Tulsa Rocks! How a Massive Music Scene has Brought Downtown Back to Life
Jack White and the Flaming Lips pick up where Woody Guthrie left off
Ringo Starr is looking me straight in the eye.
“Today,” he says, “I’m going to teach you the boom-chack beat.”
I’m sitting at an electronic drum kit at the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa’s Brady Arts District. Gawping at the video screen, and following Ringo’s instructions to the letter, I find that the boom-chack beat is actually pretty simple to follow. I could easily have been a Beatle, I think to myself.
Setting my sticks aside for a moment, I walk around the museum’s newly opened Beatles exhibition. Among the memorabilia, I come across a little plexiglass box, containing what looks like a postage stamp, or perhaps a tiny love letter. On closer inspection, it turns out to be the set list George Harrison attached to his guitar during the band’s 1964 US tour. You can hardly blame him for needing a crib sheet; all that screaming must’ve made it hard to concentrate.
The Beatles retrospective is open until May 25th, but the permanent exhibition next door is the main event. Over the course of his tumultuous career, legendary Oklahoma folk singer and activist Woody Guthrie wrote lyrics to more than 3,000 songs — and they’re all stored here, in the vault at The Woody Guthrie Center in downtown Tulsa. The exhibit is large and wide-ranging. There are lots of examples of Woody’s kooky cartoon artwork; his neat, hand-written lyric sheets; and a touch-screen exhibit outlining his extensive travels across North America. A couple of his acoustic guitars are on display, too; plus a violin with the words ‘THIS MACHINE KILLED 10 FASCISTS’ scratched into its battered old body.
“We’ve had a lot of interesting people come here since we opened two years ago,” says WGC director Deana McCloud. “Hillary Clinton… Jeff Tweedy… Jack White. Jack came to see the place when he opened his tour at Cain’s Ballroom last year. People get very moved when they see that Woody’s legacy is going to continue here in Tulsa.”
The Woody Guthrie Center is part of a project aimed at revitalizing the Brady Arts District and funded, for the most part, by billionaire philanthropist George Kaiser. In recent years, music venues have popped up all over the neighborhood: there’s a large hall at the Woody Guthrie Center Theatre; an outside stage at Guthrie Green directly opposite the museum; and a 20,000 capacity arena, the BOK Center, just a few blocks away.
Celebrating its third anniversary this year, The Center Of The Universe Festival continues to gather steam, whilst the monthly Blue Dome Music Series attracts music lovers from far and wide.
“Honestly,” says Deana, “if you came down to The Arts District five years ago, it was pretty creepy. You went to a show in the evening, and when you left you went straight to your car. It was like a zombie apocalypse. Now there are families walking around, couples hanging out everywhere. It’s wonderful.”
“Isn’t it funny that The Woody Guthrie Center has brought so much positive change to Tulsa?” I ask Deana. “Woody was a Socialist, after all. And Oklahoma has a reputation for being pretty conservative.”
“Michael Moore said more or less the same thing at the Woody Guthrie awards ceremony last year,” she grins. “But, you know, Woody defied labels. In his diaries, he describes himself as a ‘commonist’. He believed that nobody should be left out on account of their religion or their race.”
(One can safely assume that Tulsa’s founding father, Tate Brady, would not have shared Woody’s views on race and religion. An active member of the Klu Klux Klan, Brady served as a night watchman at the 1921 Tulsa race riots, in which an estimated 10,000 African Americans lost their homes.)
Tulsa’s legendary music venue, Cain’s Ballroom, was originally built by Brady to house his prodigious automobile collection. The building was taken over by Madison W. Cain in 1930, and later became the base for Bob Wills’ country music radio station. Since then it has hosted a huge array of artists, including Muddy Waters, J.J. Cale and Willie Nelson; as well as modern acts like The Killers, Beach House and Jack White. The venue has a special place in punk rock history, too: The Sex Pistols played here for the penultimate date of their US tour.
I went to Cain’s Ballroom to talk to the owners, Chad and Hunter Rodgers. “We’re definitely seeing a lot of changes in The Brady District,” said Chad. “When we bought the place in 2002, the neighborhood was dead. There was a dive bar and a Mexican restaurant, and that was it. Last year, Pollstar ranked us number 23 in the world for ticket sales. I would never have guessed that would happen when we started here.”
And what about The Sex Pistols? I asked Chad. Have they left their mark on Cain’s?
“Look behind you, “ he said.
Peering at the wall, I see a hole the size and shape of a fist.
“Sid Vicious did that in 1978. So, yeah, I guess they left their mark.”
Later that afternoon, I caught up with Derek Brown, guitar and keyboard player for The Flaming Lips. He was an intern at The Cain’s Ballroom before setting up his own booking agency in Oklahoma City.
“Cain’s is really where I learned about show promotion,” said Derek. “I saw how the business worked first hand, and that was a huge education for me. The list of people who’ve played there is just incredible. It’s the only place left standing that The Sex Pistols played. That means a lot to some artists”
“Another venue you should definitely check out is Soundpony,” he said. “My wife and I used to have a band called Crocodile. We played there a lot — and we loved it.”
I took Derek’s advice and visited Soundpony that very same evening. The place was packed, the drinks were cheap, and the music — courtesy of Bitchcraft — was very, very loud. I was having so much fun I didn’t want to leave. But I was keen to catch local blues musician, Paul Benjaman, at The Fur Shop, so I finished my drink and headed up the street.
“Have you been to The Colony yet?” said Paul, after what turned out to be a mesmerizing acoustic show. “Eric Clapton and George Harrison used to play there when they were hanging out with Leon Russell here in town. Apparently, one night Clapton ended up getting so hammered, one of the door ladies carried him out and threw him in a dumpster.”
I’m not sure which image I prefer: Woody Guthrie killing fascists with his violin, Sid Vicious punching a hole in the wall of an Oklahoma ballroom, or Eric Clapton lying dead drunk in a dumpster. I love you, Tulsa. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again soon.
Photography by Shane Bevel
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