A Very OK Podcast
Episode 42: “Indigenous Rock Star Jesse Ed Davis”
December 17, 2024
Episode Transcript
(upbeat music playing)
Trait Thompson: Hello, and welcome to A Very OK Podcast. My name is Trait Thompson. I’m the executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society. And here with me, as always, is Dr. Bob Blackburn. Bob, it’s always great to be together. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you.
Dr. Bob Blackburn: Oh, thank you, Trait. And it has been a good holiday season. I’ve had two grandsons here for a couple of days last week, and they’re coming back in two weeks, so, can’t get better than that.
Thompson: Fantastic. Well, we’re going to head up to Chicago for Christmas this year. And my brother and his family live up there, and I’m very excited about the possibility, we get a little bit more of a chance of a white Christmas heading north than we do down here, so I’m excited about that possibility. And, enjoying some of the fun things that Chicago has to offer for Christmas.
Blackburn: Well, I hope you get to the Field Museum. When we were doing research for the History Center, this would have been in ‘98 and ‘99. For those young people, that’s 1998 and 1999. We went to probably a dozen museums around the country, and the Field was one of them we went to and saw how they did exhibits, took care of collections, you know, all the operational side of it, and they’ve made a lot of changes since then. And then too, Bruce Goff’s collections are there at the Institute of Art, Chicago Institute of Art.
Thompson: Oh, I didn’t know that.
Blackburn: Yeah, the Price family made sure they got there. And so I was doing an exhibit on Bruce Goff for that original opening in 2005, and went up there and looked at the collections, borrowed a few things from them, and we put together that exhibit where Bruce Goff is gaining the recognition he deserved for too many years. Outstanding architect. And so, if you get a chance, you might go over there and just check out his archival collection.
Thompson: Yeah, I’ll see if I can steal some stuff and bring it back with me.
Blackburn: I hope so.
Thompson: Well, Bob, I’m really excited about our topic today. We had a great event here at the History Center about a month ago we had a book signing event with Dr. Douglas Miller, who wrote this incredible book on the guitarist and musician Jesse Ed Davis, and it’s called Washita Love Child: The Rise of Indigenous Rock Star Jesse Ed Davis. And we had a great event. Doug read some excerpts from the book, and we also had a band there playing some songs, some of them Jesse Ed Davis’ songs. And the line to get, the line to get the book signed was all the way through the building. People were really, really excited about this, and I thought this might be a topic that people might enjoy hearing more about. And so I’m really, really happy ee have two guests with us here today.
One of them is Dr. Douglas K. Miller, and I will introduce him now. He is the professor of history at Oklahoma State University and a former working musician, which I’m sure helped with this topic. He specializes in 20th-century Native American history. He is the author of Indians on the Move: Native American Mobility and Urbanism in the Twentieth Century. And he lives in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
And we also have Jake Krumwiede, who is the director of the OKPOP Museum, which is the Oklahoma Museum of Popular Culture. He is also the former director of the Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center in Enid. He’s been a state employee for 14 years. I’ve had the pleasure of working with him since I came on the OHS almost four years ago, which is hard to believe. It’s been four years. But, gentlemen, welcome in to the podcast. We are excited to be here. And we’re excited to talk about an Oklahoma musician through and through, Jesse Ed Davis.
Dr. Douglas Miller: Yeah, it’s great being here. Thank you.
Jake Krumwiede: Thank you. Always great to be here.
Thompson: Well, Doug, I want to start out. Let’s start out before the book. Let’s talk a little bit about you as a musician and a little bit of your background in history, and then I’d love to get into a little bit more of what made you want to tackle this topic of a musician who is thoroughly Oklahoman.
Miller: Yeah. Well, music, is really, has been the foundation of my entire life in varying capacities. My earliest memories in life were now listening to FM radio. You know, many songs that would have featured, that did feature Jesse Davis, you know, fast forward to the 1980s, you know, growing up then. MTV was, you know, sort of on a constant loop in my home and, you know, practically my babysitter. I’d come straight home from school, get a snack, and watch MTV for hours to sort of studying everything. And I sort of grew up in Illinois, in a kind of small town in Illinois that’s part of a system of larger towns. So it could sort of feel like a big town and a small town all at once. And, just really grew up dreaming about being a musician one day. I’d see these people on TV, you know, in some kind of fantastical place that felt very far away from my home, and that really drew me in. And I knew growing up, I wanted to play music somehow.
As I became an early teenager, I started playing drums primarily because my best friend was a guitar player, so we had ambitions to form a band. And then we did, and I played drums for many years before picking up a guitar when I realized I wanted to write songs. I wanted to write music. So I became a guitar player and singer, formed my own band. And, you know, between these different projects, about 15 years of working as a musician, touring the country, making albums, before Native American history became the first thing in my life that was as exciting to me as playing music.
Thompson: Yeah.
Miller: I went on to graduate school and eventually became a professor, and here I am today in Oklahoma.
Thompson: Bob, I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about this before, but did you ever play music? Did you ever get into the, being in a band or performer or dabbling around?
Blackburn: My career in music is turning on the stereo.
Thompson: Okay!
Blackburn: Choosing the album that I was going to play, and then tuning WKY or KOMA on AM radio. So I’m that old.
Thompson: Yeah, but I know you’re a music fan. I know you’re a big music fan.
Blackburn: My mother was a musician, music teacher, sang professionally around town and nightclubs, and helped her get her television show in 1958.
Thompson: I’ll be darned. I don’t think I knew that about Ida B. That’s fantastic. Jake, I know you’re a big music fan, which helps in your current role as being the director of OKPOP. And what about you? Did you ever dabble in trying to play music?
Krumwiede: I did. I was in a couple of punk rock bands when I was in high school, and I quickly realized that knowing a few power chords and having a guitar doesn’t necessarily make you a musician. It was really, really terrible, terrible, terrible music. But it was fun, at the very least. But, no, I haven’t really performed as a musician in, oof, 20 years now, so.
Blackburn: Well, with a punk rock, it’s better to be loud than good.
Krumwiede: Yes. Well, that was, that was really. You could have put that on, put that on our album cover if you wanted. That was us in a nutshell.
Thompson: Well, I’ll tell you, I played the trumpet in the sixth and seventh grade in the band. And when they decided that they wanted to make us march and play music at the same time, that’s when I tapped out. That’s too many things to try and do. Walk and play music at the same time was not something I could do. So that is my one foray into music was the junior high band. And I did try to pick up guitar, oh, maybe about five years ago. Just started strumming around on a guitar in the house and, you know, like, life takes over. And for a while, I was doing the YouTube videos, but someday I might. Like I, just that the hand-eye coordination for me, I don’t think is there.
Miller: Well, you just close your eyes. That takes care of half the problem.
Thompson: Close your eyes. And in my case, close your ears to hear. Well. That’s great. Well, I will say, I have been, even though I can’t play music to save my life, I’ve been a fan of music, and particularly live music, for a long, long time. And, I mean, I even got engaged at Cain’s Ballroom. I love that place so much. So this is, is something that I can’t do it, but, boy, I appreciate the people that do it and do it well, because you know, I know there’s talent that’s involved in that, but it’s also, there’s a lot of work that’s involved in that too, especially for those people that move on to that next echelon, like Jesse Ed Davis, who went on to play with some of the biggest rock and roll and folk stars in the entire world. And we’ll get into that here in just a second.
But, Doug, we started to talk about this. Can you talk a little bit about what made you want to tackle this topic of Jesse Ed Davis? As I recall, you were listening to some music and got curious about who was playing on it, and that kind of spurred your mind to going, why don’t we know more about this guy?
Miller: Yeah. You just mentioned a moment ago that being a musician is a lot of work. And it’s, you know, certainly the perceived glamorous side of the profession and the artistry. But, you know, in the end, great musicians like Jesse Ed Davis had to work a lot to get where they were. And, you know, I was drawn to him to some degree because of his work ethic and because of his labor as an Indigenous person. And, that story, him working really hard to try to make it as a musician really starts here in Oklahoma, even before he gets out to Los Angeles, which I’m sure we’ll get to later.
So my point is, I’ve been collecting records since second grade. I can kind of remember how it all started, and then my sort of first wave of records. And as my record collection grew over many years, and I just sort of went deeper and deeper down various rabbit holes of music history. I just increasingly saw his name appearing throughout my record collection. And it occurred to me that this is a person who did a lot of work that hasn’t really been recognized. His name is in the liner notes. He was on big stages from LA to Chicago to New York to London to Paris and beyond. But I thought of him first as a Native American subject who represents some different types of histories of Indigenous peoples in the 1960s and ’70s. And I was drawn to him as a, you know, as he called himself a sort of quote unquote, “Urban Indian.” And he says that in a winking way that we might talk about, who worked really hard. And I thought, this is a different kind of story about a Native American person in these places and times that is worth, worth learning about. Now, I say that, you know, having known next to nothing about him when I began. And I started poking around on the internet a little bit and sort of seeing if I could find something about him, and there wasn’t much. A couple a couple good pieces were out there that helped me get started, but a lot of it was very, you know, very sort of superficial and sometimes just basic factual errors. So I felt some kind of duty as a fan of his music, first and foremost, to learn more about his story. And if a book could come out of it, well, I would be surprised. And I am. I am surprised the book came out of it because I wasn’t sure it was possible.
Thompson: Well, Jesse Ed Davis was born in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1944, and he grew up in Oklahoma City. And, can you talk a little bit about his parents and his Native ancestry?
Miller: His parents, Jess, also Jesse Ed Davis, Jesse Edwin Davis II, his father. So the subject of my book is, of course, Jesse III. Jessie Edwin Davis II and Jesse’s mother, Vivian Saunkeah. Those two could sustain books of their own. They’re so significant, within their communities, within Oklahoma history as Native people who did extraordinary things. I condensed their stories into one whole chapter, chapter two of the book. His parents are so important in explaining him. Jesse’s parents are so important in explaining him. But their stories, and to themselves, are really rich.
So Jesse’s father was a, you know, first and foremost, he identified as a Comanche person, but he was also Seminole, Muscogee, and Cheyenne. He was a World War II veteran who served in the navy in the Pacific Theater of the war. And he came back to Norman in 1943, I’m thinking off the top of my head now, and became a student of Oscar Jacobson in the fine art program at OU He was one of the last students who trained with Oscar Jacobson. Jacobson is famous in Native American history for mentoring the Kiowa Six. And there, Jesse Edwin Davis II started a relationship with a woman named Vivian Saunkeah, who was a Kiowa student at OU, earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration. And she would become the first Kiowa woman to earn a bachelor’s degree at the University of Oklahoma.
Thompson: Wow.
Miller: They were both leaders in the Sequoyah Club for Native students at OU. Jesse’s mother would dance during halftime at football games, lead parades in Norman. She was a very prominent person, partly because of her father, who was leader of the Kiowa Nation during the Great Depression era, and Jesse’s mother, Vivian, would go to major events in Norman and Oklahoma City and throughout the state, and sometimes traveling to Los Angeles and New York City to perform as a dancer to meet prominent people, to adopt people into the Kiowa Nation and so forth. So she had a really large media profile before Jesse Edwin Davis II and Vivian Saunkeah ever have this kid, Jesse Ed Davis III, who’s going to go on to have his own really large media profile.
Thompson: So he grows up in Oklahoma City. Bob, I think it would be great if you could kind of talk about growing up in Oklahoma City in the ‘50s and ‘60s and what it’s like to be here.
Blackburn: Yeah, Oklahoma City had a growth spurt coming out of World War II. So by the time Jesse is born, bond issues were passing every other year for school. So this is the era when you get, go from two high schools in town, which would have been Central and Classen to US Grant, Southeast, John Marshall, Northeast. These are the new high schools because people are moving to the suburbs, they’re finding new opportunities. We needed schools. People are willing to invest in a growing community. This is the age when the town literally grows to 640 square miles, largest city in the world at the time. It’s now about 620. But that was the optimism of the age when Jesse Ed is born, and the city is growing, all sorts of possibilities. Even urban renewal is born out of that optimism. Let’s get these federal grants in 1958 and rebuild and redesign our downtown area. So the buildings start coming down, new ones are going up. New schools are opening, new highways.
Jesse Ed would have been able to tell us stories about driving down Northeast Highway and going around Classen Circle. So for us teenagers in the 1960s, the drag would have been up Classen, around Classen Circle, out 39th Street Expressway, which is Route 66 at the time. And this would have been the life of a young teenager when he’s growing up, of this optimism. In terms of popular culture, television and radio would have been in its infancy. Three television stations, WKY, KWTV, and KOCO. No cable at the time. And in terms of radio, this is before FM when Jesse Ed is growing up. So he would have been tuning in to the two rock and roll stations, which would have been WKY as the leader. KOMA is trying to catch up, and he would have been hearing the popular songs of the time. Now those stations would have been carrying Perry Como just as they were carrying Joan Baez or Bob Dylan. There were a bunch of country stations. And my guess, and Doug might be able to explain that further about country music’s influence on him, but we are the home of country music especially. WKY had the best studios in the region. Buck Owens, when he had a syndicated show, would come to Oklahoma City to record it. Jude and Jody Furniture Store sponsored a running show on country music. And because Jody’s wife had been a singer in Nashville, she knew all these country stars coming to town. They’d go out and record. So this was a center. Conway Twitty moves here because there are opportunities here. He doesn’t go to Nashville. He wants to raise his kids in a small urban area. So Conway Twitty is here and others. And then when you get this, this optimistic age when music is growing. The early days of FM, when they would play an entire album on one of these FM stations, experimental stuff. We would listen to that late at night, listen to an entire album. That was kind of revolutionary, is that it was creating a market for young musicians. So if a kid had a little bit of talent, wanted to be a musician, probably motivated by two things. One, of course, a love of music. But secondly, girls, and girls were attracted to musicians at that time, so everybody wanted to be in a band.
Thompson: Some things never change, right?
Blackburn: And then there was a market for that to make a little money. This would have been the era in in town of Ronnie Kaye’s The Scene, which was a dance show that mimicked American Bandstand. And all of us kids in the 1950s and ’60s would watch American Bandstand to see the latest musicians, hear the latest music, see how kids were dancing at the time. So when we went to the sock hops, we wouldn’t be embarrassed, and we would know how to dance those. But Ronnie Kaye, who was a disc jockey in town, started The Scene. Well, he eventually syndicated that, it was so popular. And that was creating this demand for more music. And so out of that comes a couple of bands, and there are going to be more than this. The two I remember from the ‘60s would have been The Midnight Rebels, which recorded a few songs, went to Nashville for a while. Mountain Smoke, which was very popular. It was more of a, started off kind of a country bluegrass, but was venturing in to pop music as well. Vince Gill got his start in Mountain Smoke before he went off to Nashville.
But these kind of bands, then you had all these garage bands, is what we call them this time. Steve Ripley, who was instrumental in getting OKPOP project started, started as The Innkeepers as a little band here in Oklahoma City. He would be on Ronnie Kaye’s show, and then that would promote him to go get a dance gig for a group or a school. And then he could keep going, as he did into Moses when he went to Stillwater and started college, he started his own recording studio. But this generation is coming out of this mixture of optimism and opportunity and youth culture, with the baby boomers creating a market, a demand, and people like Jesse Ed, who had that Native ability just in his DNA to be able to express himself as his mother and father were doing in their lives. He chose it would be art, first, and then music, second. And it’s not uncommon. A lot of these musicians at the time would have been very talented artists and very talented musicians. Wayne Coyne, of Flaming Lips fame. When we published a book on the history of rock and roll, we used some of his sketches. He’s a talented artist as well as a poet as well as a musician. Jesse Ed would have fallen into those three categories, able to do it all. Steve Ripley was a poet in my mind, musician second. Leon Russell was an artist. You know, it goes on and on with the market that was being created, encouraging them, and then sitting at home playing on the guitar, playing a few gigs with the garage bands. They were getting towards that magical number of 10,000 hours to be a master. Whatever you’re doing, whether it’s carpentry or a historian, once you got those 10,000 hours, then you get it. Slows down. You become a master of your craft. And Jesse Ed was getting there as a teenager because of opportunity and culture and the changes in Oklahoma City.
Thompson: Doug, I’ve got an excerpt from an article in The Guardian from this past September. And it says that “When he turned 15, his grandfather died, and the family honored the Kiowa tradition of observing a year of mourning, and Davis used that quiet time to hone his skills. And later he broadened his sound by playing with scores of local bands.” This is him quoting you. “That gave him a grounding in playing with a lot of people in many different styles,” just like Bob was talking about.
Miller: Yeah, and and as Bob mentioned, the connection between, you know, various forms of fine art and music and so forth. First, that’s Jesse’s father, who trains in fine art at OU, as mentioned, but he also was a musician. He has a day job at Tinker Air Force Base, where Jesse’s mother also works at first before she moves on to a second job. A different job, I should say. So Jesse’s father is working at Tinker by day, and he works in the graphic arts department. He’s, you know, he’s making the art that’s going to go on weapons of war into some kind of, you know, interesting way. And he moonlights as a drummer for a dixieland group that plays around Oklahoma City. And the house is filled with instruments. The house where Jesse grew up over on Casper Drive, over near the Oklahoma City Zoo today. And there’s just kind of a regular rotation of instruments coming through the house. Guitars and banjos and ukuleles, and there’s always a piano there because Jesse’s mother played piano, and of course, a drum kit set up in the living room. Massive stacks of records. Both Jesse’s mother and father collected records, and their collection was formidable.
From everything I’ve heard, from the friends who would go there, going to the Davis house was kind of like going to a record store and a music instrument store all in one. So Jesse, now Jesse III, Jesse Ed Davis was very similar, as Bob indicated. Yes, he was a he was a musician. He was a guitar player. He would sneak his dad’s guitar from the closet while his dad was at work. He was always kind of afraid he would get in trouble for taking the guitar out for some reason. And while Jesse was developing his talent as a musician, he was also a great visual artist himself. He was a good painter. He was a good drawer. He was a leather worker and so forth and so forth. Back to sneaking the guitar out of the closet, it seems that when Jesse’s grandfather, Jasper Saunkeah passed, who was a very prominent Kiowa leader. He was chairman of the Kiowa Nation during the Great Depression. He was a US marshal. He was a game warden. He was a religious leader, business leader, school administrator. He kind of did everything. When his grandfather passed, the family sort of shut down social activities for a year, as was cultural tradition within their family. And Jesse used that time to keep sneaking that guitar out of the closet and sit in his bedroom and teach himself how to play a guitar, listening to records on the turntable. And eventually he fell in with a group of friends who were like-minded, who also wanted to play guitar. As Bob indicated, this was a very popular pastime, and you could, you know, get girlfriends and gain popularity and so forth by being a guitar player and yeah. Soon friends of Jesse’s started coming by the house to play guitar with him, and they all were great students of the instrument. It would pass many hours and spend all weekend bouncing between going fishing and playing guitar. But his old friends say Jesse was sort of doing it at another level. He was just obsessed with sitting in his bedroom and playing guitar for hours and hours and hours on end.
Thompson: Well, he goes to OU, and it seems like at OU, he kind of comes face-to-face with some of his, some of the issues of being Native at that particular time. I recall reading in your book that he had, he couldn’t pledge a fraternity because he had Indian ancestry. And, it seems like throughout his life, he didn’t like necessarily being characterized as just an Indian person. He wanted to be known, as you know, I’m a guitar player who happens to be Native American, but also, it seems like, I don’t know if uneasiness or he had trouble reckoning with that. How do you, you know, and maybe that started when he was in high school and as he went into OU. How does that all fit into his image and to who he was?
Miller: Yeah. I discuss, you know, some episodes related to this when he’s at OU, but it was really starting prior to that as well. And, you know, back to the context that Bob provided a moment ago, there was great optimism in Oklahoma City. And Jesse was certainly part of the spirit of that. His family moving from Norman when he was five to Oklahoma City to get these great jobs at Tinker Air Force Base and to move into a middle- almost upper-class neighborhood, as modern people, hardworking American people with college degrees, really talented people. Jesse wanted to be part of all of that. And, you know, Bob mentioned, right, sort of cruising the strip, a popular pastime. Jesse had a ’55 Chevy that he liked to go cruising in just like all the other kids. But when Jesse was cruising the strip, he always carried a machete with him in his car. It was under his driver’s seat because he was experiencing a high degree of bullying, and kids from rival schools and rival social groups were always sort of pursuing him because he was Native American, and they targeted him as somebody to pick on and bully and try to intimidate and start fights with him.
So, you know, there’s something in there, just that scene of Jesse cruising the strip like all the other all-American kids of the of the 1950s and early 1960s. But he has a machete. And there were some times when he was experiencing bullying to such an intense degree, he was afraid to leave his house, and he would be in his house crying when friends would come over, and like, come on, let’s go to the wherever. And he said, I can’t. Those guys are after me. So it was hard for Jesse to be a Native American person in a context where his family absolutely belonged in every sense. Neighbors in his neighborhood thought that they were the most modern, hip, cutting-edge, progressive. These are their words, right? Family in the neighborhood, the coolest cars. They played music. These are really hip people. At the same time, this is a place and a time where Native American people are not supposed to belong. Even just the idea that Native people are living in the big city is something that most American people at the time just couldn’t reconcile culturally, socially, historically. Native people, Native people were supposed to go away. That’s the story of the 18th and 19th centuries. That’s what reservations were supposed to achieve. They’re not supposed to be in the city. So Jesse has to carry the weight of all these assumptions and expectations for where Native people might live, where they might work, where they would go to school, what they would do culturally and socially. And he had to learn at a very young age to protect himself and what it meant for him to be a Kiowa person and an Indigenous person.
And when he goes to OU, those challenges are still there, but they change shape. They transform a little bit as he gets older, and that’s never going to not be part of his story. Even when he goes to LA, and he’s working in Hollywood and playing with the biggest stars of his time, he has to protect himself. He has to be careful about what he says about being a Native person, and he has to develop a thick skin, a sense of humor, and a real sort of art for sort of rolling through people’s, you know, probably often offensive things that they would ask him and say about him.
Thompson: He gets his first big break in 1963. And, and Bob mentioned Conway Twitty, playing with Conway Twitty in his band at Springlake Amusement Park in Oklahoma City. And, for people that may not know, of course, you know, if you’re under a certain age, maybe you don’t know who Conway Twitty is at all. I grew up listening to Conway Twitty in the ’80s and ’90s in country radio, but he was a rockabilly star.
Blackburn: Hello, darling.
Thompson: (laughter) Exactly. But if you go back and listen to early Conway Twitty, it’s got that same early Elvis vibe, Wanda Jackson vibe. I mean, it’s a much more kind of up-tempo type of music, much, much closer to rock and roll than his later career ended up being. So I would imagine that Jesse’s style fit well with Conway.
Miller: Yeah. I mean, Conway was a star in Oklahoma City, so much so that, as Bob indicated earlier, Conway eventually moves to Oklahoma City for a period and is working from here. But as you indicated, he was really a rockabilly performer first. He’s eventually going to sort of transition into this sort of more Nashville country sound. And Jesse’s actually playing with him during that transition in Conway’s career. I find it really interesting. Yeah. Conway Twitty would play at the Springlake Amusement Park, which was just across a field from Jesse’s boyhood home, where he grew up. Jesse could literally got his front door, go across the field, and be at Springlake, where there was the Big Dipper roller coaster. There was a bandshell where you could see Johnny Cash for $0.50 and Conway Twitty for $0.50. Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks all these sounds that Jesse grew up hearing.
In the book, I like to imagine with the reader that Jesse’s house is just close enough where he can maybe even hear, like, the sounds of the amusement park or the music coming from the bandshell. Even, you know, maybe through his bedroom window at night, and that might, those sounds might even be competing with a record that’s on the turntable in the living room. Jesse would go to Springlake, and he would watch all of these great musicians standing right in the front row, just studying the guitar players, and he would see what are their fingers doing, what chords are they playing. And he saw a wide variety of music at Springlake Amusement Park, but his dad would also take them to barbecue joints to hear blues music, to jazz clubs to hear jazz players. And he just had this really wide breadth of musical styles coming through his home, coming through different music venues, and, you know, all the music that sort of characterized Oklahoma City at the time. Country music, the gospel industry was really rich and successful here. There were musicians constantly jetting back and forth between Nashville and Oklahoma City, working on gospel records. That’s part of the sound that he grows up hearing too. And all of these experiences are going to inform his diverse artistry that will make him a real asset as a musician when he does get to LA and he starts playing with members of the Beatles and Bob Dylan and so forth.
Those formative experiences in Oklahoma City, hearing that sort of variety of music, I think, largely explains why he was in such high demand when he reached the top.
Blackburn: If I can add one little part to that as well. This is the period of dance. Today, you know, since disco almost killed, to me, the dance industry. But in the 1950s, my parents would go out dancing. Friday night was to go dancing. You were, some people would bowl, others would dance. My folks were all dancers. And my mother continued going out to clubs and not only singing in clubs, but dancing in clubs. And dance was so popular, and that created the demand for live music, as people wanted to dance to live music. Well, that’s the age of Bob Wills, you know, coming out of the ‘30s, and his sound is there because it’s a big band sound, jazz, eventually with guitar, slide guitars. But people could dance to it. And so Jesse Ed would have been growing up dancing himself at the sock hops at the high school. But he also would have been dancing in the barbecue joint. People would get up and blues, and they’d just feel it, and they’d want to dance and move. And so that total experience of dance and music is a special stimulation that I’m sure Jesse Ed would have experienced at the time, as both a dancer, I don’t know. You may have some stories about him dancing, but this would have been the age when it’s going all the way from ballroom dancing and western swing, to the dances of the young kids who were dancing to rock and roll, and you see that on The Scene. You see it around the country. But Jesse Ed would have been influenced by that.
Miller: That’s a really interesting point, Bob, because when you said, maybe I had some stories about Jesse as a dancer, I thought, oh, yeah. Well, he loves Elvis Presley. He loves Chuck Berry. His dad’s taking him to see Sam Cooke and the Count Basie Orchestra and Aretha Franklin and Elvis and so forth. But I also thought, Jesse was also a pow wow dancer. Like his father, like his Comanche father, Jesse and his father were straight dancers on the pow wow circuit. And Jesse grew up hearing those sounds too and dancing in that capacity and that context. And it’s such a great point, because it allows us to sort of, you know, marry these, these sort of impressions of Jesse dancing at the pow wows and Jesse dancing to Conway Twitty at Springlake as these sort of different dimensions of the music that he’s going to create and the sort of the soul that he’s going to demonstrate through music as a dancer in different, different forms. Yeah.
Thompson: Let’s take a quick break and we’ll be right back.
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(upbeat music playing)
Thompson: You know, Jake, we’ve, we’re just a few minutes into the podcast here, and we’ve already talked about Steve Ripley and Leon Russell and Conway Twitty, and of course we’re talking about Jesse Ed Davis here. The line of Oklahomans who have influenced music goes on and on and on and on. And I find that when I talk about it with people who may not be from here, they’re continually amazed at the musicians that Oklahoma has produced. Since you’ve been involved in OKPOP, has it even surprised you or, did you know all this already?
Krumwiede: I would say it’s, OKPOP still, to this day, routinely surprises me with, I mean, every day we’re uncovering some new story that, you know, I or somebody else hasn’t heard before. I even stumped Dr. Foley, Dr. Hugh Foley the other day with, with a group that we came up with, but, it’s, yeah, every day there’s something new, some other great story of Oklahomans doing something in music. And, you know, one thing that really resonates with me, specifically about Jesse Ed Davis, and there’s a handful of musicians that are very similar to him, I think, in the sense that they are extremely hardworking. They, you know, are incredibly talented, but they’re also very behind-the-scenes kind of, kind of players, from J. J. Cale and kind of even in some way, Leon Russell. You know, there’s always a surprise where you’re like, oh, yeah, Leon played on that record or, you know, something like that. There’s just so many of them. And it reminds me of growing up in Oklahoma, honestly. You know, these people that are very hardworking, sometimes very talented and creative people. But quietly working, quietly working. Yeah, that just sticks out to me about him specifically.
Thompson: Well, and to that point, you know, an excerpt from your book, Doug, you said, “The friends Jesse Ed Davis made and the partnerships he cultivated playing music in Oklahoma and beyond during high school and college would sustain him for many years. An astonishing number of them became successful in their own careers, at times working with Jesse on albums he produced in California, including his own. He didn’t have to return to Oklahoma to see old friends. He was surrounded by them in Los Angeles, and then he met even more Okies when he got there.”
Miller: It’s so cool, this part of his story, right? So growing up in Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, and forming his first band when he was a teenager, he’s playing with guys like John Ware, who will go on to play with Emmylou Harris and her Hot Band and Linda Ronstadt and Mike Nesmith. John Selk, who will play with Donovan and the Everly Brothers and Walter Egan and so forth. Jerry Fisher, who’s going to go on to Blood, Sweat & Tears. Carl Rogel, who will play with The Coasters down in Norman. He’s playing with Moon Martin, who will become, you know, a great writer and performer in his own right. They teach guitar together at Mike Ritchie’s guitar store. Byron Berline is teaching at Ritchie’s guitar store, is going to go on to an illustrious career as a string player, and there’s more. There was a sort of this great coterie of musicians here in Oklahoma City that Jesse was, you know, often at the center of it, and then there’s the whole Tulsa group of people.
And, you know, Jesse liked to joke that he had to go all the way to Los Angeles to meet a bunch of Tulsa cats that lived, you know, just down the road growing up. He didn’t meet Leon Russell and those guys until he gets to LA. But, you know, Bob could probably elaborate here, and many told me that Oklahoma City and Tulsa might as well have been a thousand miles apart at the time. They could feel that way, at least. And there is a sort of communal nature about the way these musicians work together growing up in Oklahoma City. So Jesse’s bands that he was either a member of or led, you might see on one night, and there’s four people playing, and then you go see him the very next night at a different club, and there’s ten people on stage. That kind of a rotating cast of all these great musicians. When Jesse gets out to LA, that’s what Leon Russell’s doing at the Skyhill Studio. And that’s later, that sort of whole group is going to, you know, move over to a place they call The Plantation out in Sherman Oaks. Of course, Jake knows all about this, Bob I’m sure, too. Right. And these guys, they’re very communal. It’s, what do you, Leon Russell called it a “hippie commune bona fide.” This is, it’s this great network of all these musicians, and people would just fill in wherever they were needed. Everybody would play with everyone else, either at the club or in the studio. And Jesse, then when he gets into his solo career in the early 1970s, preserves and sustains and advances that same kind of legacy. So if you look at his records, his solo records, the liner notes are extensive. All kinds of people are playing out here, and it really comes back to that Oklahoma style of someone comes over to visit and, you know, an hour later they’re strapped into a guitar, adding something to whatever song you’re working on. And that’s such a neat part of the story.
Blackburn: You know, in some ways, Trait, that reflects Oklahoma history. I have a speech that I call “Oklahoma is the Land of Immigrants.” We’ve all come from someplace else. And you get that, it’s almost like there’s a land of immigrants, of Okies, in Los Angeles. Of course, that it started in the Great Depression with people going out. I had one uncle, left in ’34 from Ninnekah, Oklahoma, to go west. But when Leon and J. J. Cale and that first crew goes out there and it really establishes a base.
It’s like what would happen in the movies with Will Sampson from Okmulgee, Oklahoma, goes out, makes it, and then the Wes Studis of the world go out and live in his place and get opportunity. It’s this land of immigrants attitude that, I think in Oklahoma, we’re called friendly, and I always doubted. I was a why do people say we’re so friendly? Until you go other places and you see the contrast. I think it goes back to we are a land of immigrants, and that people are leaving their homes and churches and social safety nets and family and coming out to a frontier. When they take that same attitude and culture, cultural baggage in a way, to Los Angeles, it still works. So Leon has a place, where at The Plantation, that great song about gunfight at the plantation. I think that’s a paraphrase maybe of the title, but one of those guys was living in a closet in Leon’s place, and it was just this constant rotation, and they were working day and night and people would plug in. It’s a wonderful experience that Jesse Ed must have enjoyed once he got to LA.
Thompson: When does he go to LA, and how long does it take him to catch on? I believe his first big gig was joining Taj Mahal. Is that correct?
Miller: Yeah. That’s right. When he first got out to LA and really gets established in early 1967, he briefly lives at his grandfather’s house. His Seminole grandfather, William Graham Davis, who had a long career in Hollywood as a set designer and a prop maker working on famous films, working with the stars. And Jesse goes to his place in the Silver Lake neighborhood in LA, gets set up there, but before long he’s over hooked up with Leon Russell, and he’s making some early records with Junior Markham, Jimmy Markham, and this sort of, again, rotating cast of Okie musicians called the Tulsa Rhythm Revue or the Tulsa All-Stars. Jake knows this, right? And he’s doing some early work there, but it’s really with Taj Mahal in summer 1967. They hook up, and that becomes Jesse’s first major gig. But, yeah, the Skyhill and Plantation scenes, in the Taj Mahal band that Jesse’s in, and they’re going to rehearse at the plantation house. Jimmy Karstein, the great drummer from Tulsa, described it as trains coming in and out of the station.
I love Bob mentioned somebody was living in the closet. Jesse was briefly in the closet. They would all move around. I just was talking with the great Tulsa drummer David Teegarden the other day who said he remembered being out at Skyhill or The Plantation, and they were like, they had like a rotating schedule on the couch where Teegarden was like, hey, hey, Ed, get up. I got the couch tonight, you know, and this, this incredible scene. But that’s really 1967 when Jesse starts falling in with all those guys out there, partly through a connection with not Leon Russell, but Levon Helm, the great drummer of The Band and beyond, introduces him to all of these guys. By summer ‘67, he’s with Taj, and they make, you know, three of, you know, in my humble opinion, the great records of the era, between ‘67 and 1970.
Thompson: I gotta say, one of the neatest stories I found when I was preparing for this episode is the influence that Jesse Davis had on the Allman brothers. And the story that I saw goes that, Gregg Allman bought his brother Duane the first Taj Mahal album that came out in 1968. And that’s what influenced Duane to start picking up slide guitar. Can you talk about that a little bit? I think that’s a pretty neat story.
Miller: Yeah. It’s true. You know, there’s a lot of mythology in rock music history. And, you know, Jesse was guilty of some of his own. I discuss in the book, but this is true that Duane Allman had a horseback riding accident, and he was, like, sick and laid up in bed, and he and his brother Gregg had gotten in some fight about something, who knows what, and it was Duane’s birthday as well. There were all these things intersecting at once. Gregg goes to the store to get his brother some pain relief pills, and he also picks up a copy of the first Taj Mahal album, and he leaves it at Duane’s door, rings the doorbell, and takes off because his brother doesn’t want to talk to him. He goes home and an hour later, Duane calls Gregg and says, baby brother, you got to get your behind, I’ll say, back over here. I’m listening to this record. You got to hear this guy Jesse Ed Davis, and Gregg comes back, and Duane has the Taj Mahal album on and he’s, you know, he’s just raving about this slide guitar playing. And Duane takes the bottle of pills that Gregg had left, and he’s using it as a slide trying to imitate Jesse Ed Davis on “Statesboro Blues” from the first Taj Mahal album.
Before long, Duane Allman will become arguably the greatest bottleneck slide guitar player of all time, and the Allman brothers will have a signature song in their version of Taj Mahal’s version of “Statesboro Blues.” It all goes back to Jesse. So Duane being inspired by Jesse, and then now you come up to the present, and now we say Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks and all the great guitar players from the Allman brothers legacy all have this sort of slide guitar playing ancestry that goes back to the great Jesse Ed Davis.
Thompson: That’s pretty incredible. He records his first solo album in 1971, and he seems to have some mixed emotions about that looking back on it.
Miller: Yeah, well, 1970, he starts working on it then, it comes out in early ’71. It falls behind schedule a little bit. And he, you know, for a lot of the Jesse fans, like that’s the one. That’s the best album as that great painting that his father made for the cover that’s supposed to be Jesse on the front, sitting cross-legged, smoking a calumet. “Jesse Davis” and exclamation marks. And this is the point where he actually starts taking the name Jesse.
Prior to that, people knew him as Eddie or Ed, and it’s his big sort of solo statement. He’s left Taj Mahal’s band. He’s now staking his own course. He struggled a little bit to get enough material together there. There are quite a few cover songs in those early sessions. He’s trying to kind of find his way now on his own terms. It’s a great record. He was frustrated by it in the long term. He looked back and thought he didn’t quite have a sound figured out. He didn’t quite have his arrangements and presentation the way that he wanted them. And he thought it was an album that was sort of a snapshot of a minute, you know, not even a moment, a minute in time that he would later continue to, you know, cultivate his craft. And he was a little prouder of his third album. You know, maybe we’ll get there, but the first album nonetheless is where he really arrives on the scene as Jesse Davis. So most musicians look at their first album, or an artist, a first poem, or a first painting or something. And of course, you’re going to see all the things you wish you could have done better with a little more time and experience, but it has a real charm to it, that first album.
Thompson: Yeah, I’ve been listening to it over the last few days just to kind of get more of a sense and a feel for him. And, you know, Bob, we’ve talked about all those different influences that were coming through Oklahoma City, you know, country, blues, jazz, you know, rock and roll, rockabilly, all of those kinds of things. To me, you can hear all of that on that album. I mean, it just comes through loud and clear, all of those, even Native music influences. It’s, to me, it’s fascinating.
Miller: So much so that maybe, you know, the record-buying public and his own record label didn’t quite know how to market him or what to do with him. And, Jesse, you know, said my first album sold in the high hundreds, and I don’t think he was kidding. I think the label lost money on him, and it didn’t break. And so he’ll do a second album for Atco called Ululu that also just, the label wasn’t behind it because the first album didn’t sell.
Thompson: Yeah.
Miller: But his artistry grows. You can hear it on the second album, right? Sort of developing and maturing, but, yeah, it was such an interesting, sort of, you know, constellation of different sounds and all the stuff we’ve been talking about, his experiences growing up in Oklahoma. You can hear them on the record, but maybe people didn’t quite know what to make of it. Or if they if they thought they did, they did this, to Jesse’s frustration. They compared him to Leon Russell. And that’s often as far as Rolling Stone magazine and, you know, media outlets like that would get with Jesse is to say, well, he’s an Okie. He sounds like Leon Russell. The end. And Jesse had to kind of keep trying to fight to be, not just sort of, the whole time, he’s sort of dealing with maybe the challenges of being a Native American person in this space. Now, he’s also an Okie, and he has to deal with all of those assumptions and expectations and stereotypes and so forth. And he gets kind of pushed into, well, he’s just one of Leon Russell’s guys. And that really, that really hurt him on a personal level, as I understand it. He loved Leon. It wasn’t about being compared to Leon, it was that he wasn’t accepted on his own terms.
Blackburn: You know, that’s a little bit the, how the OKPOP and the Historical Society got on to Jesse’s trail is that I was a Leon Russell fan growing up. By the time I was in high school, you know, I had discovered him. And then when Mad Dogs & Englishmen comes out as a movie, that’s another part of Jesse Ed’s story, wherein music in the movie theaters, musicals. Elvis is the best example of that, made I don’t know how many movies, but music is a big part of the movie scene. Well, here comes Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs & Englishmen. And this guy that stands out on the stage. I said, “Who is that?” And the movie ends with Leon Russell’s song. So I say, who is he? From Tulsa? My gosh, I became a huge Leon Russell fan. And then Bangladesh concert that Doug can talk about even more, when I’m watching Leon Russell on stage, kind of keeping a band going with the sound and the big band sound is that there’s Jesse Ed playing the guitar. Who’s that? So I discovered Jesse Ed. So years later, we start OKPOP, history of rock and roll. We’re on Jesse Ed’s trail already, largely because of that start with Leon.
Thompson: Yeah.
Blackburn: And being part of that community. But he was obviously a star on the stage with Eric Clapton and George Harrison, and yet he’s playing lead guitar. Who is this guy? And of course, I’ve always been fascinated with American Indian heritage. And that’s when I became a fan.
Thompson: Yeah. He played with three of the four Beatles. The only one he didn’t play with was Paul. And I’ll have to say this too, friends, his albums are out there on streaming. I listened to them on Amazon Music. I’m sure they’re on Spotify, but they’re well worth a listen. If you, for our musical friends that are listening to this podcast, go out there and find this music because it is well worth a listen. Speaking of well worth a listen, he plays with Jackson Browne, and he plays that great guitar solo on the song “Doctor My Eyes.” And the story that I read is that’s one take. He walked in and did that in one take, which I find to be pretty incredible.
Miller: He was so busy during this period. Just kind of flying between session dates. Producers were, you know, bidding against each other to get Jesse to come to the studio. He was making triple scale through the Los Angeles Musicians Union. And Jackson invited him to the studio where Jackson was working on his first solo album. And Jesse comes in, and Jackson and his producer, his engineer, have the song they want him to play on all dialed up. Right, the analog reels and, okay, roll the tape, and it finishes. And Jesse said, I don’t hear myself on that. And, you know, as Jackson explained it to me, kind of like, you know, looks at the engineer and, okay, well, we got you here. What are we going to do? And so they put up “Doctor My Eyes,” and Jesse says, okay, I’ll do that with some real enthusiasm. And as they’re just rolling the song for Jesse just to hear what this is going to be, he’s, you know, he’s working up the guitar, the guitar part. And so he’s like, yeah, okay, stop. I think I got it. They hit record, he plays through it, it ends. And Jackson and Richard Orshoff, the engineer, are like, okay, well, we’re getting warmed up. You know, you want to do, you want to do a real one or something? And Jesse says something to the effect of, you know, no, that’s it. You know, we got it. They thought it was the warm-up take, and that’s it. That’s “Doctor My Eyes.” It was Jackson Browne’s first top ten hit. You know, for many Jesse Ed Davis fans, that’s the pinnacle. For just many classic rock fans, that’s, you know, widely considered one of the great guitar solos from the period.
Thompson: Well, this, this is another quote from The Guardian article I mentioned earlier. It says “three quarters of the way through John Lennon’s stirring take on ‘Stand By Me,’ a guitar sneaks into the mix with the solo so supple and sweet, it feels like a kiss. In Bob Dylan’s ‘Watching the River Flow,’ it’s a wily slide guitar that seizes center stage with a sound both witty and free, while halfway through Jackson Browne’s ‘Doctor My Eyes,’ a guitar solo winds up changing the entire trajectory of the song, making it soar from a chugging ballad into a flat-out rocker.” I like that quote for a couple of reasons. First of all, I couldn’t write like that if I had 100 years to do it. I just love the descriptive nature of that, but it just, it describes the playing so much. And I agree with the characterization of the Jackson Browne song. It’s kind of going along, going along, but then it does kick it up to another level once he starts that iconic solo.
Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Jackson mentions as much that Jesse really made that a rock song in a way that it wasn’t in its initial framework. I think it was just piano initially, and I think, I think Russ Kunkel’s congas were there. I think that, if I’m remembering correctly, I think the drums are actually overdubbed on that song. And they had Russ’s congas there, and that Jesse was really playing off the rhythm of the piano and the congas when he hears that. It comes back to thinking about him as a dancer and that’s a sort of great beat and the way that that song swings with Jesse’s playing. “Stand By Me” with John Lennon, Jesse said he was actually trying to sound like George Harrison, who was one of Jesse’s heroes. And Bob mentioned the Bangladesh concert where Jesse plays with George and Leon and others. Yeah. You know, what you just suggested there, it just again, makes me think about Jesse’s versatility as a musician, how he could, he could, you know, convincingly pull off all of these different styles and forms and how that, once again, reflects growing up in Oklahoma and the immense diversity of our state culturally, socially, politically, economically, historically, and so forth. And we just keep hearing that throughout Jesse’s music. That’s what that’s what draws me into him so deeply. Still today, after years of intensive work, I’m still listening to his music, and I sometimes still feel like I’m hearing it for the first time.
Thompson: In 1973, he almost gets a chance to play with The Rolling Stones. Can you talk about that story a little bit?
Miller: Well, yeah, it’s you know, the, in terms of the could-have-been Rolling Stones guitarists, the list is about a thousand names long. You know, if you know your classic rock lore, it’s like everybody was supposedly going to be The Rolling Stones guitar player at one point or another. With Jesse, it’s real. And interestingly, at least for me, when we do see those articles about the could-have-beens, Jesse never gets mentioned, but he was actually really in the running. Whereas some of those other suggestions are probably dubious or somebody sort of postdated their supposed enrollment or involvement. In 1969, when Brian Jones died, there, as I understand it, there was a moment there where the Stones were maybe interested in trying to pull Jesse away from the Taj Mahal band and get him as a replacement for Brian Jones. Eventually that gig’s going to go to a young Mick Taylor.
In 1973, Keith Richards, was on the hook for a drug bust and maybe wasn’t going to get to go on tour to support Goats Head Soup. And the idea there in ’73 is that Jesse would fill in on that tour, and Mick Jagger had Jesse ready to go for that. They didn’t end up needing him. Keith, you know, got out of the hairy situation. Then, again, in late ’74, early ’75, when Mick Taylor is now leaving The Rolling Stones, Jesse was in the running for that spot as well. It’s ultimately going to go to Ronnie Wood. The interesting part there is that, as Ronnie Wood is joining The Rolling Stones, and still a member today of course, Ronnie Wood was also still a member of the Faces, and Jesse doesn't get the Stones gig. But maybe the consolation prize is that he ends up in the Faces, playing with the guy who got the Stones gig that he almost got. And that’s 1975 for Jesse in a nutshell.
Thompson: As we’re talking about this, Jake, you know, one of the things I love about OKPOP project is the fact that there are so many of these stories out there and so many Oklahomans who have had influence in rock and roll history, country music history, film and television history. And they may be those people. We certainly have our share of superstars, but they may be those people who are just below the surface whose stories need to be told. And can you talk about the mission of OKPOP, of telling those stories in a compelling way of what this museum is going to be once it’s open?
Krumwiede: Yeah, absolutely. Actually, you know, as, I’ve been sitting here listening to both of you talk, something that’s, I’ve been kind of chewing over in my head is, you know, Dr. Bob, what you said a minute ago about how Oklahoma is, you know, a land of immigrants, and even many of the Native tribes had been removed from somewhere else. And I think that really helps tell the story of creativity in Oklahoma, all these different intersecting cultures. We’re kind of a microcosm of the melting pot that is the United States in a lot of ways. And this has created this kind of breeding ground for all of this creativity, all this, all these things to happen. And with OKPOP, Trait, you’re absolutely right that, you know, what we want to do is not necessarily be a hall of fame where we’re telling the stories of the biggest and the brightest stars, even though we certainly will. We’re really more about telling the story of Oklahoma’s creativity and the way we are kind of looking at it is, you know, as we say, the people behind the camera are just as important as the people in front of the camera. And, you know, and it’s sometimes there where some of the really interesting stories are.
Honestly, kind of like Jesse Ed Davis, someone that’s, you know, very behind the scenes and very, you know, ever-present, certainly incredibly talented, incredibly influential. But, you know, not the rock star that is in everybody’s, you know, at the tip of everyone’s lips. You know, there’s stories like that all across, all across Oklahoma. And really, that’s what we want to do is celebrate those things in Oklahoma, that those things that make Oklahoma cool, make Oklahoma awesome. That’s what OKPOP’s all about. You know, it’s a way to tell Oklahoma’s story in a really different kind of way. When it comes to history, you know, you talk to anyone about history, and people will kind of smile and nod and say, oh, that’s interesting. But you bring up anything music, film-related, pop culture, everyone identifies. It is so authentically us, as a people, and, you know, pop culture really does tell the story of us, of who we are, not just as Oklahomans, but as people. And, I think that’s what's cool about OKPOP is that very thread.
Thompson: You know, what I love about this museum is right now, a lot of our Oklahoma stories are being told in museums in Nashville or in Los Angeles or in Cleveland or in other places around the country. We need to be telling our own stories here.
Krumwiede: Oh, absolutely.
Thompson: And that’s what this museum is going to do.
Krumwiede: Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. You know, and I, you know, I don’t want to say that’s universally true of everyone that’s came out of Oklahoma, but so many of them really loved growing up in Oklahoma and love their roots and get really excited when they run into somebody in LA, Hollywood, or Nashville that is also from Oklahoma. And this immediate bond just starts. We hear those stories every day. But yeah, it’s, we are, this is you know, our story to tell. And though it’s certainly great to have, you know, those people in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Country Music Hall of Fame, and everywhere else, it’s important for them to be here too and for us to tell those stories.
Thompson: And we have Jesse Ed Davis’ guitar and amp. And it’s currently, where is it on display right now?
Krumwiede: Yeah, that’s right. In our collection, we have a number of items that Jesse Davis owned. We have one of his guitars and his amplifier as well. And, yeah, they’re currently on exhibit at the Bob Dylan Center there in Tulsa, our neighbors at OKPOP, just like a couple blocks away. It’s a really great exhibit. If you haven’t had a chance, everybody should go take a look. It’s a really fantastic exhibit, and it's got some items from OKPOP there.
Thompson: Well, we’re in the midst of an $18 million fundraising campaign. We just had a public announcement, oh, maybe three weeks ago, where we announced that we have raised $8.6 million, and since then, we’re at about $9 million right now, correct?
Krumwiede: Yeah, right about $9 million.
Thompson: So we have $9 million to go. So where can people go if they want to learn more about the campaign, learn more about OKPOP and how they can support us?
Krumwiede: Oh yeah. Absolutely. You can go to okpop.org, and you can find the “Heart & Soul” campaign there. Follow us on social media, Facebook, Instagram. We link to the campaign website just about every day in everything we post. So, you know, we’re really trying to, with pop culture, pop culture is, like I said a minute ago, it’s a story of the people. It’s really a story of us. And what I think is really important about building this museum and launching this public campaign is that we can all build this together. And that’s what I think is so important about this campaign is this is going to be a museum for us, for the people. And I really get excited every day. The more we talk to people, the more people come and visit our doors when they’re open, is hearing them get just as excited as we are. It’s universally true. I have yet to meet anybody that's walked into that museum, hears the story of what we’re trying to do, and doesn’t absolutely love it. So it’s exciting. We’re getting to that point of the campaign where it’s getting exciting, starting to feel like, okay, with that match from the State of Oklahoma, and with the funding that we’ve already raised, counting that match, we’re about three-quarters of the way there.
We’re collecting all of those pieces, all these collection items from all of these different Oklahomans. And, you know, it’s getting to the point where it’s not just an idea. You’re starting to see all of the the objects. You’re starting, it’s starting to feel tangible in a real, real way. And, like I said, it’s really exciting. And I think that excitement is catching on.
Thompson: Yeah. And we’ve got an exhibit there right now, and how long is that exhibit going to be up?
Krumwiede: It’s going to be up through next week. So basically through the 21st of December. So, it’s a photographic history of Cain’s Ballroom seen through the lens of a couple of photographers. One, Phil Clarkin, who’s kind of the current in-house photographer for Cain's Ballroom. So there’s some more modern photographs. But also, from back in Enid, I had the pleasure of meeting him in Enid. Richard Galbraith, who took photos, you know, at a lot of different historic venues across the state. A lot from Cain’s as well, from the mid-’70s on. You know, he’s got some great, great stuff, you know, in his collection. You know, the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, like all sorts of anyone of note that came through and played at Cain’s, he was probably there taking pictures. So that’s, that’s going to be up, like I said, through, the rest of this week and into next through the 21st.
Thompson: Doug, as we get ready to conclude here I’d love to know, what do you want people to take away from this story about Jesse Ed Davis?
Miller: You know, I would always have a different answer to this question. And, but listening to Jake reflect on the value, the importance, the significance of the OKPOP Museum, I think Jesse Ed Davis is a really dynamic example of Oklahoma’s historical, cultural, social dynamism. I think our state history and the histories of peoples, plural, from Oklahoma or peoples who were forced to come live in Oklahoma, or Okies who went to California because they couldn't stay in Oklahoma, and they’re looking for work. And that kind of spirit of being in this together that we see sort of reflected in many elements of the foregoing conversation. Jesse’s story reflects so much of that. And then when we recognize him and discuss him as an Indigenous person with really rich ancestral legacies, you know, going through five different tribal histories as well.
Jesse Ed Davis is about as Oklahoman, an Oklahoman as I can think of. He just reflects so much about this place, and wherever he went, to Los Angeles or New York City and beyond, he always carried that with him. He was always a Kiowa person. He was always a Comanche person. He was always an Oklahoman. And he represented our state really well with really brilliant artistry and music. So the I think the takeaway is to come back to the kind of communal nature of these projects. OKPOP, this book, the Bob Dylan Center, the Oklahoma History Center here, and so forth, and really kind of rally around that through his example. And then also just come right back to the music, because in the end, the histories, the stories, they’re all right there in the records still to this day. And that’s like the road map, right, to follow. And it will get you from point A to point B and beyond.
Thompson: Well, friends, the book is called Washita Love Child: The Rise of Indigenous Rock Star Jesse Davis. And, Doug, where can they find this book?
Miller: Anywhere. Anywhere you want to try to find it. So, major booksellers, from your sort of Amazons and Barnes & Nobles to independent booksellers across the country, if you have a favorite independent bookstore, there’s a good chance that they have the book in stock or that they can order it for you very easily. You can also go to my publisher’s web page, W. W. Norton & Company, and find the book there if you want to order it straight from the publisher. But it’s widely available, and I’m really grateful for people picking it up.
Thompson: Well, Bob, if you have a music fan in your life, with the holiday season coming up, I can’t think of a better gift than this book because Jesse Ed Davis played with over 100 major stars in his career, and you’re going to intersect, he’s going to intersect with them. You’re going to learn more about some of your favorite bands as you’re learning about Jesse Ed Davis.
Blackburn: I think most people will want to know more, and they’ll start listening, and maybe I think this is a great thing for Jesse Ed’s legacy. You know, the music is there, but we need people to listen to the music and to experience his brilliance. And I think this book opens that door very wide.
Thompson: Well, Doug and Jake, it’s been a pleasure to be with you today. Thanks for taking time out of your schedules to come.
Krumwiede: Yeah, absolutely.
Miller: Thank you so much.
Thompson: Friends, we’ll see you after the new year. (upbeat music playing) You’ve been listening to A Very OK Podcast, hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn. The podcast is produced by the Oklahoma Historical Society. Visit us at okhistory.org and find us on social media by searching for @okhistory. I encourage you to purchase a membership to OHS to help us continue our mission to collect, preserve, and share Oklahoma’s unique and fascinating history.
(upbeat music playing)
