Jimmy Wayne
Today’s featured event:
TULSA - Hear country singer-songwriter Jimmy Wayne, along with fellow singer-songwriters Jamey Johnson and Randy Houser, at 8 p.m. today at Cain’s Ballroom, 423 N Main. Doors open at 7 p.m.
For more information, go to www.cainsballroom.com.
For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
-BAM
Today’s “What to do in Oklahoma” event, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals’ concert at Tulsa’s Brady Theater, has been postponed due to illness, according to the Brady Theater Web site.
The site doesn’t specify who is sick.
People who have bought tickets should hold onto them for the rescheduled date.
For more information, go to www.bradytheater.com.
-BAM
The song that has been stuck in my brain the most this afternoon:
- “This of Me,” Oklahoma City singer-songwriter Lisa Curl.
This local singer-songwriter is a special education teacher by day. But in the evenings, she uses her soulful voice and skillful songwriting to weave some evocative music from threads of blues, country and jazz.
Curl is playing at 6 p.m. today at Untitled Artspace, One NE Third, as part of their Friday Faction series. If you hurry, you just might catch her.
She also will be performing at Full Circle Bookstore and Mickey Mantle’s Steakhouse in the coming weeks.
Learn more about Curl, and even better, listen to her music, at http://www.myspace.com/lisacurl.
-BAM
The song that has been in my head the most this week:
- “Der Kommissar,” After the Fire, 1982 single.
I’m blaming this week’s FFT on my colleague Matt Price, who earlier this week introduced me to the video of the hilarious literal version of A-HA!’s “Take on Me.” I posted it here on the blog earlier this week. (If you missed it, click here.)
Apparently, that song opened the floodgates of my memory and in flowed a virtual tsunami of 1980s New Wave pop songs. But this cover of Falco’s German-language song has been the most pervasive of them all.
According to Wikipedia, the After the Fire English-language translation of “Der Kommissar” was a Top 5 hit in the U.S. in 1982. That’s probably because you can never get this catchy song out of your head.
I have no idea how I’m going to get rid of this song. All those “chas” are like little auditory prickles sticking in my gray matter.
At least I have the satisifaction of putting it all your heads now, especially if you’ve decided to watch the video, posted her courtesy YouTube. Click on that, and you’re guaranteed to be singing “Don’t turn around” for the foreseeable future.
-BAM
Up-and-coming country singer Jason Meadows’s song “Ride It Out” has been chosen as the official theme song for Championship Bull Riding.
“Ride It Out” will be featured on CBR’s show on the RFD-TV cable station and at all their events for the rest of 2008 and 2009.
According to a news release, the song also will be available for download exlusively on www.CBRbull.com.
CBR Chief Executive Officer Wes Bruce said in the release, “CBR is excited about our newrelationship with Jason Meadows and the song ‘Ride It Out.’ What a great song! It depicts the challenge that a bullrider faces each time he tries to ride an 1,800-pound bull intent on throwing him off. I know our fans will love it.”
Meadows grew up in Calera and broke out on the TV show “Nashville Star.”
For more about him, go to www.jasonmeadows.com.
-BAM
Up-and-coming country rocker Shawna Russell of Okemah, Oklahoma, is profiled in a new artist “Spotlight” feature in the October/November edition of CMA Close Up magazine, according to a news release.
The added attention comes after the Country Music Association named her one of their “Who New to Watch in 2008″ artists earlier this year, and it coincides with her emerging success on the heels of two radio singles from her critically acclaimed debut CD, “Goddess.”
The CMA Close Up feature says “‘Goddess,’ Shawna Russell’s debut album on Way Out West Records, wraps mainstream pop, romantic balladry and high-impact rock ‘n’ roll into a pure country package. The Oklahoma native’s singing echoes Martina McBride, Stevie Nicks or Bonnie Raitt, depending on how hard the drums drive or the power chords ring.”
The “Spotlight” focuses on her musical early years, when Russell first sang in public at age 7 and co-led a band with her father, Keith, at age 13, before going on the road full-time at 17 with her uncle Tim Russell’s band, Way Out West. She performed at several of the top clubs in America and spent 3 years fronting for fellow Okie and Garth Brooks protégé Ty England.
In 2007, Russell and her uncle/producer, Tim Russell, began work on her debut album and she and her family band permanently put her name out front.
Working with Ted Curtis at Upstairs Productions Studio, and armed with demos of Russell’s captivating voice, they enticed some of the industry’s top musicians and engineers to come to Oklahoma City to make Russell’s debut album.
Her current single “Should’ve Been Born With Wheels” is gaining fast traction at Mainstream and Texas radio.
Russell’s CMA Close Up “Spotlight” closes with a glowing endorsement for her: “With her name on the marquee now, and a glittering future ahead, Russell can take pride for launching her catalog with this powerful debut.”
- BAM
Oklahoma country star Blake Shelton describes “She Wouldn’t Be Gone,” the lead single from his upcoming album “Startin’ Fires” as a vocal challenge with a rich melody.
“This is one of the coolest songs I’ve ever cut as far as being unique and from a fresh place,” Shelton says in a news release. ”I love to sing songs about regret - always have - and mistakes you make along the way. It’s extremely emotional and has a little different slant on things the guy could have done right along the way.”
The enthusiastic response to the album prompted the Ada native/Tishomingo resident’s label, Warner Bros. Records, to move the release date from January to Nov. 18.
Check out the cover art for the album, shown above.
-BAM
Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips signs a guitar held by his manager, Scott Booker, at the news conference Thursday touting the creation of the University of Central Oklahoma’s Academy of Contemporary Music. Booker will head up the school, set to open in fall 2009. (Photo by Jaconna Aguirre/The Oklahoman)
The University of Central Oklahoma’s plan to open a school of rock, a U.S. version of England’s Academy of Contemporary Music, in Bricktown has created an international buzz.
Not surprisingly, one of the school’s big boosters is Wayne Coyne, frontman of Oklahoma City-based alt-rock heroes the Flaming Lips.
Read more about this awesome new development on the Oklahoma music scene in this story by The Oklahoman’s intrepid education reporter Susan Simpson.
-BAM
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Country
Darius Rucker “Learn to Live” (Capitol Nashville)
With the tendency of Top 40 stations to play the same songs ad nauseam, anyone who listened to pop radio in 1995 has Hootie & the Blowfish’s “Hold My Hand” permanently etched on their gray matter.
The pop band’s ubiquitous ’90s success looms over former frontman Darius Rucker’s first country album. He isn’t totally successful in shedding the shadow of his musical past, but the South Carolina native adeptly hops genres with “Learn to Live.”
He comes across too strong with the first two tracks, “Forever Road” and “All I Want,” laying the fiddles, banjos and steel guitars on thick. For people who last heard the singer-songwriter crooning “Only Wanna Be With You,” listening to Rucker twanging it up seems a bit incongruous.
But the album recovers with the effective ballad “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It.” Rucker’s baritone exudes regret on the lead single, a No. 1 hit that has propelled the album to the top of the charts.
The album’s strengths are country-pop tracks with big hooks. Rucker excels at cheery loves songs “Be Wary of a Woman” and “History in the Making” and inspirational fare like “While I Still Got Time” and the title track.
But he saves his strongest performance for “I Hope They Get to Me in Time,” a harrowing tale about an accident victim watching his life flash before his eyes.
- BAM
Stephanie Gonzales, a freshman trumpet player in OU’s Pride of Oklahoma marching band.
The University of Oklahoma’s Pride of Oklahoma marching band has a big weekend planned in honor of this weekend’s OU-Texas game.
My friend, OU freshman trumpet player Stephanie Gonzales, says the band is playing and rehearsing at 9:30 this morning at Duncan High School and then continuing the long bus ride deep into the heart of Texas.
The band will be in Grapevine’s Colleyville Stadium at 7:30 tonight and will make an appearance afterward for OU alumni.
On Saturday, the band will play a pregame concert at 9:15 a.m. at the Dallas Fair Park Coliseum near the Cotton Bowl. The band then will march into the stadium before the 11 a.m. kickoff.
After the game, the band’s reward for its hard work will be a jaunt through the Texas State Fair before heading back to Norman.
Good luck to Steph and the rest of the band. And good luck to all Oklahomans who will be in Texas this weekend.
Sorry, guys, as an Oklahoma State alum and fan, that’s about as close as I can get to saying “Go Sooners, beat Texas.”
-BAM
