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PrintOklahoma’s rock history
The state's music heroes in one book.
Like me, you don’t have to be an indigenous rock ’n’ roll fanatic to enjoy “Another Hot Oklahoma Night: A Rock & Roll Story” ($29.95), a coffee table-sized book complied by the Oklahoma History Center. All that’s required is a love of music and an appreciation of our state’s roots.
This compilation of 16 essays by Oklahoma’s music heroes is extraordinary. Last Feb. 16 at the Ida Red Boutique in Brookside, 16 authors (including John Wooley) gathered to sign copies of this recently published anthology.
One of the essays, “The Farm” by John Cooper, intrigues. Cooper is a vocalist and mandolin player for the Red Dirt Rangers. In the countryside west of Stillwater blossomed a breeding ground for musicians in the ’80s called The Farm. Here musicians gathered, jammed and made history. “Their sound is heard in every Jimmy LaFave song, Stoney LaRue show and Garth Brooks record,” the essay notes. The Farm burned down in 2003, but the music born there rages on.
The other essays are also engaging. Angie Devore-Green — who, with her husband, Tom Green, founded Dfest — writes about the beginnings of this musical extravaganza in the early 2000s. Her essay is the last in the book, rightfully so for this is the new wave of music and fans — 60,000 spectators listened to 150 bands last summer in the Blue Dome District. At the signing, she cradled her newborn baby while she autographed books — the next generation ensures that the Tulsa Sound lives on.
This is a book chock full of visual memorabilia, ticket stubs, LP label designs and radio logos that only the Oklahoma History Center could have amassed. If you attended the Eric Clapton performance at the BOK, you want this book.
