Stadium shut down what very important public safety system in 1997?

Between his first Tulsa concert and his last, how many times did Elvis Presley perform here?

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

Zac, Isaac and Taylor Hanson first performed as a professional group in 1992 at what hugely popular Tulsa downtown event that will be celebrating its 50th year in 2023?

The Ernie Fields Orchestra, led by Tulsan Ernie Fields, became one of the most popular groups among African Americans in the Southwest during the ‘30s and ‘40s. Its mambo-style version of “In The Mood” shot into the top 10 on the pop charts. The orchestra was the first Black band to play which iconic Tulsa venue?

,

In 1972, Leon Russell was eating with Denny Cordell and Carla Brown at what restaurant when they dreamed up the idea of buying the former Grace Methodist Episcopal Church to create what would become Church Studio?

COURTESY, OKPOP

STEPHEN PINGRY

TULSA WORLD FILE

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

STEPHEN PINGRY, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

TULSA TRAILBLAZERS A

few days after Christmas in 1944, a radio producer interrupted Bob Wills during a rehearsal with the Texas Playboys as they were getting ready for their first appearance at the famous Grand Ole Opry.

The Opry had become an enormously influential venue for country and western music, and it considered itself a guardian of the genre’s authenticity. Drum sets were for pop music, the producer told Wills. And the Opry didn’t allow them on stage.

The Texas Playboys had stopped in Nashville during a sort of comeback tour, with Wills trying to rebuild his popularity after his career had been interrupted by a short stint in the Army during World War II. A medical discharge put him back in civilian life, but it didn’t automatically put him back at the top of the music charts.

The Opry’s radio broadcast o ered a huge nationwide audience. It was his big chance.

All he had to do was give his drummer the night o .

“OK, boys,” Wills turned toward the band. “Tear ’em down. We’re going home.”

He had his own ideas about “authenticity.”

FATHER OF Western swıng

The Opry, not wanting to scramble to find di erent performers at the last minute, agreed to compromise. Wills’ drummer could stay, but he had to sit behind a curtain where the audience couldn’t see him. And the performance helped springboard Wills to renewed fame, making him one of the biggest stars of the 20th century.

Born in 1905, Wills grew up on a farm in the Texas panhandle, where other boys made fun of him for wearing work gloves. Calluses were a rite of passage, but Wills wanted to protect his hands for barbering.

It was his plan for getting o the farm.

“Look at this head, bald as a rat,” a laborer told Wills one day. “Look at these feet, tough as whip leather from bumping clods all my life. Don’t you stay here on the farm or it will happen to you. Don’t tell your pappy I’m telling you this. But go away.”

Wills took the advice and, at age 20, went to barber school and got a job cutting hair for $35 a week. And he might have stayed a barber if he

Bob Wills chose fiddle over farm life, and fans flocked to Cain’s

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

A portrait of Bob Wills, “King of Western Swing,” hangs at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa.

hadn’t entered a fiddling contest with a traveling medicine show that came through the little town of Turkey, Texas, about 90 minutes southeast of Amarillo.

Both of his grandfathers played fiddle. His father played fiddle. Nine uncles and four aunts played fiddle.

For Wills, playing fiddle came as naturally as walking. And he did so well in the contest that the medicine show performers asked him to come on the road with them for a couple of weeks.

When he got back to Turkey, the barbershop had given his job to somebody else. And Wills, swearing he would never set foot in the town again, packed his fiddle and moved to Fort Worth to break into the music business.

By the time he came to Tulsa in February 1933, Wills had his own band, the Texas Playboys. And he signed an unusual contract with a local radio station, KVOO.

Instead of the station paying him, he paid the station. Wills bought half an hour of airtime every day at noon, when the Texas Playboys would play live in the studio.

The arrangement cost Wills $10,000 a year, but the publicity kept the band booked solid with dances and concerts in towns all across northeast Oklahoma. Wills once told the Tulsa World that he had slept only six hours in a three-day period while rushing from one performance to the next and always getting back to Tulsa in time for the noon broadcasts.

Eventually, so many fans were coming to the radio studio every day that Wills moved the shows to the Cain’s Ballroom, where he used his own money to buy benches for the audience to sit between dances.

When the Playboys first came to Tulsa, they all had to squeeze into a single seven-seat sedan for road trips and shared a one-bedroom apartment. Four years later, Wills owned a house at 202 S. Gary Ave. and paid $10,000 for a tour bus that included a built-in bathroom, the height of VIP luxury. But they weren’t traveling as much, because fans were flocking to the Cain’s week after week.

At one show in March 1937, the Tulsa Tribune found people in the audience from as far away as Claude, Texas; Springfield, Missouri; and East St. Louis. By then, Wills and the Texas Playboys had recorded at least 50 songs — Wills proudly called them “good old-fashioned hillbilly and Texas

tunes” — and several had become bestsellers across the Southwest.

On Thursday and Saturday night broadcasts from the Cain’s, the Playboys took requests by long-distance phone calls, with the show syndicated from coast to coast. Wills received more than 1,000 fan letters a week, according to the World’s archives.

The Playboys treated fans with respect, Wills told the World. And the fans rewarded them with loyalty.

“My boys are trained to be nice to the public,” he said. “I don’t care how dirty or awful a man may be, but if he’s paid his money to come see me, then I’m grateful to him. And my boys have to learn to be nice to each other, as well as to the public.”

The military draft ended the

Playboys in the early ’40s. But Wills put the band back together and relaunched his career after getting out of the Army. And he went on to become the highest-paid band leader of the decade, making $350,000 a year.

Wills wrote and recorded 470 songs between 1935 and 1973, when he suffered a stroke while working on “For the Last Time,” which turned out to be his last record. He died in 1975 at age 90.

The Tulsa World’s obituary called him “the cigar-smoking, ebullient father of Western swing.”

“It was a stunning life for the son and grandson of champion Texas fiddle players, a boy who once rode 50 miles on horseback to hear blues singer Bessie Smith.”

COURTESY, OKPOP/BOB WILLS ESTATE COLLECTION

Bob Wills paid $10,000 for a tour bus that included a built-in bathroom, the height of VIP luxury. But they weren’t traveling as much, because fans were flocking to the Cain’s week after week.

COURTESY, OKPOP

Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys turned Cain’s Ballroom into the Carnegie Hall of Western swing.

Trent Morrow remembers as a youngster inviting friends from school to visit the store his family owned.

“But when I told them where the store was,” Morrow said, “none of them would come, because they were too afraid of the neighborhood.”

And, at the time of which he is speaking, Morrow could understand the trepidation his friends and their parents might have about venturing to what has come to be known as “the very large corner of Lewis and Admiral.”

The family business, Ziegler Art & Frame, was an outpost of respectability in the center of what was considered from the 1970s through the 1990s as Tulsa’s “red light”

district — a place known for dive bars, strip clubs, adult bookstores, a once-proud movie theater reduced to showing X-rated movies and rampant criminal activity.

“To be fair, it could be a little scary to come here back then,” Morrow said, laughing. “But it wasn’t always that way. My grandfather, who started the business, grew up in this neighborhood. He started out as a wholesale frame-making business, and my dad decided to open a retail business a few years later.

“It was always the plan that we would ultimately move the business south,” he said. “But property was relatively cheap here, and Grandpa just kept buying buildings. We ended up linking them all together, and after a while it just became too hard to leave.”

TOP: Ziegler Art & Frame has been a mainstay of the KendallWhittier District since 1976. What began as a single storefront at 6 N. Lewis Ave. has spread to 20,000 feet of retail space in several buildings.

LEFT: Kendall Whittier was the first suburban Tulsa neighborhood, dating back to 1909; it would get its name from the two elementary schools that served the area and later merged.

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

ABOVE: A woman walks past Circle Cinema in the Kendall Whittier District.

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

TULSA WORLD FILE

Today, Ziegler Art & Frame continues to occupy some 20,000 square feet of retail space on the northwest corner of Lewis Avenue and Admiral Boulevard, which is considered the epicenter of the Kendall Whittier District. Morrow, now one of the co-owners of the business, said they coined the description “The very large corner of Lewis and Admiral” for a series of radio ads that were designed to encourage those seeking just about any sort of object associated with the visual arts, from custom framing to colored pencils, to pay a visit to the neighborhood.

Those ads, and the Ziegler-Morrow family’s determination to remain in the neighborhood, are among the reasons why Ziegler Art & Frame is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

“So we’ve seen a whole lot of changes around here,” he said, laughing. “That’s probably putting it mildly.”

A LONG HISTORY

If any neighborhood in Tulsa can be said to have a history with a capital “H,” it is Kendall Whittier. The neighborhood was the first suburban Tulsa neighborhood, dating back to 1909; it would get its name from the two elementary schools that served the area and later merged into a single school.

By the 1920s, it was a thriving suburban neighborhood connected to downtown Tulsa by trolley, and to much of the rest of America by Route 66, which opened nearby in 1926. In 1928, the Circle Cinema opened,

and through much of the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s was a mostly self-contained neighborhood of working-class families.

Then, in the mid-1960s, Interstate 244, also known as the Crosstown Expressway, more or less cut the Kendall Whittier neighborhood in half and did not include any exits that would funnel traffic directly into the area. Families began moving south and east, businesses began shutting down and less savory elements of society began moving in.

It was about this time that Kendall Whittier Inc. was established. It began as an outreach effort by several churches in the neighborhood to assist the area’s residents in a variety of ways. It has developed into a nonprofit organization focused on helping deal with food insecurity issues.

But it wasn’t until the 2000s that the ongoing efforts to restore and revitalize the Kendall Whittier neighborhood truly began to be noticed beyond the district’s boundaries.

These efforts included the remaking and reopening of the Circle Cinema, 10 S. Lewis Ave., in 2004, which turned the city’s last surviving pre1960 movie house into a showplace for independent art films; and the establishing of the Tulsa Girls Art School, 2202 E. Admiral Place, as a place to provide at-risk female students with the training and skills to pursue careers in the visual arts. Both these ventures helped to encourage people to visit the area, whether to take in the latest critically acclaimed film or to

view a show by some potential rising stars in the art world.

But it was the formation of Kendall Whittier Main Street in 2010 that really helped to draw new and positive attention to what has become one of the fastest growing, and most ethnically diverse, neighborhoods in the city.

MAIN STREET SUCCESS

Kendall Whittier Main Street is part of Main Street America, a national program aimed at reviving historic areas of cities and towns, to build civic pride and to bolster local economies.

“The Main Street Program has four basic tenets,” said Jessica Jackson Seay, the current executive director of Kendall Whittier Main Street. “The first is organization, which involves raising money and working with our many volunteers. Then there is design, which encompasses place-making, historic preservation and things such as that. Promotion is about events, social media, all the ways that can be used to encourage people to come visit your district. And all that leads to the fourth tenet, which is economic vitality.”

DANIEL SHULAR, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Cristofer Cruz (left) and Samantha Extance hang artists’ renderings of restaurants vying for a spot to open in the Kendall-Whittier neighborhood with Regenerate/Reimagine at The Studio.

Kendall Whittier Main Street’s success in meeting all those benchmarks resulted in its winning the 2020 Great American Main Street Award for turning an area of decades-long blight into a lively hub for arts and culture. The organization would host dozens

of public events throughout the year, encouraging people who might still associate the neighborhood with its checkered past to see for themselves the sort of place Kendall Whittier had become.

According to its website, Kendall

ABOVE: Tiara Parker of King’s Way, a restaurant vying for a spot in the KendallWhittier neighborhood with Regenerate/ Reimagine, prepares plates for voters at The Studio. LEFT: Members of Eleganza Musical perform during Los Festivals y Mercados organized by Kendall Whittier Main Street.

DANIEL SHULAR PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Whittier Main Street has helped attract some 60 local businesses to the area, including retail shops such as Whitty Books, 2306 E. Admiral Blvd.; Jo and June Vintage Shop, 2413 E. Admiral Blvd.; and Stemcell Science Shop, 2415 E. Admiral Blvd.; restaurants and breweries that include Calaveras Mexican Grill, 2326 E. Admiral Blvd.; Heirloom Rustic Ales, 2113 E. Admiral Blvd; Mr. Taco, 130 N. Lewis Ave.; and She Brews Coffee House, 1 N. Lewis Ave.; and a variety of arts-related businesses, from artist Marjorie Atwood’s street front studio, 2310 E. Admiral Blvd., to Mythic Press, 2015 E. Third St., to TPC Studios, which specializes in event planning and product branding services.

In 2019, the neighborhood became the new home of the Tulsa Farmer’s Market, which moved into the area because of the ongoing construction at its previous home on Cherry Street.

At the time of the move, Tulsa Farmer’s Market Executive Director Kim Hutto said, “Kendall-Whittier felt to us the way Cherry Street did 25 years ago. It was really going through a transformation, and we wanted to be a part of that.

MIKE SIMONS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Jessica Jackson Seay, executive director of the Kendall Whittier Main Street Association, says the COVID-19 pandemic led to the decision to do fewer events but on a larger scale.

“The location also brought us even closer to some of the city’s food deserts, so it all felt like things were perfectly aligned,” she said. “And the merchants in the area were so welcoming, it seemed like everything just fell into place.”

Unfortunately, both the Farmer’s Market relocation, and the Great American Main Street Award, happened right around the time that the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak.

“We went from doing about 20 public events and festivals to zero,” Jackson Seay said. “Our focus became doing what we could to help the businesses stay in business. That also led us to reconsider what we had been doing, and decide that perhaps we should do fewer events, but do them on a larger scale.”

These events include three Los Festivales & Mercados, April 29, July 15 and Sept. 16, which reflect the neighborhood’s vibrant Mexican and Latin American communities, as well as Amps on Admiral outdoor music event, June 3; the Kendall Whittier Arts Festival, Oct. 23; and Small Business Saturday, Nov. 25.

With all that is going on here, Jackson Seay said, there are some things that Kendall Whittier still lacks.

“We really need more food options,” she said. “We have a lot of great food trucks in the area, but it would be nice to have more lunch and dinner places in the neighborhood.”

That is one of the goals of Regenerate/ Reimagine, a nonprofit organization that works to use public art for economic development. It has partnered with Kendall Whittier Main Street for a program to bring together local artists with local food entrepreneurs.

Jackiez Gonzalez, the program’s director, said she was drawn to the Kendall Whittier neighborhood not long after coming to Tulsa four years ago, as part of the Tulsa Remote program.

“It’s a neighborhood I care a lot about, being Mexican myself and seeing what a strong Mexican community is here,” she said. “I wanted to do something that would support the community, and I began asking people about what businesses they thought Kendall Whittier needed.

“And just about everyone focused on food,” Gonzalez said, laughing.

Gonzalez said a call for aspiring restaurateurs brought in more than 20 applicants that were ultimately winnowed down to five. These were paired with local artists, who set about designing such things as brand

logos and storefront renderings for a potential storefront business.

“That way the chefs could focus on what they do best,” Gonzalez said. In early February, a tasting event for the five finalists was held, where they offered samples of their goods and visitors voted for their favorites.

“We will narrow it down to two finalists, who will each be given a fullscale pop-up space, and from that we’ll select the winner,” she said. “One thing that has been great about this whole process is that it’s really been a reflection of the diversity of this community. Our finalists include Venezuelan food,

Mexican food, Moroccan food, a vegan bakery and wings.”

And while the Kendall Whittier of today may be far removed from the Kendall Whittier of the 1970s and ‘80s, Jackson Seay said she doesn’t mind if there remain a few echoes of those “bad old days.”

“It’s certainly part of the neighborhood’s history, and it kind of adds to the funkiness of this part of town,” she said. “Kendall Whittier has become very much an arts-oriented neighborhood, with all kinds of creative businesses here. And a little funkiness is not a bad thing at all.”

TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

The Tulsa Farmer’s Market moved to the Kendall Whittier neighborhood in 2019.

DANIEL SHULAR, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

Noni Kibui (center), owner of Nonieez Boutique, speaks with Rachael Tsuma (right) and Grace Musak during Los Festivals y Mercados organized by Kendall Whittier Main Street.

CRAFTY GETTING

Studios o er smart ways to explore creative outlets

Grace Wood // Tulsa World Magazine

Relegated to our homes during the height of pandemic-induced lockdowns, people turned to crafting as a way to cope, pass time and engage a di erent part of our brains during an uncertain time.

Three years later, arts and crafts remain just as, if not more, popular than ever, said Theresa Hammers, owner of Georgia’s Arts & Crafts Studio, 825 N. Aspen Ave. in Broken Arrow.

STEPHEN PINGRY, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE

A glass craft at Georgia’s Arts and Crafts Studio in Broken Arrow.

The number of crafting studios in Tulsa is exploding as crafters find it is a smart way of learning a new hobby before investing in tools and supplies to use at home. They are getting their creative fix in the form of painting, pottery, mosaicking and more with a helping hand from someone who knows the skill.

Hammers developed her love of crafting and creativity from her late grandmother, Georgia, after whom the studio is named.

“She took things that were very inexpensive and created little crafts for

us to do all the time. She would sew all of our dolls’ clothes, and she was an avid gardener, so we’d go pick flowers in her garden and make beautiful bouquets,” Hammers said. “I think she

would love (Georgia’s) — I would have her in here with me every day.”

Georgia’s offers a wide variety of classes and workshops, allowing guests to explore everything from pottery and

LOCAL STUDIOS OFFER A PLACE TO CRAFT

When it comes to finding a place to craft, Tulsans have many options. And there’s more to do than make a cool piece of art — some of the local studios listed below offer summer camps and activities just for kids. Take-home kits are a popular option, as well. Most offer classes for groups such as bachelorette parties, corporate team building or birthday parties.

Board and Brush

8925 E. 61st St., Unit C

Board & Brush Creative Studio is a place to build trendy, farmhouse-inspired pieces. You’ll learn about distressing, sanding with the grain and staining to make your personalized wood sign look like an heirloom. Board & Brush’s wood sign workshops are its signature offering, but it also offers specialty workshops (choose from doormats to porch planters, canvas pillows to personalized glassware). boardandbrush.com

AR Workshop

1020 S. Rockford Ave., Ste. D

AR Workshop grew out of Anders Ruff, a design company that specialized in graphic design and party styling. It wasn’t long before fans and followers of the brand were asking for DIY workshops hosted at a brick and

mortar storefront. In 2016, the shop’s founders introduced AR Workshop, a boutique DIY studio that now has more than 125 franchises across the country.

AR’s Classic DIY Workshops include wood projects, canvas painting and blanket knitting, and the Specialty DIY classes have included charcuterie, candle pouring, cookie decorating and more (varies by location and season). arworkshop.com

The Project Bar

The Project Bar provides all the tools, supplies and instructions to help you to make something awesome, no matter your experience level. The shop has also paired with local breweries to offer Drink & DIY sessions. Projects include string art, macrame plant hangers and leather pint sleeves. projectbar.com

Pinspiration

8931 S. Yale Ave., Ste. K

Pinspiration Tulsa offers kids crafts and adult crafts, as well as a seasonal selection. The wide variety of crafts includes charcuterie boards, custom wood pallets, string art, fairy gardens and porch signs. Pinspiration also offers a Splatter Room, perfect for a party or a unique date night. Protective gear such as goggles, shower caps, booties and robes or coveralls are provided for the Splatter Room, and champagne and chocolates are offered with the date night package. pinspiration.com

Salt Prairie Ceramics

Salt Prairie Ceramics is a local pottery studio that has partnered with businesses such as Cabin Boys Brewery and Soaplahoma to offer a custom candle-making class. Previous creations include adorable tabletop chimineas and fun planters. facebook.com/ saltprairieceramics

STEPHEN PINGRY PHOTOS, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE Theresa Hammers’ love of crafting and creativity came from her late grandmother, Georgia, for whom the studio is named.

COURTESY, THE PROJECT BAR & CABIN BOYS At Cabin Boys Brewery, Project Bar class participants experience a DIY workshop where they can create one of several crafts such as string art.

Glass crafts are shown at Georgia’s Arts and Crafts Studio in Broken Arrow.

canvas painting, glass fusion and mosaicmaking, chunky scarf-knitting and much more. Hammers’ students range in all ages, backgrounds and abilities, she said.

“There’s grandmas and grandkids,

Diversions Crafting Studio

2036 W. Houston St., Broken Arrow

If you need a special machine for your craft, Diversions Crafting Studio has equipment including a sewing machine, a flat press and iron, a drawing tablet and laptop, a Gemini die-cut machine, a Cricut Maker and a 3D printer. You can rent by the hour or buy a day pass or a monthly pass. Studio memberships are an option for the serious maker. They include access to public spaces, work tables, charging cords and more. Diversions also has a retail storefront for makers who would like to sell their products at its physical location or online. diversionscraftingstudio.com

Creative Outlets Studio

1521 S. Main St., Broken Arrow

Creative Outlets is a sewing and crafting studio that helps crafters of all skill levels learn to sew, whether in a sewing club or through private lessons. Private sewing or crafting parties are also available. If you have a project that needs a lot of space, you can rent the studio, which gives you access to sewing machines, sergers, embroidery machine, four large cutting tables and everything you need to finish your project. creativeoutletsstudio.com

boyfriends and girlfriends, mothers and daughters and even groups of teenagers who come in to make crafts. It’s incredible what people do in here,” Hammers said.

Although Georgia’s Arts & Crafts Studio opened 12 years ago, Hammers said the studio has seen a noticeable surge in customers within the past few years.

Jami Pelton works on a glass craft at Georgia’s Arts and Crafts Studio.

Teacher Theresa Hammers helps Teresa Alderman with a glass craft.

A glass craft is seen at Georgia’s Arts and Crafts Studio.

An increased interest in crafting may be due to social media platforms like Pinterest and TikTok, where crafters all over the world can share ideas and gain inspiration from each other, Hammers said.

“Crafts have become really popular, and this industry keeps growing, but it’s also become more modernized,” Hammers said. “People come in all the time with cute ideas they’ve seen on Pinterest. … It makes me feel like there’s new life to it.”

Working to continue her grandmother’s legacy, Hammers wants to show her customers that creating a unique craft does not have to be difficult and can help them in more ways than one, she said.

“I hear people use the word ‘therapy’ all the time in the studio. They tell me that crafting is like therapy to them.

“Using a creative outlet to get your mind off of your troubles or the daily grind is immensely beneficial — that, and just sharing time with people,” Hammers said. “You can sit here, paint and spend time with someone, and it’s a comfortable environment because it’s easy to talk with others when you have a craft in front of you to do.”

Georgia’s offers a wide variety of classes and workshops, allowing guests to explore everything from pottery to canvas painting.

Easter treats

Find sweets at these local chocolate shops

Easter is just around the corner, and if your basket isn’t brimming with chocolate bunnies and eggs yet, here are some of Tulsa’s best chocolate shops to visit.

Hop to it, before the biggest and best bunnies are gone.

Chocolate Nosh

5970 S. Yale Ave. 918-888-9877, chocolatenosh.com

One of Tulsa’s newest chocolatiers will be offering many Easter confections this season. Enjoy a lattes and frappes while you are there.

Glacier CHOCOLATE

1901 Utica Square; 10051 S. Yale Ave. 539-424-5992, 918-701-3786, glacierchocolate.com

Glacier Chocolate has all sorts of ways to fill your basket with confectionery treats.

Cricket & Fig

5800 S. Lewis Ave., in the London Square shopping center 918-271-5199, cricketandfig.com

Chef and chocolatier Randy Page has crafted a number of special treats for the season.

Kilwins

418 E. Second St. 918-619-9044, kilwins.com/tulsa

A new place to find chocolates, fudge, ice cream and more in the Blue Dome District, Kilwins Tulsa is owned and operated by Cynthia Marshall, a Tulsa native.

Nouveau Chocolates

205 S. Main St., Broken Arrow 918-258-2877, nouveauchocolates.com

Nouveau Chocolates specializes in confections made with the finest Belgian chocolate.

American Inheritance Confectionery

1531 S. Main St., Broken Arrow americaninheritanceconfectionary.com

Chocolatier Ronnie Watchorn combines Swiss chocolate with locally sourced ingredients to create truly distinctive chocolates.

Sweet Boutique

502 E. Third Ave.; Woodland Hills Mall 918-900-2238, sweetboutiqueus.com

Find fudge, chocolate-dipped strawberries, peanut butter cups and candy.

CRICKET AND FIG S’MORES

5800 S. Lewis Ave. Suite 13

While out shopping for Easter goodies, there’s a place in Tulsa where you can treat yourself to a fire roasted s’more (or two or three), and you don’t even need a campfire.

Cricket and Fig offers a platter of homemade graham crackers, chocolate and a mini grill to cook marshmallows. Customers can enjoy creating their own sweet sandwich with this interactive treat. The dish comes in sizes for either three or six servings.

Everything is made on site. The rectangular marshmallows have a hint of honey. They feel light and airy before toasting and warm and gooey afterward. While some graham crackers can taste dry and tough, Cricket and Fig’s are dark and delectable, made with whole wheat, cinnamon, honey and a bit of sugar. The crackers crunch with each bite and leave you wanting more. Finally, the chocolate square is made from the French Valrhona varieties and provides a perfect complement.

- Lily Colvert

Seasonticketholdersarecurrentlyabletorenewtheirseasonticketstothe40thAnniversaryTulsa BroadwaySeason.Requeststobecomeaseasonticketholderwillbeacceptedthissummer.Tickets willbelimited,tobeamongthefirstwhohavedetailsonorderingseasonticketsregisteryouremail addressatCelebrityAttractions.comtoday.

ASKTHEEXPERT

LOCALPROSANSWERYOURQUESTIONS

Whatisthemostaskedquestionyouget?

AndyO’Neal: Whatdoyouhaveintheback?Thereare peopleactuallyouthuntingthesuper-rarewhiskeysonthe planet.LikeGeorgeT.Stagg,EagleRareandRussell’sReserve. Wedon’tputthoserareitemsontheshelfwheresomebodycouldcomeinand actuallytrytobuyafullcaseofsomethingrarebecausethereisalotofresale inthatindustry.IwantthemtostayinOklahoma.Alotofotherliquorstores putonpublicizedeventswhenrollingoutrare,expensivedrinks.I’mnotafan ofthatmodelbecauseithurtslocalcustomers.BecauseassoonastheyadvertisetheeventonFacebook,somebodyinTexas,KansasorMissouricancome downhere,buyOklahomawhiskeyandtakeitbacktotheirhouse.Eitherdrink itorresellittotheirbuddies.

WhydoesOwassoLiquor&Winehavecloseoutsales?

AndyO’Neal: ThereareproductsforeverybudgetatOwassoLiquor&Wine. Limitedshelfspaceprovidesanopportunityforacloseoutsale.Everybrokerin thestateofOklahoma,itdoesn’tmatterifit’sthebiggestorthesmallest,they arealwaystryingtomovesomethingoutoftheirway.Youcanscoreadealon productssuchasPolarIceCanadianVodkathatcannotbeboughtanywhere elseinOklahoma.Wejustacquiredpremiumbeeratalowprice.We’reclosing themoutforthebrokersbecausealotofthesebeerscomeintoOklahomaand there’stoomuchbeeronthemarket.We’vebeenfloodedbyallthesebrands. Wetakeitata50-70%discountandapplythattothecustomer.Someofthose six-packsgofor$5,andothersix-packscanbepickedupforabout$2.50.

WhenistheBrokenArrowlocationopening?Whatisthestore called?

AndyO’Neal: BoozeBrothersofBrokenArrow.Itwillbeon81stStreetand AspenAvenue.Hopefullywe’llhaveitopeninthemiddleofMarchormaybe thefirstpartofApril.Wewillbehiringforbothlocations.We’vegotalittlebit

ofstockingandstufftodobutthestorehasone ofthebiggestbeerfridgesalreadyinit.It’sgota seltzerfridge.

Howdidyoucreateoneofthelargestrefrigeratedselectionsofbeerand wineinOklahoma?

AndyO’Neal: In2018westartedtheexpansionofOwassoLiquor&Wine.Phaseonewasa beerfridge.It’sthelargestbeerfridgeinOklahoma.Phasetwowasawinefridge.Phasethree wasaseltzerfridge.Wehaveoneofthelargest refrigeratedcraftbeerselectionsinthestate ofOklahoma.Wehavecoldwine,champagne andboxwinestogo.Butit’snotjustselection. Thirtyyearsinbusinessbringsthebestknowledgeofpremiumliquoroptions,craftbeersfrom aroundtheworldandawineselectionforany taste.ThereisareasonweweretheBestLiquor StorewinnerintheBestintheWorldAwardsfor twostraightyears.

CallingallexpertsinTulsa

Ifyourbusinesshasalocalexpertwhowould liketoanswercustomers’questionsandbe featuredinanupcomingTulsaWorldMagazine issue,sendanemailto: advertising@tulsaworld.com

ANDYO’NEAL, co-ownerof OwassoLiquor&Wine

LET’S GO.

APRIL

> 4/1, TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS

The Turnpike Troubadours, with Old Crow Medicine Show and Muscadine Bloodline, play their second show in three days at BOK Center.

WHERE: BOK Center, 200 S. Denver Ave. FOR MORE: bokcenter.com

> 4/1, GARDEN PARTY 2023

The Garden Party benefits The Little Lighthouse, a program that helps children with special needs and their families.

WHERE: Cox Business Convention Center, 100 Civic Center

FOR MORE: coxcentertulsa.com

> 4/4-4/9, “AIN’T TOO PROUD”

Celebrity Attractions presents “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations,” the smash-hit Broadway musical that follows The Temptations’ extraordinary journey from the streets of Detroit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

WHERE: Tulsa Performing Arts Center, 101 E. Third St.

FOR MORE: celebrityattractions.com

> 4/7-4/8, SPRINGFEST

The Tulsa Garden Center will host the 68th SpringFest at Woodward Park. The annual garden market is one of the largest educational events hosted by the Tulsa Garden Center.

WHERE: Woodward Park, 2435 S. Peoria Ave.

FOR MORE: tulsagardencenter.org

Editor’s note: All dates and events are subject to change. Check event websites for up-to-date information.

MARCH

> THROUGH 5/28, REMBRANDT TO MONET

For the first time, paintings by Rembrandt, Titian, El Greco, Bouguereau, Renoir, Monet and more will travel to Tulsa from the renowned collection of Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. Philbrook Museum of Art hosts this exhibit celebrating 500 years of European painting.

WHERE: Philbrook Museum of Art, 2727 S. Rockford Road

FOR MORE: philbrook.org

> THROUGH 6/11, ROBERT PETERSON: HOMECOMING

Lawton, Oklahoma-based artist Robert Peterson’s stunning portraiture depicts the diversity of the Black experience and pushing against stereotypes. This spotlight exhibition is centered on a new commission by the USPS featuring author Ernest J. Gaines. Peterson’s painting of Gaines is featured on a new stamp, and the original painting will be on display at Philbrook.

WHERE: Philbrook Museum of Art, 2727 S. Rockford Road

FOR MORE: philbrook.org

> 3/27, HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS

Enjoy amazing basketball skills, outrageous athleticism and a nonstop good time when the Harlem Globetrotters visit BOK Center.

WHERE: BOK Center, 200 S. Denver Ave. FOR MORE: bokcenter.com

> 3/30, TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS

Tahlequah’s own Turnpike Troubadours bring their red-dirt sound to BOK Center for the first of two shows. Old Crow Medicine Show and Muscadine Bloodline are the opening acts.

WHERE: BOK Center, 200 S. Denver Ave. FOR MORE: bokcenter.com

> > 3/31, JOURNEY AND TOTO

The rock band continues its 50th Anniversary Celebration Freedom tour, featuring Toto. Expect to hear Journey’s mega hits, such as “Faithfully,” “Any Way You Want It” and “Don’t Stop Believin’” and Toto’s “Africa,” “Rosanna” and “Hold the Line.”

WHERE: BOK Center, 200 S. Denver Ave. FOR MORE: bokcenter.com

> 4/13, FOREIGNER

Rock band Foreigner will perform hits such as “I Want To Know What Love Is,” “Waiting For A Girl Like You” and “Feels Like The First Time” at Hard Rock Live.

WHERE: Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa, 777 W. Cherokee St., Catoosa

FOR MORE: hardrockcasinotulsa.com

> 4/14, KOE WETZEL

The Texas-born singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer brings his Road to Hell Paso tour to BOK Center. Known for his rowdy ways and rebellious spirit, Wetzel has amassed over 1 billion streams to date.

WHERE: BOK Center, 200 S. Denver Ave.

FOR MORE: bokcenter.com

> 4/15, SAND SPRINGS HERBAL AFFAIR & FESTIVAL

Shop herbs, perennials, heirloom plants, native plants and more at the 34th Sand Springs Herbal Affair in downtown Sand Springs. Attendees will also find arts and crafts, gardening supplies and decor.

WHERE: Downtown Sand Springs

FOR MORE: sandspringsok.org

IAN MAULE, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE Turnpike Troubadours will perform two shows at BOK Center this spring.

> 4/15, “THE PRINCESS BRIDE” IN CONCERT

Guest conductor Ron Spigelman leads the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra as it performs the entire musical score of the beloved 1987 film live-topicture.

WHERE: Tulsa PAC, 101 E. Third St. FOR MORE: tulsasymphony.org

> 4/19-4/20, “LEGALLY BLONDE”

Celebrity Attractions presents “Legally Blonde: The Musical,” an international-award-winning, high-energy tribute to girl power. Tickets are on sale now.

WHERE: Tulsa Performing Arts Center, 101 E. Third St. FOR MORE: celebrityattractions.com

> 4/21, DARIUS RUCKER

Country music star Darius Rucker will perform at The Cove with special guest Tyler Booth. After experiencing rock success in the 1990s as the frontman of Hootie and the Blowfish, Rucker switched genres and established a career in country music.

WHERE: River Spirit Casino Resort, 8330 Riverside Parkway FOR MORE: riverspirittulsa.com

> 4/21-4/22, “JACK AND THE BEANSTALK”

The Hardesty Family Foundation Children’s Series presents this classic tale with choreography by Ma Cong, sets and costumes by Tracy Grant Lord and dancing by Tulsa Ballet II. A musical score assembled by Principal Company Pianist Andrew Lahti and narration by Dan McGeehan, who also adapted the story, help create an entertaining and educational performance for all ages.

WHERE: Zarrow Studio, 1901 W. New Orleans St. FOR MORE: tulsaballet.org

> 4/22, SMOKE AND GUNS

Oklahoma firefighters and police officers square off in the seventh annual charity MMA and boxing event presented by QuikTrip.

WHERE: BOK Center, 200 S. Denver Ave. FOR MORE: bokcenter.com

> 4/22, 2 HIP CHICKS ROADSHOW

The Tulsa-based traveling shopping event offers women’s and children’s boutiques, repurposed furniture, upcycled items, vintage items and more at the Exchange Center at Expo Square.

WHERE: Expo Square, 4145 E. 21st St. FOR MORE: exposquare.com

> 4/22, JENKS HERB & PLANT FESTIVAL

Shop for herbs and plants from local vendors at the annual Jenks Herb & Plant Festival in Jenks.

WHERE: Downtown Jenks FOR MORE: jenksgardenclub.com

> 4/24, SHINEDOWN

Rock act Shinedown brings The Revolutions Tour to BOK Center, with special guests Three Days Grace and From Ashes to New.

WHERE: BOK Center, 200 S. Denver Ave. FOR MORE: bokcenter.com

> > 4/29, 80S PROM

Expect a totally tubular good time at the 20th annual 80s Prom at Cain’s Ballroom. WHERE: Cain’s Ballroom, 423 N. Main St. FOR MORE: cainsballroom.com

> 4/29-6/4, CASTLE OF MUSKOGEE RENAISSANCE FESTIVAL

The Oklahoma Renaissance Festival celebrates 27 years of merriment. Enjoy a full-contact jousting tournament, see birds of prey and more. Open Saturdays and Sundays April 29June 4, plus Memorial Day, Monday, May 29. WHERE: 3400 Fern Mountain Road, Muskogee FOR MORE: okcastle.com

MAY

> 5/6, CHELSEA HANDLER

The comedian and former host of late-night talk show “Chelsea Lately” will perform at Tulsa Theater.

WHERE: Tulsa Theater, 105 Reconciliation Way FOR MORE: tulsatheater.com

> 5/9, NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON

Astrophysicist and author Neil DeGrasse Tyson returns to Cox Business Convention Center for his new talk, “Astronomy Bizarre.”

WHERE: Cox Business Convention Center, 100 Civic Center FOR MORE: coxcentertulsa.com

IAN MAULE, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE

Toy shields for sale hang from a display at the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival at the Castle of Muskogee.

SHARON BISHOP-BALDWIN, TULSA WORLD MAGAZINE FILE Sand Springs’ Herbal Affair and Festival returns for its 34th year.

> 5/12-5/14, 50TH ANNUAL TULSA MAYFEST

Tulsa’s premier spring celebration will return for its 50th anniversary year, now under the auspices of the University of Tulsa, which took over the festival after the dissolution of ahha Tulsa. Expect all manner of arts and crafts, live music and food to fill the Tulsa Arts District.

WHERE: Tulsa Arts District FOR MORE: tulsamayfest.org

> 5/12, KANE BROWN

Multiplatinum country artist Kane Brown brings his Drunk or Dreaming tour to Tulsa. Brown is known for his genre-bending style, bringing elements of pop, rock and even EDM to a classic country sound.

WHERE: BOK Center, 200 S. Denver Ave. FOR MORE: bokcenter.com

> 5/20, “LUMINOUS,” TULSA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Guest conductor Sarah Hicks leads the TSO in this performance featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” and Tim McFadden on Principal Trumpet.

Music Quiz answers from pages 58-59

WHERE: Tulsa PAC, 101 E. Third St. FOR MORE: tulsasymphony.org

> 5/20, LIZZO

Multiplatinum pop star and Grammy and Emmy award winner Lizzo brings her tour to Tulsa with special guest Latto. In addition to her career in hip-hop and pop, Lizzo is a classically trained flutist.

WHERE: BOK Center, 200 S. Denver Ave. FOR MORE: bokcenter.com

> 5/11-5/14, “SIGNATURE SERIES”

Tulsa Ballet will close its season with three works by three superstar choreographers. Emmy-winning and Olivier-nominated choreographer Jennifer Weber returns with the hip-hop ballet “While You Were Gone.” This program will also feature world premieres by choreographer Katarzyna Kozielska and the return of Alexander Ekman’s “Cacti.”

WHERE: Lorton Performance Center, 550 S. Gary Ave. FOR MORE: tulsaballet.org

JUNE

> 6/1-6/17, “DISNEY’S THE LION KING”

Celebrity Attractions presents “Disney’s The Lion King,” winner of six Tony Awards, including Best Musical. This landmark musical event returns to Tulsa this summer.

WHERE: Tulsa Performing Arts Center, 101 E. Third St.

FOR MORE: celebrityattractions.com

> 6/1, LADY A

Country music group Lady A will perform a show at The Cove with special guest David Barnes. The band, has built a successful career off its rich harmonies and blending of genres, will play hits such as “Need You Now” and “Just a Kiss.”

WHERE: River Spirit Casino Resort, 8330 Riverside Parkway

FOR MORE: riverspirittulsa.com

> 6/3, SHANIA TWAIN

Shania Twain will perform as she continues her Queen of Me tour with special guest Breland. The country-pop icon’s career is experiencing a resurgence after her hits from the ‘90s gained traction on social media last year. She has released new music since then, including the single “Waking Up Dreaming.”

WHERE: BOK Center, 200 S. Denver Ave.

FOR MORE: bokcenter.com

> 6/7, BILLY STRINGS

Bluegrass artist Billy Strings will play a show at the BOK Center. The Grammy-winner is known for his style of blending bluegrass and heavy metal, psychedelic music and classic rock.

WHERE: BOK Center, 200 S. Denver Ave.

FOR MORE: bokcenter.com

> 6/9, CLINT BLACK

Country music star Clint Black will perform some of his many hits at Hard Rock Live this summer. Black has had 13 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country chart, including “When I Said I Do,” which had crossover success. WHERE: Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa, 777 W. Cherokee St., Catoosa FOR MORE: hardrockcasinotulsa.com

8.

1. Roll of toilet paper

2. “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)”

3. 1978

4. Eric Clapton

5. Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson

6. 911 system

7. Mayfest

Four: June 20, 1972; March 1 and March 2, 1974; and July 4, 1976

9. Cain’s Ballroom

10. Ranch House Restaurant (currently Freeway Café), 1547 E. Third St.

COURTESY, DRAGER CREATIVE

Hannah Bonnett portrays Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde – The Musical.”

WARRENCLINICURGENTCARE

Foradultsandchildrenwithaminorillnessorinjury,visit saintfrancis.com/urgentcare toselectatimeandcliniclocation tovisit,orchooseavirtualvisitonline.

TULSA

SpringerBuilding

6160SouthYaleAvenue

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TulsaHills

7858SouthOlympiaAvenue

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SouthMemorial

10506SouthMemorialDrive

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SANDSPRINGS

102SouthMainStreet

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BROKENARROW

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OWASSO

11610North137thEastAvenue (Hwy169and116th StreetNorth) 918-928-4180

URGENTCAREHOURS FORIN-OFFICEVISITS:

Monday–Friday:8:00a.m.–8:00p.m.

Saturday:10:00a.m.–6:00p.m. 8:00a.m.–8:00p.m. (Springerlocationonly)

Sunday:10:00a.m.–6:00p.m.

VIRTUALURGENTCARE: Visitsaintfrancis.com/urgentcare toscheduleavirtualurgentcare visit24/7/365.

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