The Ledge - RIP Stephen Bruton...

[Here's a 2006 interview]

Tulsa World, May 10, 2006

Section: Music_Previews

Stephen Bruton sees Tulsa, Fort Worth music link

JOHN WOOLEY World Scene Writer

Fort Worth, Texas, and Tulsa share at least one musical giant -- the Western-swing great Bob Wills, who started his bandleading career in Fort Worth and later blossomed in Tulsa.

But according to singer-songwriter-guitarist Stephen Bruton , an Austin resident who grew up in Fort Worth, the two cities have more intertwined musical roots.

"I wasn't in Tulsa (in the early rock 'n' roll and Tulsa Sound days), but I think the situation was very similar to what it was in Fort Worth," he said in a recent telephone conversation. "The saucers flew very close to the ground, and a lot of people got enlightened." He laughed. "It really did reach some sort of critical mass. It wasn't just a lot of cats who wanted to play Beatles music. They all were very adamant about knowing their craft on a contemporary level, but even more on the level of the guys who handed it down. They were very reverent about carrying the torch for their masters. Plus, there was the fact that there were just a lot of very good players."

In Fort Worth, just as in Tulsa -- and Bruton believes, in a few towns in between -- there was a long tradition of different kinds of musicians getting together to jam. Even in the segregated days of the '30s and '40s, black musicians and white musicians would get together. In Oklaho ma, they congregated after hours in Oklahoma City's Deep Deuce area, or in the clubs on Tulsa's Greenwood Avenue. In Fort Worth, Bruton said, they occasionally found a more clandestine meeting place.

"Their buses would be going on the same route, and sometimes they'd stop and meet in graveyards and go to the embalming shacks," he said. "It happened in Fort Worth, back in the ('30s) days of Milton Brown and the Brownies. The graveyards were usually outside of town, and the cops weren't going to go out there in the middle of the night, so those were some of the only places the guys could go to get together."

Bruton, in his mid-50s, belongs to a later generation, but he can recall the joy of meeting musicians you had only known by reputation.

"Growing up in Fort Worth, you didn't know who your peers were from across town, but then you'd see 'em at concerts and clubs, and it would become one of those conspiratorial things," he recalled. "It was the same thing with the Oklahoma cats. You'd hear about 'em, and then you'd meet 'em, and find out they were kids just like you, and it'd become old-home week. It's like what I've always said about the cats from Oklahoma: 'We went to different schools together.' "

Bruton's musical resume is remarkably varied, a testament to his skill in a number of idioms. He's produced discs by the likes of Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Hal Ketchum and Marcia Ball; had his songs recorded by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Jimmy Buffett, Martina McBride and Lee Roy Parnell, among many others; acted in movies and television shows, including the recent Tommy Lee Jones vehicle "Man of the House," and toured with Kris Kristofferson, Christine McVie and Bonnie Raitt (opening for Raitt on her most recent tour, which began at Tulsa's Brady Theater on Oct. 5).

Bruton can't be pigeonholed, even though his three-man band lineup -- featuring bassist Yoggie Musgrove and drummer Steve Ferrone -- makes him look a little like a blues act.

That's all right with Bruton. You can call him whatever you'd like.

"Yeah, I don't really care," he said. "The whole thing's about where we come from. What you seem to earn from being around a long time and playing a lot of different kinds of music is scope. You achieve scope. I've got scope. The Tulsa cats have scope. And the people who come to hear us don't want to hear one thing over and over. They want to hear different styles -- or, at least, they want to hear nods to different styles."