About the artist
A little about me.
Where am I at now? Well, Currently, I was signed with a label, (TMG) Tate Music Group, out of Mustang Oklahoma, in which I signed with them in September of 2011. My first album is called: {Call of the Honky Tonks} with 8 songs on the CD. Between the studio time, the production and photo shoots, Commercials, radio time, email traffic, gigs, and marketing, it keeps you pretty busy with the music. Sometimes I wonder, “How did I get where I am at now?” Well, if you really want to know and have about 5 minutes of reading time, here is the answer to that question.
I remember being 8 years old; I was watching my father playing his guitar with his band. It was the “Gene Granville Band”. I wanted so bad to be able to play that guitar like my father did. I was messing around with dad’s guitar, and he told me this: “Son, I will teach you 3 cords, and after that, if you really want to be a musician and be good at it, you’re going to have to learn the rest on your own.” I said “Ok”, and then dad taught me 3 cords. G, C, and D I stayed with it for 4 years learning and watching his every move, staying right with him in the studios, with bands, or on TV. At the age of 12, I was playing my first professional gig in Guthrie Oklahoma with Don Long and the Tagalongs. Dad was on steel guitar and I was on drums. Pretty young to be on a bandstand. But I did, and have loved it and been with it every since.
For the last 36 years or so, I have played and appeared all over the country at one time or another. I have held most every position in a band and have run a few spotlights as well. I can’t help it, I just love to make music and make songs. Whether it is singing someone else’s songs or my own, it just gives me a full feeling when I am on a stage entertaining or in a studio.
My first gig was as I said earlier, with Don Long and the Tagalongs. I worked with this band from Blackwell Oklahoma to Stillwater to the Cimarron Ballroom in Oklahoma City. Me and my dad would load up our equipment and off down the road we would go. After each gig we worked, we always ended up at the Hilltop Café in Guthrie Oklahoma, and eat biscuits and gravy before heading home. I played with dad’s band, Jack Daniels, Kern River, and Wagon Wheel for about 5 years. I went from drums to Bass guitar to Acoustic most of the time, until I started playing pretty steady at the VFW dance halls. It was there that I was just watching a band my father was sitting in with. The woman who was running the band was suppose to be someone of importance, in which she was very very good with her voice. Somehow, I was asked to come up and sing a few songs and play the bass in which I did. From that moment on, I played bass for her band and helped on the vocal side of the house. It was later that I realized that “the woman” was Wanda Jackson.
A year later, I was giving guitar lessons in high school, and playing every Friday night at the American Legion in a show that had a clown entertainer that would come up and sing with the house band. Everyone that was a musician or a vocalist was coming all the way from Del City to sing with the show. It was fun seeing all the up and coming artists, and being a part of the show. My dad was the steel guitar player for them. I believe it was called the Guthrie Opra Show.
In high school, I was always asked to perform in the drama concerts, and sing for one occasion or another. I played trumpet and baritone in the high school band, but that just wasn’t my kind of music. I love the country live band side of the house.
At 17, I joined the U.S. Army infantry, and shipped off to Germany. While in Germany from 1983 to 1985 on my first tour of duty, I played with some bands on the European Circuit and at some rodeo chapters. One of the bands I got to play with was DAKOTA. It was really fun, our favorite song to play and sing then was “Jerry Reeds – East Bound and Down”. After leaving Germany, I was stationed at Fort Hood Texas, where I played in a few more bands. I worked “Maggie Maes” and the “Dallas Night Clubs” in Austin Texas, and worked a club in Dallas called the “Birds Nest”. Most of the musicians I was working with were pretty good, but never had any real good band names. So, I jumped around from band to band, just working the music and honing in my musical skills. We always had a bunch of soldiers at my house jamming instruments and playing music.
Sometimes, while at Fort Hood, I would go home on leave and sit in with the band my dad was playing with, and on one of those occasions, I was asked to set in and play bass with a band that was performing outside. So, not knowing who I was playing with, I agreed and jumped up on stage and the band kicked off “Tulsa Time”. I played that bass and sang my lungs out on that song. After the song was over, I jumped back down off of the stage and “Don Williams came out and started singing”. Talk about pumped. I could not believe that I was on the same stage as Don Williams was. Shortly after leaving Fort Hood Texas, I came back home for a while and was helping my folks with running the caretaker operations of the Guthrie Oklahoma Fairgrounds and Rodeo. This is where I met Mr. Ernest Tubb. Mr. Tubb was the politest man I had ever met, and I helped his crew set up at the fairgrounds for his show. I got to play bass on a song with him. That was the most excited I had ever been in my life at that time.
I got stationed at Fort Chaffee for a few years as an instructor for the NCO academy and while there, I put together my own band “High Lonesome”. We worked several clubs in Arkansas and Oklahoma to include the “Cadillac Ranch” in Pocola where I booked with Jerry Staggs, and I got picked up at the Traditional Crossroads Club in Fort Smith. Bob White, “who was a steal guitar hall of fame player, and Hank Thompsons steal guitar player” owned the club and asked me if I was interested in working in his house band “Cross Country”. I agreed and about a year later found myself running Bob’s band for him. I had to make a trip to Colorado on a military exercise during this time and while in Colorado Springs, I played with a band at Country USA. When I got back to town, Bob asked me if I had fun playing with his buddies at Country USA before I even told him I had played there. He laughed at me and said that his friends in Colorado had emailed him and told him they were going to steal me and keep me in their band. I laughed too and told Bob; I had fun, but was already dedicated to the Crossroads. There were so many great musicians that came in to play there it was incredible.
I met and worked with all kinds of musicians on and off the road. I worked for Bob for 5 years, 6 nights a week, until Bob had a heart attack, then the club closed down. The day after the club closed down, Doye Elmore, owner of the Cactus Club in Fort Smith, asked me to work for him in his house band “Midland Express”. I agreed and worked for Doye another 4 years, 6 nights a week. It was here at this club that I got to play with Lonestar. I especially liked Lee, the fiddle player. He was a great musician and couldn’t read a bit of music. I got to meet and work with several more musicians and bands while working for Doye too. I had worked with Doye Elmore and his bands off and on for about 10 years total, but the last 4 years were hired in. I ran Doyes bands for the last two years and worked with Bryan Tucker, Gary Johnson, Von Smith, Dayton Waters, Mike Johnson, Bubby Patterson, Robert Wright, Jimmy Lee, Terry Flynn, Wesley Trout, just to name a few.
After 6 years in Germany, and 11 years of duty stateside and a few combat tours in Iraq, I got stationed at Fort Chaffee Arkansas again, towards the end of my military career.
Shortly after the Doye sold the Cactus Club, I move on to start my own band “Silent Thunder”. We worked with several musicians here and there but never could get just the right people at the same time. So, I worked with a local band “Route 4”, and helped them get into the Casino Circuits. It was at the Choctaw Casino in Pocola Oklahoma, where I met Jim Loveless. Jim had asked me to sit in with his band “Midwestern Playboys” in Subiaco Arkansas, in which I did. From then on, I was best friends with Jim. We had the same background, the same styles, the same interests, and the same thing in mind. We wanted to put together a band with the sights of Casino action. We had both played several casinos before with other bands, and new if we just got the right people, we could land a good job working the music. Sure enough, a year later, we found Kenny Morris, whom I had played with before in another band. Kenny was Joe Nichole’s drummer when Joe was starting to make it big. I called Von Smith “Carrie Underwood’s lead guitar player”, whom I had worked with of and on for over 10 years, and Silent Thunder was reborn.
My band “Silent Thunder” worked all over Arkansas, Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma. We worked the traditional Painted Stallion in Joplin Mo, the Horseshoe in Joplin, and Silverado’s in Joplin. We also booked the Cowboy Palace in Neosho, did a few gigs in Eldon and Osage Beach Mo. From Mountain Home Arkansas at the “Club Fox” to Ozark, to Altus, to Dardanelle, to Morrilton, all across the Oklahoma border from Pocola to Sallisaw, to Norman Oklahoma at the Riverwind Casino. Then we started with Vega Texas, on the New Mexico border at the traditional “Tom Henry Green Barn”. That was a really nice place.
Some of the musicians or bands I have worked with: Steel Guitar Hall of Fame “Bob White”, Cedar Creek, Lonestar Band, Cross Country, High Lonesome, Saddle Horn, E.T. and the Texas Trubadoors, Jack Daniels, Western Justice, Rebel Heart, Don Long and the Tagalongs, South Ridge, Single Tree, Cripple Creek, Osage River, Wagon Wheel, Bounty Hunter, Lovelace Brothers, Midwestern Playboys, etc…..“Man, there are so many, it is hard to think of them all. Here are some names to go along with the bands. Let me see: Jim Loveless, Bobby Barnett, Ernest Tubb, J.C. Pope, Donny Hamilton, Wanda Jackson, Jenna Ray, Don Williams {Dayton Waters}, Jim James, Gene Granville, Kenny Morris, Dale Bates, Terry Flynn, Bryan Tucker, Bubby Paterson, Robert Wright, Gary Johnson, Von Smith, Don Long, Eldon Ferguson, Rick White, Harold Van, Lou Van, Doye Elmore, Jerry Staggs, Ralph Ezell “Shenandoah’s bass player”, Jimmie Lee, Jimmy Doyle, Mike Johnson, Candy Martin, Lee Hays, Dan Sliter, Paul Baker, Richard Hartman, Bryan Crosby, ect…..I have played with lots of good musicians and good bands, some I can’t remember their names, but I remember their faces and their music abilities. I have played with several house bands that were named after the club title. But, it had the word band at the end of the club name…Laugh.”
I have played all over Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Colorado, etc…. and played in Germany too. Several Casino’s “Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole Circuits, VFW’s, Elk’s Lodges, American Legions, Rodeos, Fairgrounds, and clubs I don’t even remember their names. I can name a few though. Let’s see: Country USA, Red Roper, Sundowner, Red Rose, Cactus Club, Crossroads, Four Corners, Tommy Deans, Branding Iron, Broken Dollar, Wagon Wheel, Eagles Clubs, Trade Winds Circuit, Silverado Club, Painted Stallion, Jimmy Doyle’s Country Club, Horseshoe Club, Cowboy Palace, Rockabilly’s, Rocking Rooster, Convention Centers, Old Timers, Hollywood’s, Speak Easy, The Red Fox, Cadillac Ranch, House of Lights, Midnight Rodeo, Lot’s of hotels, several Country Clubs, etc...
I can perform most every kind of music from old school traditional country or western to current dated stuff. I can sing and play Country and Western, Country Rock, Southern Rock, Christian, Contemporary, Blues, Rap, just whatever the customers wanted to hear at the time. It changes quite a bit on the bandstand. I play to the customers and what they are interested in, not particularly what I want to do, unless it is a contracted gig, and then I am on the straight and narrow with set sheets and time frames, you know, the business end.
I do write songs and currently have about 15 that I think are pretty good. Sometimes, a few are requested on the bandstand. I think about recording them, I just want to keep them safe. I don’t want to lose sight of where the songs I write come from and why they were written.
As far as family goes, both of my brothers “Steve and Ronnie” play guitar and sing too. They are really good and have recorded videos and CDs. Steve is a worship leader in churches and runs contemporary Christian bands from Fort Smith Arkansas to Rocky Mounds North Carolina. That boy can sing and play like knowone I have ever heard. Ronnie still plays some, but most of the time he plays when we get together. He loved to sing so much he went to OSU college in Edmond Oklahoma for it. His voice is outstanding. As far as I am concerned, my brothers bettered me a long time ago when it comes to singing. I remember teaching them their first guitar cords and showing them the music world ropes. Now, they are really good and putting their music out in the world. Steve writes a lot of songs and has put a few up for grabs on the web in a video he has finished.
Both of my older son’s “Buddy, in the Army, and Chase, 18” play guitar too. Chase went to a gig where we were performing and helped me set up, and then half way through the show, I had him come up and sing and play a few songs. He brought down the house. I was so proud of him. My daughter “Maylee, now 13” runs around the house singing her head off. My youngest boy “Tanner”, just turned 7, drags out his little guitar during our practices and strums along and sings to the top of his lungs during our practices. It is almost as if I had seen this before, he reminds me of me when I was first starting out with my dad.
Lyrics
Verse:
The Honky Tonks are callin’ me, I’m trying not to go
I hear the sounds out in the streets, and I miss you so
The night life’s got it’s hold on me, and you’re the one to blame
You promised not to leave me, but you left me just the same
Chorus:
I feel so sad and blue at times, I don’t know what to do
I loved you more and more each day, I thought you loved me too
But now the life you changed me from, is callin’ me again
The lights and sounds of the Honky Tonks, are callin’ come on in.
Chorus:
I feel so sad and blue at times, I don’t know what to do
I loved you more and more each day, I thought you loved me too
But now the life you changed me from, is callin’ me again
The lights and sounds of the Honky Tonks, are callin’ come on in
Tag:
The lights and sounds of the Honky Tonks, are callin’ come on in