oklahoma house rockers

this week jesse ed davis will be inducted posthumously into the oklahoma music hall of fame class of 2011. during his oklahoma musical days he was associated with two other musicians whose place in oklahoma musical days has been at best belatedly recognized - conway twitty and wes reynolds. i've written a bit about conway twitty* here. so today i'd like to write a few words about jesse ed davis and wes reynolds

jesse ed davis is and was beloved to his kiowa people and the world of rock and roll. his cousin mary helen deer smith reports he was know as 'eddie' and was the son of vivian saunkeah, a full blood kiowa, and his father jesse edwin davis who was creek and comanche but apparently identified himself primarily with the creeks. jesse ed's death at an early age is clearly comparable as a loss to the death of another kiowa of his age, t.c. cannon because of the world class artistic talent they both demonstrated. after his death one of his national friends, jackson browne, told an oklahoma city audience how fondly he remembered jesse and his mother vivian who treated him as a son and whose home he still returns to. [courtesy: bernice benefield]

he graduated from northeast high school in 1962 and played locally with johny ware and others, attended ou and taught guitar, before leaving school and town to tour with conway twitty in the first days of his rock and roll times.

his life is chronicled by rock historian jas obrecht in part because of the list of rock superstars with whom he was associated from taj mahal to individual beatles: Jesse Ed Davis: “I Just Play the Notes That Sound Good”. near the end of his life at 43 he played with john trudell in the graffitti band. one night in 1987 while playing in the palomino club with taj mahal they were joined spontaneously on stage by bob dylan, george harrison and john fogerty producing what turned out to be a particularly special tribute to his career and ability.

wes reynolds, known as wesley during high school years, grew up around oklahoma city and spent time at northeast high school in the 1950's and according to my memory at least performed at my high school, northwest classen. i can remember him still for having the famous 'greaser/rocker' look and playing his hit 'trip to the moon' in the northwest classen high school cafeteria. his memory stuck with me all these years and i went internet searching for him and found that he was live, well and still playing in tulsa after some heady musical times of his own.

turns out he had abandoned high school [a move i wouldn't have understood at the time] to began a musical career described by his friend john wooley in a tulsa world article: Wes Reynolds has been all over America -- on and off the rock 'n' roll radar. i found that he had honed his musical skills in part at a studio run by one of child musical heroes about 100 feet from where i now live. he used to venture to the legendary studio of gene sullivan in capitol hill. sullivan as gene of 'wiley and gene' had been a local musical hero for me for as part of their bluegrass/country singing and comedy routine. his studio up the block from me now was obviously a local music epicenter featuring appearances by the likes of leon russell before he was leon and others. and wes got to play with them all. but i didn't know all that firmly north of the south canadian river.

'trip to the moon' was the result of a somewhat byzantine story of music in the first space exploration days of the 50's. nonetheless it's publication in 1957 officially began wes' rock and roll career with 'the house rockers' and other bands and took him to venues from tulsa's hard rock scene to a good part of the united states. a south dakota rock and roll association notes his playing there and being part of the bands listened to and brought there by oklahoma city's KOMA as a clear channel station. wes lived in los angeles, las vegas and miami and played with rock and roll blues legends as diverse as ricky nelson and bo diddley. he even appeared in television shows during his l.a. days.

in 1970 he returned to tulsa to raise a family and continue music as a documents his touring and tulsa years. his current web site showcases his entire career. he is an accomplished rock and roll pianist, ala jerry lee, and blues guitarist. in 2009 he was inducted into both the oklahoma historical society rock and roll hall of fame and the oklahoma blues hall of fame.** a tulsa fan, 'nurseeroc' has given included a number of wes' videos on his youtube channel. earlier this summer he wrote, produced and performed a new video 'for good'.

a recent video shows him at his simple blues man best:

i finally got to see wes perform one song in tulsa earlier this year 50+ years after that school cafeteria and am eagerly awaiting a next time. he wrote to me this morning and reported he and jesse ed traded guitar licks and rock and roll star dreams in oklahoma city in their teens and saw each other shortly before jessie ed's death. so today i happily celebrate two of my oklahoma city contemporaries who followed their rock and roll dreams.

* suffice it to say that conway twitty has not been in made a member of any oklahoma hall of fame musical or otherwise and that is just plain wrong.

** his nomination for the oklahoma music hall of fame without election in 2005 is clearly a blot on that group's reputation. but it's probably not a good week to push that cart.

PART TWO TWITTY BURGERS, ROCK N ROLL, POETRY AND THE LAW

HAROLD JENKINS, A.K.A. CONWAY TWITTY

‘HIS MUSIC WAS AS GREASY AS HIS HAIR.’

’"Conway Twitty, ... seems to have been written out of rock'n'roll history for some reason. Perhaps his rock'n'roll output was overshadowed by his incredible success as country singer. ... Compared to George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buck Owens and Merle Haggard who all made their best country sides during that same time period, Twitty's country output is nothing special. But his rock'n'roll sides (1957-63), to my ears, are much better, in fact he cut out a pretty nice niche for himself as a rocker, with a penchant for making histrionic ballads sound just a tad sleazy. "’

A blogger who calls himself Hounddog and is responsible for my title.

When Conway Twitty opened his Twitty Burger restaurant in 1970, he was 36 years old , a resident of far south oklahoma city, and an established country music star, and he had settled comfortably into life under a stage name like few others. [Check out: TWITTY BURGERS, ROCK N ROLL, POETRY AND THE LAW - PART 1.] By 1975 he had moved on to Nashville, and our local memories had begun to get more remote, particularly after his death in 1993.

What had also disappeared was the story of his transformation from a small town country boy talented in country music and baseball to a career as an early years rock and roller with a new name, records, movies and a life living and performing all over the country. In fact the story really lasted less than 10 years but it was full of action and featured his performing music in a way his later country career belied. I continue to write so we won't forget either part of the Conway Twitty story.

HAROLD JENKINS - THE ROCKABILLY YEARS

Conway Twitty was born Harold Jenkins 1933 in a town called Friar's Point, Mississippi, some 70 miles down the Mississippi River from Memphis. His family moved across the river to the Helena, Arkansas area. The area up to Memphis along the delta was a musical hotbed for the beginning intertwining of black and white country music that would become rock and roll and rockabilly. Harold had his own country band by the age or ten, performed regularly in the area as a teen-ager and even had a radio show. At 21 his career was interrupted by the Army which sent him to Japan until 1956 where he managed to play a lot of music and a little baseball. [1] The Army had taken him away from the delta area right when Sam Phillips and Sun Records were overseeing the real beginnings of rock and roll. Harold /Conway was never known to be slow and he turned his life over to rock and roll in the next 5 years with such speed and gusto that I’m hard put to actually assign dates to the happenings except as dates on his pictures give clues.

1] As Harold he formed a rockabilly band called the Rockhousers.

2] He took his band with him to audition for Sam Phillips and placed himself under the wing of Sam Phillips who, no doubt, did help train him:

Phillips didn’t bite at first, but he liked Jenkins’ original composition,

Rockhouse, enough to acquire the publishing, and then pass the tune

on to Roy Orbison. Orbison rewrote some of the lyrics and recorded it.

Jenkins recorded several songs for Sun, but none were released until

well after his later success on other labels.

3] He recorded a small number of songs for Sun but they didn’t pass sam’s tests and Sun didn’t release them. He never appeared in publicity with Sun’s big boys. But later when his career took off with other labels Sun released the songs and included them in compilations. I played history detective and found a picture of a wall in sun with various sun performers’ pictures. ‘On closer inspection’ I found that they did have a picture of conway but it was in fact a photo of him from another label.

4] He acquired a manager Don Seat who may or may not been responsible for Harold officially changing his name to Conway Twitty, using the names of small towns in Arkansas and Texas, which was officially adopted in 1957.

5] Seat got Conway a deal with Mercury Records which went nowhere. Then he sent Conway to play at a club called the Flaming Lounge in Ontario, Canada where he polished his act and became a local star. He also spent similar time in Des Moines, Iowa., somewhere along the way.

6] And then Seat managed to get him a deal with MGM records where his career as a successful rocker began with his first national hit “ It’s Only Make Believe” in 1958. [1] Check out Danny Boy from the MGM years and tell me doesn't sneak up on you and get you rockin along.

7] Seat even steered Conway into hollywood and 3 unexceptional teen movies. In one of them "College Confidential', he got to 'neck' with Mamie Van Doren, a sex symbol of the time. And there was one story from along those time that produced a truly singular item on Conway's resume. His name was adapted for a musical based on elvis’ going into the army. The main character was called 'Conrad Birdie', and the musical, which later became a movie, was entitled 'Bye Bye Birdie'. I didn't research whether he got credit or remuneration

8]. Conway continued to travel and perform, even in Oklahoma City. But in 1960 he began writing country songs again and sang a variety of songs. In 1962 MGM let him go and in 1965 at Tony Mart's nightclub in Summer's Point, NJ, Twitty ‘put down his guitar, walked off stage, and made his move full time into the "Country" arena. It wasn’t too hard because he had been recording under a new label’s Nashville branch anyway.

TWO STORIES FROM ALONG THE WAY

LEVON HELM

Levon Helm, later of fame with 'The Band' backing up Bob Dylan gave us a personal vision of conway/harold and the delta rockabilly days. I was lucky enough to borrow his 1994 autobiography, This Wheels on Fire”. [2] There Helm tells of the local music scene that included ‘Elvis, Jerry Lee and ‘our own Phillips County hero Harold Jenkins, before he was known under his stage name: Conway Twitty.’ He also tells of then Harold and his Rockhousers performing at a local store opening where he and his sister sang a few songs before the rockhousers kept the crowd dancing with rockabilly. More importantly for Levon that turned into his first real public performance when Conway let him play a song when was appearing at a West Helena club and includes the following:

One night I'm in there listening to Conway Twitty and the Rock Housers, who were the best band around. Oh boy, were they. Conway was from Friars Point, Mississippi, but moved to Helena when he was about ten so his daddy could pilot Charlie Halbert's ferry. His first band was the Phillips County Ramblers, a country-style group but that changed when Elvis's "Mystery Train" inspired young Jenkins to begin writing rockabilly songs. He went up to Memphis worked with some of the Sun musicians, like Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee, and often came through our area with a series of good bands. ...

So I'm in the Delta Supper Club, and Conway's doing "Jenny, Jenny," and the place is just going nuts. He had all the rock moves—the stutter, the twitches, the strut—and the band, ..., provided a raw rockabilly jolt. Girls loved Conway's big, heavy-lidded good looks and long hair reminded 'em a little of Elvis.”

The next day Conway left for his Canada adventure.

OKLAHOMA CITY REAPPEARS IN THE STORY

Harold was Conway Twitty when he came to OKC to play at the old Springlake Amusement Park back then and gave me one of my few tastes of real rock and roll. I’m not sure if I was there for the time he caused a mini-riot there 1961. His friend Gene Jones tells the story and provides these two picture of one of the quiter moments.

When Conway appeared at the Springlake Amusement Park Amphitheater in 1961, a riot resulted with fans mobbing the stage and Conway retreating to a small building behind the stage that served as a dressing room. The band and other Members of the show barricaded the doors to keep fans away for fear of harm to him until Park Security arrived to restore order. After that show the Park installed an eight foot cyclone fence between the stage and the audience to keep that from happening again. From that time until the Park was closed several years later, the fence was known as the "Conway Twitty Fence.

So truth is Conway's rock and roll years are worth viewing and listening to, both for the music and to watch his hair style evolve.

footnotes

[1] His Army music days were documented by Gene Jones who played with him in the army in stories and photographs including one of Conway playing with legendary Kiowa guitar player Jesse Ed Davis. His website is good for stories and pictures. I have also used photographs from an 8 CD set which in fact has all of Conway's rock time music. The photos were provided to a newfound internet friend in Finland, Marko Velijalainen, who used some of them in some youtube videos of Conway's rock songs. I have these and a number of other links as a word perefect file if anyone wants to check it out.

2] From Gary Ackley, a long time Assistant District Attorney in oklahoma county, who, much to my pleasure, has always been willing to discuss much more than just the law. He and I both recommend the book for a wonderful range of stories from the front lines of the best of the rock world.

3] The later picture in bad color of Conway at springlake was provided by Kitty Houston who apparently is still singing around the city. She tells stories in her website about hanging out with him because she was married to one of his players.

TWITTY BURGERS, ROCK N ROLL, POETRY AND THE LAW

go by 7200 south western in oklahoma city and you’ll see the current home of southwest monuments, a company apparently dedicated to entirely obliterating and ignoring the iconic status of their building in the history of oklahoma city music and restaurants, bad poetry and even bankruptcy law. the building was built in 1969 or 70 as the center piece of what the late conway twitty envisaged as a chain of restaurant celebrating his personal creation, the twitty burger.

we used to go there in my baby lawyer years and the place had genuinely good food - the first place I ever knew that served the now ubiquitous ham or other meat biscuit. at the time it entranced me as an almost illegal mixing of the biscuit and meat. the twitty burger itself was distinguished by inclusion of a breaded deep fried pineapple slice. maybe it would have done well ion the new era of bread and fry everything but it didn’t do much for me at the time.

the building itself was - and is - actually well done. an oklahoma city history blogger, who managed to publish before me, described it as: ‘western décor with rough hewn beams on a cathedral ceiling, natural stone and leather.”*

Steve Lackmeyer - The Famous Twitty Burger. the building was shaped like a ‘t’ and parking was under a ‘c’ shaped covered canopy - in other words, conway twitty’s initials were incorporated. part of the ‘c’ has since been removed. one of my most enduring memories was driving behind the c and t in the back and almost getting run down by conway himself in a cadillac convertible - he was there sometimes as I remember . this slideshow includes memorabilia of the restaurant and a goodby sign on another of conway’s enterprises:

early this year i ventured into the building in hopes of confirming my memories and discovered the interior still looked good. unfortunately this is where and when I got to deal with present property owners. actually i only got to deal with the owner’s daughter who worked there but i was denied an ‘interview’ with management and refused the right to take pictures. maybe i should organize a boycott of their business by avid conway fans, most of whom are probably perfect for their company demographics. but for now i propose to tell you two more stories in separate editions: the story of conway in his rock and roll years; and the postscript to the demise of the twitty burger chain which is a story in itself. stay tuned

p.s. when i do my blogs, i usually do a bunch of research which creates a word perfect file with copies of all my internet sources. i am happy to send them to anyone who wants to check further.