Oklahoma is OK

This past weekend, my wife and I had the chance to drive down to Clarkston, MI to a place called Pine Knob to see a couple of bands. I'll write more about that in a future post, but the important part to know right now is that the opening act was a band from Oklahoma called Southall. The band gets its name from the lead singer Read Southall, and as far as opening acts go, they were actually quite good.

If you are still trying to figure out why this is important, you need to remember it's Tuesday, and on Tuesday many of us here on HIVE share music as part of the #threetunetuesday initiative started by @ablaze. I've been running through the states in the United States in alphabetical order and in case you didn't catch the reference above, this week we find ourselves in Oklahoma.

Despite some of the obvious states I have never visited, believe it or not, Oklahoma is one that I have. When I was a young kid my parents took us on a camping trip down to the small town of Ft. Gibson Oklahoma to visit one of my dads old navy buddies. To be fair, my mom and the other guys wife were close friends due to their husbands time overseas. Probably even closer friends than my dad and the other guy. In fact, I think my mom and her still talk on the phone once a week or once a month or something like that.

The couple had two kids themselves around the same age as my sister and I, so we spent a lot of time with them running around the countryside. I remember they had a small four wheeler and I am pretty sure I spent a large portion of my time riding around on that as well as fishing.

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I didn't realize it at the time, but Fort Gibson, is just up the road from Muskogee, and though this song does mention Oklahoma in it, I am not using this as one of my three songs. It would have been wrong to write this post and not include it though. Especially give the proximity I was to the town without even knowing it. These days, I would have most surely made the drive over to Muskogee just to say I had been there. I mean, Merle Haggard is a legend. I'm sure there are several spots throughout the town where they pay homage to him and this particular song.

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Instead, I am going to share this song aptly named "Oklahoma" by country artist Chase Rice along with a little help from the band I mentioned before Southall. I was pretty lucky to find this video and though I have never heard the song, it does double duty this week given the name and the fact that I recently saw this band live. It's actually kind of interesting because they can do the country sound as well as some dirty southern rock really well. The lead singer might not have the most polished voice, but he has some pipes and can hit some pretty impressive notes.

The band did a pretty good job of getting everyone warmed up for the first of the two main acts, but again, that's a story for another post!

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Don Williams is another artist that I had the distinct pleasure of seeing live. It was during his farewell tour and I remember driving up to some casino in the middle of nowhere northern Michigan to see him. In fact, at the time the casino was fairly new and they didn't even have a event space. Instead they had set up a giant tent out in the parking lot and that is where they had the show.

Do definitely sang "Tulsa Time" during that show and if you pay attention, the main reference to Oklahoma happens right at the beginning of the song. Williams had such a soft and velvety voice. He was also quite a tall man and people often referred to him as the "gentle giant".

You can kind of get an idea of how tall he was in this Austin City Limits performance. Just check out how high his knees are. In fact, I think he did a lot of his shows sitting down because he felt self conscious towering over everyone else. Oddly enough, Google indicates he was only about six foot one inch tall, which isn't really that tall. I wonder if that is with or without his cowboy boots on...

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Finally, I'm going to share this song "Out of Oklahoma" from one of my favorite female country artists right now. It's funny because a lot of times when you see Lainey Wilsons name they refer to her as "Yellowstone star". Really, she only had a bit part in the show that spanned a couple of episodes, so to call her a star is a bit of an exaggeration. I also feel like it is kind of a slap in the face to the people who actually were the stars of the show.

That being said, she can sing like a mother and if you have never heard the song "heart like a truck", you need to do yourself a favor and go listen to it. The song I shared above is from the movie Twisters which was the sequel to the movie Twister, but I never saw it. Lainey is actually one of my bucket list artists that I would love to see live.

There was a rumor that she was going to go on tour with Elle Langley and Kacey Musgraves, but I don't know if that is actually true. It would be one hell of a show if it was though. I can't imagine how nuts the ticket prices would be for that.

Anyway, that's all I got for Oklahoma. Be sure to come back next week when we roll into Oregon.

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