NextI remember Porter Wagoner.
He appeared in my living room every Saturday afternoon on "The Porter Wagoner
Show" during the 1960s, singing and advertising Creomulsion Cough Syrup,
Doans Pills, and Black Strap Molasses. I was fascinated by his sparkling Nudie
outfits, thought Shorty and Stringbean were real hoots, and, although I was
a very young, something about the way Miss Dolly Parton's tight outfits clung
to her considerable curves moved my child's heart. "The Porter Wagoner
Show" is the genesis of this thesis.
When I was 10 years old, I discovered rock and roll. My friend David Eaton got
a cassette player on his birthday that year, and we spent the whole summer in
his attic listening to the tapes of various rock groups he got from his cousin.
After hearing the Beatles and the Stones, Porter and Dolly no longer held much
interest for me--at least until I began this project.
There is a considerable heritage of music in my family. My parents grew up around
music and musicians in southeastern Oklahoma. As was true for many families
in that part of the country, entertainment depended on having a house full of
good musicians. My maternal grandfather is a fiddler and delights in telling
me how he broke his best fiddle over some fella's head during a barn dance (it
seems the man tried to get fresh with my grandmother). All of my grandmother's
brothers played music, many professionally at one time or another. To this day,
my mother and her two sisters still gather around the piano to sing harmony
at each family get together. My father's side of the family is no less musical.
Every Saturday night for the past 50 years, someone in his family has had an
impromptu jam session. During these gatherings-- "musicals," as they
call them--everyone with a guitar, mandolin, or fiddle is encouraged to jump
right in, playing any song of which someone knows a few chords.
Despite being surrounded by music and musicians when I was growing up, I was
not inspired to begin playing music myself until I heard Ted Nugent. I started
playing the guitar at age 13 on my dad's old Fender and switched to bass at
age 15 . I began playing in bands shortly after (Nugent's "Cat Scratch
Fever" was the first song I ever played with other musicians), and I had
my first paying job when I was 18. By the time I was 20, I was playing every
weekend and making pretty good money. After I completed my undergraduate degree
in 1985, I became a full-time musician. In 1990, after five years of being on
the road with all the trials, tribulations, and heartaches that it entailed,
I decided I had had enough of hard living and decided to go back to school.
I started graduate school in 1990, trading one hard, desperate life for another;
and I have financed most of this education by playing music. Life on the road
had given me quite a bit of time to read. I became interested in Oklahoma history
after reading John W. Morris' Ghost Towns of Oklahoma. A few years later, a
local music store's newsletter announcing the addition of Harlow Wilcox to its
teaching staff piqued my interest in the history of the broadcast industry in
Oklahoma. The newsletter credited Wilcox with a Number one hit single and a
Grammy nomination, and, since I had never heard of Harlow Wilcox, I wondered
if the store's claims were exaggerated. After talking to some of my musician
friends about Wilcox, I began to realize there was much about the local music
scene of which I knew nothing.
I learned quickly that many of the older local musicians had gained considerable
experience playing on local radio and television shows, and this experience
had an enormous effect on their careers. I personally had experienced many disappointments
with local radio and television stations in trying to get them to play my music;
most had policies against playing any local music. When I compared my experience
with that of Wilcox, whose hit record got its start on local radio, I realized
how opportunities for local musicians had changed during the previous 20 years
and wanted to find out when and why these changes occurred.
My research has led me to many interesting characters in the regional music
business, and I have discovered that, although the jobs, pay, and opportunities
diminished for my generation, there remained some similarities. I have learned
that life on the road has gone virtually unchanged over the years and that most
musicians, save the few most successful, eventually will be forced to see seek
more stable sources of income. I have learned that despite the love of music
most musicians feel, making a living playing music always has been difficult
at best. I also have learned that there are many fascinating stories from Oklahoma's
cultural history that have not yet been told adequately.
Many excellent studies have been published about the history of broadcasting
in general and a few about Oklahoma's broadcast industry. Most of what has been
published about Oklahoma broadcasting, however, has been limited to works of
a celebratory nature with virtually nothing having been written about the effect
the broadcast industry has had on Oklahoma's culture.
This thesis will focus on the development of Oklahoma's broadcast industry and
how this, in turn, has affected local musicians. I have chosen to focus entirely
on AM radio and VHF television because FM radio, UHF television, and cable television
did not develop fully and become a viable forces until the late 1960s and early
1970s, and then only as media in which local musicians played little or no part.
Although community access cable stations are an exception to this rule, their
audience is by nature limited. Therefore, community access cable stations have
not provided the same opportunities for musicians that AM radio and network
television once did.
One final disclaimer: Despite my belief that "objectivity" is a myth,
I have tried to remain neutral in my opinion about how and why the broadcast
industry developed as it did. Much of the first section of this thesis evolved
from a seminar paper I wrote in 1991--"WKY: Pioneer to Profiteer"--in
which my point of view was quite negative toward the Oklahoma Publishing Company
(OPUBCO). I essentially was looking for a "fall guy" to explain why
opportunities for local musicians had dwindled for my generation. In the process
of blaming OPUBCO, I failed to see that the history of broadcasting in Oklahoma
was part of a much larger process for which OPUBCO ultimately was not responsible.
While the expansion and centralization of the industry has both created and
destroyed unique aspects of Oklahoma's culture (and this is somewhat lamentable),
I have tried to realize that change is inevitable and attempts to "preserve"
culture in the face of change, or to bemoan those changes, is the very definition
of futility.
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