Oklahoma music stars react online to Whitney Houston’s death
Whitney Houston (AP file)
As the sad news of Whitney Houston’s death Saturday in Beverly Hills, Calif., spread over the Internet, several musical talents with Oklahoma ties paid tribute to the former superstar on Twitter and Facebook:
Greyson Chance, Edmond-based singer/songwriter/pianist (on Twitter @GreysonChance):
RIP Whitney Houston. So devastating..she was a true performer. #Legend
Reba McEntire, superstar singer/actress who hails from Chockie (on Twitter @Reba):
Rest in peace, Whitney. (on Saturday)
I do think the Grammys tonight will be a wonderful way to celebrate Whitney’s career while paying tribute to her. (on Sunday before presenting at the Grammys)
Drummer Nathan Followill of Kings of Leon, who have Oklahoma City and Talihina ties (on Twitter @doctorfollowill):
RIP Whitney Houston. So sad.
Drummer Zac Hanson of Tulsa-based trio Hanson (on Twitter at @hansonmusic)
So sad to hear that #whitneyhouston has passed away. What a great voice. Sad day for music. -Z
Charlie Wilson, Tulsa-born R&B star (on Facebook):
Whitney Houston’s voice touched so many generations and lived in the hearts of her fans like a true legend. Her music will continue to live with us for countless generations and she will be truly missed by all of us who had the pleasure of knowing such a beautiful women. You left us too soon.
Country singer Bryan White, who was born in Lawton and raised in Oklahoma City (on Facebook):
Completely moved and deeply saddened at the loss of one of the most iconic voices in modern music. Whitney, you will be sorely missed and never forgotten. Blessings on your family …
Matt Stansberry, Edmond-based singer-songwriter (on Facebook):
So sad to hear about Whitney Houston. I was in LA staying at the same hotel and saw her just yesterday afternoon. So very very sad. I know they will honor her tonight at Clive Davis’s party and Sunday at the Grammys. We lost a legend.
-BAM
John Mellencamp, Arlo Guthrie to headline Tulsa’s Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration in March
Woody Guthrie (AP file)
The L.A.-based Grammy Museum, in conjunction with Woody Guthrie Publications Inc. and the Woody Guthrie Archives, announced today details about their plans to commemorate the life and career of Oklahoma folk music legend Woody Guthrie in Tulsa.
Designed to celebrate Guthrie’s extraordinary body of work and impact on American music, Tulsa’s Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration will take place March 5-11 and will include an exhibition, educational programming, a conference at The University of Tulsa and a tribute concert headlined by John Mellencamp and Guthrie’s son Arlo Guthrie.
Arlo Guthrie (Photo by Bryan Terry, The Oklahoman Archives)
Tickets to the concert, which also will feature The Flaming Lips, Hanson, Rosanne Cash, Del McCoury Band, Old Crow Medicine Show, Tim O’Brien and Jimmy LaFave, will go on sale Saturday, Feb. 4.
Special exhibition
Kicking off the Tulsa celebration is the launch of the new exhibition “Woody at One Hundred: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration 1912-2012,” sponsored by the George Kaiser Family Foundation.
Curated by The Grammy Museum and the Woody Guthrie Archives, the exhibit will open at Gilcrease Museum on Feb. 5 and remain on view through April 29. The exhibition will consist of a broad array of Guthrie’s lyrics, journals, original artwork and ephemera from the Okemah native’s life, according to the announcement.
As part of the special exhibit, Guthrie’s original draft of the alternative American anthem “This Land is Your Land” will be on display for the first time in Oklahoma. Additionally, a week-long series of educational programming, produced by The Grammy Museum, will support the exhibition.
As a special addition to the programming, the cast of the musical “Woody Sez” will perform at Tulsa elementary schools throughout the week.
“We are delighted that Gilcrease Museum has been selected as the venue for the debut of the exhibition celebrating the life and body of work of Woody Guthrie. The exhibition will offer the public its first glimpse into the Guthrie Archives recently acquired by the George Kaiser Family Foundation,” said Duane H. King, Ph.D., Executive Director of Gilcrease Museum, in the announcement.
The George Kaiser Family Foundation, a Tulsa-based charitable organization, purchased the Woody Guthrie Archives in 2011 from Woody Guthrie Publications in New York and plans to create a permanent home for the archives and make Guthrie’s collection available for research and education in downtown Tulsa.
Educational Conference
“Different Shades of Red,” the March 10 University of Tulsa conference, will explore Woody Guthrie’s Oklahoma roots. It will feature three panels, each with three speakers. The panels include “A Culture of Protest,” which examines the political and cultural environment that shaped Guthrie’s views; “Red Dirt Roots,” which considers Guthrie’s musical influences; and “Echoes of Woody,” which addresses Guthrie’s legacy as it pertains to the Dust Bowl and Depression-era Oklahoma.
“For far too long, Woody Guthrie’s contributions have not been fully appreciated in his home state of Oklahoma. Now, 100 years after his birth, we are able to honor his musical legacy, explore his societal contributions and truly appreciate this iconic piece of state – and national – history right here in the Heartland. The University of Tulsa is thrilled to kick off this yearlong celebration of Guthrie’s multifaceted life,” said Brian Hosmer, H.G. Barnard Associate Professor of Western American History at TU, in the announcement.
For more information and to register for the conference, go to www.utulsa.edu/guthrie. Registration is $40 and includes lunch. National radio commentator and bestselling author Jim Hightower will deliver the keynote address. Students may register for $15 and must show a valid ID at check-in.
Tribute concert
The apex of the Tulsa celebration will take place on Saturday evening, March 10, with
John Mellencamp (AP file)
the first installment of “This Land Is Your Land ~ The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration Concert” at the historic Brady Theater. John Mellencamp, Arlo Guthrie, Rosanne Cash, Del McCoury Band, The Flaming Lips, Old Crow Medicine Show, Hanson, Tim O’Brien and Jimmy LaFave will perform classic Woody Guthrie songs at the star-studded event.
Ticket prices range from $45 to $250 and will go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, at www.protixonline.com.
People who register for the March 10 TU educational conference by Friday, Feb. 3, will have a special opportunity to purchase advance tickets to the benefit concert.
“The goal of The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration is not just to pay tribute to Guthrie’s obvious contributions to American music, but to also broaden the national understanding of his cultural impact,” said Grammy Museum Executive Director Bob Santelli in the announcement. “The lineup scheduled for the Brady Theater show in Tulsa speaks volumes about Guthrie’s influence. It’s truly an honor to be producing this all-star event.”
Woody Guthrie was born July 14, 1912, in Okemah. The prolific songwriter, folk musician and crusader for social justice died Oct. 3, 1967, from complications of Huntington’s disease but not before having a vast impact on American music and culture.
The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration is one of the largest and most comprehensive centennial celebrations ever staged for an American music icon. For the most up-to-date information and a complete schedule of events for the nationwide Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration, go to www.woody100.com.
-BAM
Hanson plans to launch MMMHop beer
I promise this is not a joke. Do not check your calendar because this is not April Fool’s Day.
Tulsa music trio Hanson has announced that they are planning to launch a beer based on their 1997 global smash hit “MMMBop.”
Brothers Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson are developing an India Pale Ale they plan to release next year under the name MMMHop, reports NewsOK.com.
The group made the announcement while speaking Monday night at Oxford University Union in Oxford, England.
“We of course make records, they are fundamental to what we do, but we wanted to create a brand so that our fans have a greater experience,” Zac Hanson reportedly said.
“What is vital is that Hanson merchandise is quality and not made solely with the purpose of profit. We have a board game and even a record player to play our last record on, but we will never make dolls, lunch boxes or toothbrushes that play our songs for example.
“It’s vital our fans have trust in everything Hanson do. In fact we are soon going to be selling our own beer, I’m not even joking. MMMHop IPA anyone?”
Although many people remember the group as cute long-haired teenagers, all three brothers are now married with children and well past the legal drinking age: Taylor is 28, Isaac, 31, and Zac, 26.
-BAM
Video: LookatOKC’s “Got It Covered” – Jabee samples Hanson’s “MMMBop”
My excellent colleagues George Lang and Kyle Roberts, with the help of our own Dave Morris, continue their latest video series for LOOKatOKC called “Got It Covered.” In the fourth installment, rapper Jabee samples Tulsa sibling trio Hanson’s worldwide 1997 smash “MMMBop.”
“Got It Covered” will feature 12 local musicians covering classic songs by Oklahoma artists. The series will last for 12 weeks and will shoot at 7 p.m. each Thursday at Saints, 715 NW 16 in the Plaza District. The pub is sponsoring the series.
Audiences are encouraged to show up 30 minutes before taping to enjoy each performance. Each video will debut the following Monday.
The singers, bands and musicians participating in the series select one of 12 songs to perform — first come, first served. The last musician to schedule a performance has to play the last song on the list, which includes signature songs from The Flaming Lips, Reba McEntire, the GAP Band, Leon Russell, Color Me Badd and other famed Oklahoma music stars. To see the full list, go to http://lookatokc.newsok.com/got-it-covered.
The next “Got It Covered” performance will be at 7 p.m. this Thursday at Saints. O’Fidelis will be performing Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex you Up”
-BAM
Video: LookatOKC’s “Got It Covered” – Justin Witte plays Wanda Jackson’s “Fujiyama Mama”
My excellent colleagues George Lang and Kyle Roberts have launched a new video series for LOOKatOKC called “Got It Covered.” In the third installment, Justin Witte performs a horn-tastic cover of Oklahoma rockabilly legend Wanda Jackson’s hit “Fujiyama Mama”
“Got It Covered” will feature 12 local musicians covering classic songs by Oklahoma artists. The series will last for 12 weeks and will shoot at 7 p.m. each Thursday at Saints, 715 NW 16 in the Plaza District. The pub is sponsoring the series.
Audiences are encouraged to show up 30 minutes before taping to enjoy each performance. Each video will debut the following Monday.
The singers, bands and musicians participating in the series select one of 12 songs to perform — first come, first served. The last musician to schedule a performance has to play the last song on the list, which includes signature songs from The Flaming Lips, Reba McEntire, the GAP Band, Leon Russell, Color Me Badd and other famed Oklahoma music stars. To see the full list, go to http://lookatokc.newsok.com/got-it-covered.
The next “Got It Covered” performance will be at 7 p.m. this Thursday at Saints, Jabee performing Hanson’s “MmmBop.”
-BAM
Video: Denver Duncan launches LookatOKC’s “Got It Covered” series with Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”
My excellent colleagues George Lang and Kyle Roberts have launched a new video series for LOOKatOKC called “Got It Covered.”
“Got It Covered” will feature 12 local musicians covering classic songs by Oklahoma artists. The series will last for 12 weeks and will shoot at 7 p.m. each Thursday at Saints, 715 NW 16 in the Plaza District. The pub is sponsoring the series.
Audiences are encouraged to show up 30 minutes before taping to enjoy each performance. Each video will debut the following Monday.
The singers, bands and musicians participating in the series select one of 12 songs to perform — first come, first served. The last musician to schedule a performance has to play the last song on the list, which includes signature songs from The Flaming Lips, Reba McEntire, Hanson, the GAP Band, Leon Russell, Wanda Jackson, Color Me Badd and other famed Oklahoma music stars. To see the full list, go to http://lookatokc.newsok.com/got-it-covered.
The next “Got It Covered” performance will be at 7 p.m. this Thursday at Saints, with Chase Kerby performing J.J. Cale’s “Cocaine.”
-BAM
What to do in Oklahoma on Sept. 20, 2011: Hear Hanson play a hometown show at Cain’s Ballroom
Today’s featured event:
TULSA – Hear Tulsa sibling trio Hanson play a hometown show at 8 tonight at Cain’s Ballroom, 423 N Main. The opener will be Meiko. Doors will open at 7 p.m.
For more information, go to www.cainsballroom.com.
For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
-BAM
Video: Hanson covers Weezer’s “Troublemaker”
Between Monday’s Labor Day holiday and my two-day jaunt to Dallas to check out Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen’s new film “The Way,” I totally missed that Tulsa trio Hanson turned in a nifty cover of Weezer’s 2006 hit “Troublemaker” for this week’s installment of Billboard.com’s Mashup Mondays.
“Weezer’s an amazing band. … What I’ve always admired is the fact that they really have an identifiable thing going, which is sort-of-pop songs — but heavy,” singer/musician Taylor Hanson told Billboard.com. “‘Troublemaker’ is such a cool attitude-ridden track.”
Although the Hanson brothers are best known for their 1997 smash “MMMBop,” they continue to make great music and build a faithful fan following. Hanson’s latest album, “Shout It Out,” reached No. 2 on the Billboard Top Independent Albums chart and made my top 10 list for 2010. The group is on a world tour that will include a hometown show Sept. 20 at Cain’s Ballroom, along with dates in South America and Europe. In addition, the band made a cameo in Katy Perry’s music video “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).” (Perry has her own Tulsa show coming up on Sept. 17 at the BOK Center.)
But you can’t please everybody, and “MMMBop” recently was listed as the No. 6 worst song of the ’90s in a Rolling Stone readers’ poll, although the mag is nice enough to note that, “Many see Hanson as a one-hit wonder band, but their fan base has remained incredibly loyal and they continue to play big shows.” Oh, well, haters gonna hate, as the saying goes, especially when you’re searching for a scapegoat for the ’90s teen-pop revival that brought us N’Sync, Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls.
-BAM
Wednesday Video Spotlight: Hanson talks growing with their fans, family-band relations, favorite movies and more
Hanson performed at England’s V Festival 2011 over the weekend, and the Tulsa sibling trio sat down backstage for a few interviews.
Isaac, Zac and Taylor chatted with various reporters about their favorite movies and musicians, memorable onstage and wardrobe mishaps, their bouncy 2010 album “Shout It Out” (which made my top 10 of ’10) and the way many of their fans have grown up with them since their “MMMBop” days.
Perhaps it was the recent news that British singer Liam Gallagher of Oasis is suing his estranged brother and former bandmate, Noel, but many of the reporters quizzed the Hansons about how they get along as a band of brothers and if they’ve ever had any epic family meltdowns. From the sounds of these interviews, it seems that the affable Oklahoma brothers still have strong family ties after nearly two decades of making music together.
Hanson will play a hometown show on their “Musical Ride Tour” Sept. 20 at Cain’s Ballroom, 423 N Main. For more information, go to www.cainsballroom.com.
-BAM
Isaac Hanson criticizes Kings of Leon, documentary director Stephen Mitchell confident KOL will work out issues after tour cancellation
Kings of Leon
In a potential battle of family bands with Oklahoma ties, Isaac Hanson of Tulsa-based brother trio Hanson has taken Kings of Leon to task for letting down their fans.
As previously reported, Kings of Leon on Aug. 1 canceled their entire U.S. tour after frontman Caleb Followill left the stage halfway through a disastrous July 29 Dallas show during which he complained of the heat and problems with his voice. The band – brothers Caleb (vocals, guitar), Nathan (drums, vocals) and Jared (bass) Followill and first cousin Matthew Followill (lead guitar) – is set to resume touring Sept. 28 in Canada.
Although the official announcement cited Caleb Followill’s “vocal issues and exhaustion,” Jared Followill indicated there might be more to the cancellation, and Isaac Hanson told
Isaac Hanson
WENN he believes that there are underlying attitude issues:
“I have a hard time with musicians who act like p–cks because it just makes me mad. I just sit there and I go, ‘You know what, dude, no matter whether you’re in a band just surviving or you’re in a bus playing stadiums, one way or another you’re still among the rare breed of people that are actually getting paid to do it.’
“If you’re actually making a living doing it, man, pinch yourself every day, because it goes if you don’t love it… and people will eventually get pissed off.
“And I’m gonna call somebody out on it – the Kings of Leon guys are running some risks. They’re irritating people; you can’t do that too much. Eventually the bad boy image affects fans’ willingness to show up. Their fans will get bummed out.
“Everybody has their demons, everyone has their challenges… I’m a bit of a hothead in certain circumstances, but you gotta temper it because your fans are there and they’ve paid good money to see a show, and you gotta bring it. I don’t wash my dirty laundry in public, I do my dirty laundry backstage… I have flipped the bird at a few people that deserved it and told them to go ‘f’ themselves.”
On the night after the band’s Dallas disaster, Jared Followill posted on Twitter @youngfollowill, “I love our fans so much. I know you guys aren’t stupid. I can’t lie. There are problems in our band bigger than not drinking enough Gatorade.”
Isaac Hanson told WENN that if the Kings can’t sort out their problems, they could become an ill-fated family band on par with Oasis:
“They got that too and it hurt them ultimately, because it made it hard for people to have a lot of fun at their shows – because they were worried that Noel (Gallagher) was gonna get pissed off (and walk off)… But I don’t think that they (Oasis) necessarily didn’t finish shows.”
Stephen Mitchell (The Oklahoman Archives)
But Stephen Mitchell, director of the KOL documentary “Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon,” told MTV News that while he hasn’t spoken to the band since they scrapped their tour, he’s not worried about the band’s future:
“It’s a fabric of the band, the roots of the band, they’re family, and I think that’s a reason that they’ve been able to find a common ground to stick together and make five albums over, what, eight-plus years?” he said. “That’s really hard to do. There’s not many bands making two albums, let alone five, during that time … and I’m not a band spokesperson, I can’t speak for them, they make the great music, but I believe in them and I think the family side of it will be the same reason we end up seeing more great shows and hearing more great albums from them in the future.”
Even Jared Followill’s Twitter implications don’t have Mitchell fretting about his musical pals, the filmmaker told MTV News:
“I think some of the draw to these guys is that they are brothers and cousins; there’s a magnetism to that. … They say anything and everything to each other, and it is how they sort of work things out internally; they’re very vocal. And I had to learn a long time ago that they’re not yelling at each other, they’re just communicating, and it’s loud. And sometimes the stuff they say to each other … you’ve got to have some thick skin to be walking around with those guys.”
Brothers Caleb, Nathan and Jared Followill spent their childhood traveling the Bible Belt between Oklahoma and Tennessee with their itinerant Pentecostal preacher father, Leon. Despite their strict upbringing, they formed the rock band Kings of Leon in 1999 with their cousin, Matthew Followill.
Caleb and Jared were both born in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., while Nathan and Matthew were born in Oklahoma City. The band is now based in Tennessee, but the group received in spring the Rising Star Award from the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.
Their unusual upbringing and rise to musical stardom is the subject of the new documentary “Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon,” which premiered at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival and opened Oklahoma City’s deadCenter Film Festival. The rock doc will premiere at 9 p.m. Sunday on Showtime and air repeatedly through the end of August on Showtime, Showtime Showcase and Sho 2.
-BAM
