Stoney LaRue isn’t much of a studio junkie. The Red Dirt pioneer has only produced two studio albums since he began playing bars around Stillwater and Norman more than a decade ago, and there was a six-year gap between his debut The Red Dirt Album and 2011 hit Velvet. Yet the Oklahoma native routinely sells out many of the […]
songwriter
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Crooks for life
With country currently among the most popular genres on the music charts, more bands have to find new ways to make themselves sound different from everything else on the radio. This is a credo that Josh Mazour, songwriter and lead singer of Crooks, has taken to heart, going as far as to create a new […]
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Beau bridges
Beau Mansfield Photo: Kianoosh Moeini Beau Mansfield is a lot of things, but at his heart, he’s a piano man. The Norman native has toured in comedy improv groups, directed music for theatrical productions and become a momentary viral star in Holland, but at the core of everything is Mansfield’s lifelong love affair with the […]
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John Moreland — In the Throes
He moves through the 10-song collection with The Boss’ swagger, too, effortlessly swaying between fully fleshed folk-rock anthems and quiet, dirt-road ditties. “Nobody Gives a Damn About Songs” anymore marries a lament of the loss of substance with an impossibly catchy — and classically American — melody. “Blacklist” is just as powerful in its heartbreak, […]
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Tom Skinner — Tom Skinner
With this in mind, what makes Tom Skinner’s self-titled album work so beautifully is that it’s chock-full of sincerity — and real sincerity, not manufactured. Sounding like the perfect soundtrack to driving Oklahoma back roads in the summer — windows down, radio way too loud — Skinner evokes shades of alt-roots artists Tom Russell, Greg […]
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On the Fritz
Songwriters draw their inspiration from a variety of things. Current events and relationships are usually high on the list, but things that make us laugh don’t typically scream, “Write a song about me.” Yet they do to Jonny Fritz, the Nashville-based singer-songwriter formerly known as Jonny Corndawg. He plays Thursday at Opolis. Fritz’s eccentric brand […]
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Prettyboy — Dejvická
Abello long has been one of the most talented pure vocalists the state has to offer, but after dabbling in indie folk for a few years (and Christian music in his teens), he’s fully embraced what is an obvious penchant for ’80s-soaked pop tunes. It suits him well. Recorded in the Czech Republic, the two-track […]
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Mulling it over
Shawn Mullins Photo: Michael Wilson When a musician is widely known for one song and one song only, the relationship can be complicated. Folk rocker Shawn Mullins’ Grammy-nominated track “Lullaby” was inescapable as soon as it debuted in 1998, and he hasn’t had another song approach that level of success … but he loves the […]
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Webb fluid
Few songwriters have reached the stratospheric heights as that of Jimmy Webb. By age 16, he was working for Motown Records. At age 20, he wrote “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” which later was a smash for Glen Campbell and would become one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century. With […]
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SXSW 2013: Zach Winters / Parker Millsap
The Norman man’s voice is a high, yearning one, perfect for injecting a sense of longing into a tune. He also had three female vocalists with him, and their vocals added a unique dimension to Winters’ sound. A drummer, hand percussionist, bassist and electric guitarist filled out the rest of the band, which gave Winters’ […]