The Guthrie Folk Music Festival, Okemah Oklahoma
A Journal

A special guest feature by Bonny Holder

date: 11-July 15, 2001 Okemah OK

Conversation in a Tulsa Walgreens: Me: Do any of you know where I can buy a cap that says "Tulsa" on it? Three women at cash register, in unison: Why would anybody want to buy a cap that says "Tulsa" on it?

And why would I travel from the pleasant summer days of hummingbirds and sweetpeas in the mountains of New Mexico for two whole days to and from northeastern Oklahoma, in the middle of July? Because my intuition told me it was time to attend the 4th Annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, the town Woody grew up in. He was born there on July 14, 1912 and lived there until he was a junior in high school (member of the Glee Club, on the "Panther" staff, joke editor for the Publications Club), when he joined his father in Pampa, Texas.

Between that time and his death of Huntington's Disease in 1967, Woody Guthrie wrote hundreds of songs, many of them regarded today as being associated with America forever, like "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You", "Hard Traveling" and "This Land Is Your Land". Lots of them were critical of current issues of freedom and better conditions for migrant workers. He glorified the spirit of the American poor, and the American landscape. He was awarded the Department of Interior "Conservation Award" in 1966, inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, and into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 1997. Last year, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys. He wrote songs, stories, books, articles, made drawings, paintings and poems. He lived a life worth celebrating.

The Woody Guthrie Coalition was formed to produce a FREE music festival around Woody's birthday weekend each year (there is a $5 per vehicle parking fee for the night time shows). The actual goal statement reads: "...to provide an event focusing on the influence of folk music, the vision Woody Guthrie had for our country, and the impact his foresight has had on music in America." None of the artists or sponsors are compensated financially for their work or efforts. All money raised goes to support the festival, and they count over 250 volunteers and artists supporting their vision.

One of the more active participants at Woody Fest is musician Jimmy LaFave, who lives in Austin. I'd been listening to his CDs for the past couple of years, and I wanted to see him live; there were others musicians I knew and appreciated playing also, Arlo and Abe Guthrie, Slaid Cleaves, and Lucy Kaplansky among them.

People say that Jimmy LaFave's voice is "an acquired taste, like EmmyLou Harris." He lets it soar, sometimes a little over the top but that's part of his unique charm. He has something else in common with EmmyLou ñ he chooses the cream of the crop of other peoples' songs to sing and record in addition to his own. He unabashedly loves Bob Dylan and has covered at least a dozen Dylan songs on his available CDs, in a reverent way making each song his own.

And his band is terrific. I already knew that keyboard player David Webb was top-notch, having listened to Jimmy's newest album, "Texoma" at least fifty times. Now that I've seen them play, I also have vast appreciation for what Will Landen, bassist, and Larry Wilson, lead guitar do for Jimmy & the songs. Their Mamas should be proud. They are the road warriors, the talented and undoubtedly quirky musicians whose names you don't know who hit your town, no matter what town that is, play for a night or two (anywhere from private parties to taverns to community centers to festivals) and speed off to the next gig. Handling their instruments with the ease of experience, they say very little on stage. They're working class heros on a stage for all the world to see.

I tried to book my hotel room three weeks in advance, and by then the closest I could get was in the town of Okmulgee, about 30 miles away from the Festival site, which was OK with me. I checked in to my room, turned the air conditioner up to HIGH, washed up and headed for Okemah on the back road, Highway 56 S. Although the day's temp had peaked at a little over 100, the evening was warm and sultry. Because of the green vegetation, mist hung in the air in a tropical sort of way.

I was there for the second night of the Festival. The evening before, a number of musicians had presented a program of "all Woody" songs, with a $10 ticket charge (to help finance the free parts of the festival.) Tonight, the Red Clay Rangers were headlining a program including: Xavier (Abe Guthrie's band); Pierce Pettis; Lucy Kaplansky; Slaid Cleaves; and the Rangers. The site? The "Pasture of Plenty" festival grounds, named after a Woody tune, otherwise known as the "Okemah Industrial Park", at least that's what's stenciled on the huge white golf-ball shaped water tower. It was a great show under the great prairie sky of Oklahoma. Insects were not the problem I had imagined. Following a leisurely pink and yellow sunset, a starry sky smiled down on several hundred people, in their own yard chairs, or seated on quilts or spongy bales of hay, happily appreciating the talents of these professional musicians who seemed to be having as much fun on stage as the audience was having.

It takes less than ten minutes to drive to the Brickstreet Café in downtown Okemah, a six-block length of old two-story brick storefronts. I'm one of the first post-Pastures people to arrive; I decide to search out Jimmy LaFave, and it isn't hard, he is stacking speakers in the cavernous basement of the Café. There is sweat staining the back of his black snap-front shirt. I look him down and up, from his trademark black beret to his endearingly-ample tummy, to his zip-leg-off green khaki cargo shorts, down his heavily-muscled calves (looks like a bicycle rider) to his white cotton socks to his beat-up black sneakers. Thanks to the courage from two two-dollar Dos Xxs, I approach him.

"I have spent the last year listening to your music," I tell him as we walk down the ancient stairs together. I want to take his hand and pat it, but I restrain. "I want to tell you that your music has affected me profoundly." I go on. "I am not a nutcase, I know people tell you this all the time. Don't they? They must." I've never done this exactly this way before but I feel so sincere and so strong about wanting him to know. "I have played `Texoma' every single day since I bought it. I drove here all the way from Albuquerque just to see you play."

Jimmy LaFave looks at me with what they used to call, in olden times, "a clear countenance." He is neither shocked, surprised, offended or particularly involved. He stands beside me and lets cowboy singer Luke Reed take our picture with my digital camera. In the picture, I am sweaty, sticky, without makeup, and happy as all get-out.

The author with Jimmy LaFave

Cowboy singer Luke Reed

He asks my favorite songs. I tell him, "When It Starts To Rain" and (Walk Away) "Renee" from his brilliant "Austin Skyline". I want someone, preferably Jimmy, to sing "When It Starts To Rain" at my funeral. It's my personal favorite song. "And anything off `Texoma'," I went on. "`The Moon's a Harsh Mistress' would be nice. Oh! `Restless Spirits in the Night.'" I love that song.

"We probably won't be playing the ballads so much tonight," he says, or something like that. "Y'know, it's a jam."

Luke says, "Hey, happy birthday, Jimmy."

"When's your birthday?"

"Today."

"How old are you?" I enquire. Jimmy becomes suddenly engrossed in guitar-tuning. I note that he shares a birthdate with Henry David Thoreau. I don't really care how old Jimmy LaFave is. He used to play around Stillwater at the same time Garth Brooks did, so they are probably peers, though I don't know how old Garth is, either.

Formica tables and metal folding chairs are neatly lined up as if in a cafeteria. The aged plaster and wooden walls have seen many a wedding reception and and many a wake in its days. The "stage manager" tells LaFave to play for an hour, and then begin asking other musicians to join him on "stage", the far end of a music hall/bar decorated with twinkle lights, both pink and clear.

"Naaw, I don't wanna play alone for an hour," Jimmy says. "Let's get everybody up here pretty soon." He turns to me. "Hey, we'll do `Restless Spirits' with Bob Childers. He wrote it." I know that, Jim. Jimmy is a shameless promoter-of-other people and local enterprises, he had already told me all about the Route 66 75th Anniversary installation in Clinton, OK.

After Jimmy's band ripped into "Rock & Roll Music To The World" off "Texoma", Dylan's "Just Like a Woman", and Woody Guthrie's "Deportee" (he says "de-PORTY".) His keening voice takes the room. Most of these people have heard him before, since his presence at the Fest is an annual event, and this is the 4th year, but he still presides. The band does "Call Me The Breeze", J.J. Cale's song. J.J. still lives somewhere North, near Tulsa. The crowd settles down as tasty keyboardist David Webb plays a keyboard riff that's half ragtime, half Dire Straits. I like how he plays, and I like the way Jimmy holds his guitar. He's a big guy but strong and graceful. I have this thing about wide shoulders. The band plays Woody Guthrie songs without announcing them. "I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore" is a song I had forgotten Woody wrote. If I hadn't snapped to the fact, I would assume that perhaps Jimmy himself had written it.

A couple of other players join the stage group, including Bob Childers, author of the song I had requested, "Restless Spirits in the Night." The lyrics go:

For reasons that don't matter, I was walking down an alley,
heard some music coming through the screen.
Without really thinkin' I walked over to the window
to see something that might have been a dream.

She was standing in the kitchen face turned toward the ceiling
eyes closed, but still they held a light,
from a battered guitar came a sound like angels weeping
for all the restless spirits in the night.

Most all of the songs Jimmy sings have a positive light in them. Although his vocal and guitar treatment can and has been called "blues", he's a man who soars lyrically and emotionally way above the slippery slope. Everything that comes from his music rings true to me. He's the real deal.

Driving back to Okmulgee in the middle of a star-studded summer evening, insects and other critters voices throbbing in the night air. I pull over to a safe shoulder and roll down the window on my truck, settling low in my seat. The cab fills with percussion. Restless spirits in the night? I am filled with a sense of deep satisfaction at what I heard and saw in Okemah, and look forward to the morning.

Hwy south, between Omulgee & OKEEmah

cont'd -> Day 2: At the Festival

Hugh Blumenfeld, Editor
hugh@balladtree.com