Oklahoma Bluesman D.C. Minner Dies at 73
D.C. Minner
D.C. Minner played the blues with the same passion that he brought to running his Dusk ‘Til Dawn Blues Festival, and those who heard him play guitar remember a man with a big heart and endless determination.
“He had such a soulful feel, and you can’t separate his vocals from his playing,” said Jim Johnson, program director at KGOU and host of the station’s weekend blues programming. “He was the full package.”
Minner, who founded and operated the Dusk ‘Til Dawn Blues Festival in Rentiesville for 17 years, died Tuesday. He was 73.
Born in 1935 in Rentiesville, Minner and his wife, bassist Selby Minner, founded the Down Home Blues Club in 1989 at his grandmother’s former home, where she sold whiskey and homebrewed choc beer to local residents. In 2005, Minner said that his grandmother’s do-it-yourself philosophy provided the building blocks for his life’s work.
“She said anything you like, you should learn how to do yourself,” Minner told The Oklahoman. “That doesn’t mean you have to cook every sweet potato pie yourself, but you need to be able to do it yourself.”
Minner was a respected sideman who played bass for Bo Diddley, Freddie King and Chuck Berry while living in California. But when he returned home, he became a blues educator as well as entertainer. D.C. and Selby Minner created the Blues in the Schools program through the Oklahoma Arts Council, performing music in classrooms and talking to students about the music. The Minners won both a W.C. Handy Award and the Blues Foundation’s Keeping the Blues Alive Award for their efforts. Minner was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 1999.
“D.C. Minner had so many accomplishments in the world of the blues, but I most remember him as a gentle man that loved blues music, and loved spreading his music to everyone around him, especially children,” said Joann McCarty, president of the Oklahoma Blues Society.
Johnson said that Minner, who had faced several illnesses and underwent dialysis, would often manage his festival via walkie talkie from his bed.
“He was such a wise man, a gentleman,” Johnson said. “He was a just a sage, you know?”
Services are pending at Ragsdale Funeral Center in Muskogee.
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