Our Red Dirt Roots
From the Stillwater Sound to Red Dirt music
In the Red Dirt Music Family, we've witnessed the birth of iconic songs and shared unforgettable moments with the pioneers of this extraordinary genre. Monica's deep connection to the musicians and the music is unparalleled. Her journey spans three incredible decades, and she's lived through the heart of it all at the very birthplace and mecca of Red Dirt music—the legendary Farm.
The sounds of a unique musical melting pot were born amidst the rolling red dirt hills. We've been a part of this remarkable journey, soaking in the history and stories that make Red Dirt music what it is today.
Bob Childers, the Godfather of Red Dirt music, wrote over a thousand songs, with many of them being recorded by many younger generations of Red Dirt Music artists and carried around the country and the world. Some of those artists are: Cody Canada, Jason Boland, Mike McClure, The Great Divide, Tom,Stoney Larue, The Red Dirt Rangers, John Fullbright, Monica Taylor, and others. His dear friend, Jimmy Lafave, also shared many of Childers’ to folks around the world.
Many of his songs have be featured on A Red Dirt Ramble: Tribute to the Pioneers of Red Dirt Music, Volume 1 and Volume 2. He remains an inspiration to many performers for his simplicity in writing a song, the down-home delivery of his songs, and his inclusion of fledgling songwriters.
Bob was also the ‘voice of Woody Guthrie over almost 10 years of for one of Jimmy’s very special musical projects called The Ribbon of Highway Endless Skyway Tour. It’s phenomenal performance included many of the most beloved and top tier Americana performers hailing from all across the United States. For more information on this collective project, go to Ribbon of Highway Endless Skyway — Jimmy LaFave. You may purchase the recorded double cd of one of the shows featuring Bob Childers as the voice of Oklahoma born Woody Guthrie.
Along with Jimmy Lafave, the ‘birth of Red Dirt Music’ has been recognized as a genre, also as a big part of the ‘birth’ - so to speak- of the Texas-Red Dirt genre and subsequent musicians we know of today. Stillwater, OK and Payne county (OK) are ground-zero of Red Dirt music, with the Cimarron river being a prominent fixture in the songs and landscape of the genre.
To hear Bob’s recordings or purchase them, go to:https://music.apple.com/us/artist/bob-childers/253456346
His last album was produced by one of Childers’ protégées, Jason Boland & The Stragglers. Ride for the Cimarron is an excellent recording that gave our Red Dirt godfather the appreciation and shine that was so deserved!
What an incredible recording produced Boland and members of The Stragglers… to quote Jason, “Bob Childers will always be the father of Red Dirt music…and my mentor.” Here’s the Title track for that album, Bob Childers - Ride for the Cimarron
Jimmy Lafave, along with Bob Childers, is considered one of the ‘Godfathers of Red Dirt Music.’ HIs catalog of self-penned songs that he recorded are well over 100 songs. He began trying his hand at playing guitar and writing his own songs while in high school in Stillwater, …which is also the ‘birthplace of Red Dirt Music.’ While trying out his songs on audiences in local bars, he became friends with Bob Childers. Their friendship lasted for their lifetimes.
The Farm, an old 1889 Oklahoma Land Run farm homestead, was a place that their songs were shared -and some were created. This legendary farm is on the Oklahoma Historical Registry listings as ‘the Official Birthplace of the Genre of Music Known as Red Dirt Music.’ Many of the artists that have been mentioned on this website spent formative years sharing songs and passing time of day at this farm west of Stillwater, Oklahoma.Lafave took his songs, and many of his best friend’s songs (Childers) across the United States, Australia, and Europe for 3 decades. His fame was always taken in stride and always with agenerous nod to Childers and tohis Oklahoma roots. A true gentleman and a mentor to hundreds of songwriters in Oklahoma and around the world.
His songs are featured on this multi-volume recording of the early Red Dirt music on A Red Dirt Ramble: Tribute to the Pioneers of Red Dirt Music.
Lafave’s last full concert in Oklahoma was held in The Old Church less than 2 months before his passing from cancer. Monica Taylor- the producer of the Red Dirt Ramble recordings, is also the producer of the Cimarron Breeze Concerts that have hosting concerts since 2013 in the old church from the Territorial era of Oklahoma, 1890’s. Taylor became friends with Jimmy when she performed with her band, The Wayfarying Strangers, around 1988 at one of his Stillwater Musicians’ Reunions held each year at Willie’s Saloon in Stillwater, OK. From that evening until that last, legendary night of music at The Old Church in Perkins, OK, they were very dear friends. He had helped out with the Breeze concerts every year by performing a sold out concert for her series, and by always telling fellow performers on touring across the country that they ‘should get in touch with Monica about playing her Cimarron Breeze Concert series.’ Taylor visited him in Austin for recording sessions at his Cedar Creek studio; recording a number of songs, including a duet of his tune “The Price of Love” that can be heard on her Cotton Shirt album (2010.)
Also mentioned in Bob Childers information on our About Us page, Jimmy was a long time Woody Guthrie student, and friend to all of Guthrie’s family. He worked with the family at the Woody Guthrie archives and eventually helped bring the official Woody Guthrie archives from New York City to Tulsa, OK. A stunning museum and inter-active collection of Guthrie’s lifetime of works and memories! Another one of Lafave’s mentors has always bee Bob Dylan. Having recorded an critically acclaimed album of Bob Dylan’s songs, and knowing that Dylan was a huge fan and protégée in part of Woody Guthrie, he was so pleased to know that the Bob Dylan official archives collection were being moved to Tulsa, OK as well… and right next door to Woody Guthrie’s Museum!
In the late 1990’s, Lafave also helped found the Woody Guthrie Free Folk Festival held every year since in Guthrie’s hometown of Okemah, OK in the central part of the state, only an hour from Tulsa. This has been a growing festival that has hosted hundreds of the best in Folk and other genres of music for 20 plus years. It is held every year around Woody’s birthday in July. Please check out the festival’s website for information on this incredible week of music. Jimmy’s life has been full of so many adventures, interesting people and places… and we are honored to pay tribute to him alongside Bob Childers and other pioneers of Red Dirt music!
Tom Skinner, one of the pioneers of the Oklahoma born genre of Red Dirt music, was longtime friends with Childers and Lafave. He was not only a songwriter of great acclaim, but he also was known as a performer who would learn many of his fellow Red Dirt songwriters’ tunes and ‘make them his own’… his delivery of songs written by his friends were his own heartfelt versions. He carried them all over the country and parts of Europe, with Gene Williams on guitar and Uncle Don Morris on bass, both were co-writers with Skinner on many songs. Skinner also played with many other artists and bands during his 4 decades of music, like Mike McClure whom he played bass on the road with for many years.
In the early 1980’s Tom and his brothers Craig Skinner on bass and Mike Skinner of fiddle formed The Skinner Brothers Band. Tight family harmonies learned from their parents as a family they enjoyed gospel music and shared that at home and in church. Throughout Tom’s life, the heartfelt delivery of his songs and those he learned from other songwriters, had a feeling of the old gospel songs of his youth. About 1984, Tom and his brother Mike formed a band called Santa Fe. Eventually, a young OSU student began singing with them- Garth Brooks eventually joined the band and Nashville was not too long down their road together. Brooks became good friends with Childers, as well, and also Greg Jacobs, whom was always one of his favorite songwriter from the Stillwater writers.
The Red Dirt Rangers have been a torch for the songs of Skinner, Childers, and Lafave for 3 decades.
The Red Dirt Rangers have been a torch for the songs of Skinner, Childers, and Lafave for 3 decades.
For more info on Tom, check out the many write ups on his life and adventures he has had thru the years performing hit her and yon! The artists that he has been an influential part of their musical careers have been: Mike McClure, John Fullbright, Cody Canada, Scott Evans, Jason Boland, The Damn Quails, Brandon Jenkins, and countless others. He was a friend to the songwriter, and a muse to the entertainer. This multi volume recording project, A Red Dirt Ramble, has Tom’s songs as well, those songs that he ‘made his own.’
Check out these writings about Tom Skinner: https://mail.onelink.me/107872968?pid=nativeplacement&c=Global\_Acquisition\_YMktg\_315\_Internal\_EmailSignature&af\_sub1=Acquisition&af\_sub2=Global\_YMktg&af\_sub3=&af\_sub4=100000604&af\_sub5=EmailSignature\_Static
Steve Ripley is not only one of our Red Dirt Godfathers … but his band Moses used the term ‘Red Dirt’ as their record label name. Making it one of the first uses of the term Red Dirt. The band Moses was an early Stillwater band that played songs with their own sound:
“Red Dirt Records is a record company that just gave birth to its first album, which you are now holding your hand. It (red dirt) is also the color of the earth surrounding Enid, and nearby Stillwater, Moses’ home base.
More importantly, Red Dirt is a hue of funk, a shade of sound, a basic spirit embodied in Moses’ music. Take this record home with you and make it your friend. You’ll like it better than your dog.”
The band was made up of Ripley, Steve Irby (founder of Kicker Designs & Audio Co.) on keys, Robert Hatfield on bass, and Bruce Hueston on drums. They recorded their album live at The Filling Station club in Enid, OK, then Steve mixed the tracks at his own place called Stillwater Sound Studio in Stillwater, OK.One of the first recording studios in Oklahoma. Other bands in those early days of music in Stillwater, were the Harlem Riot, the Innkeepers, and the Coachmen.
. “ He was the founder of Red Dirt music for the Stillwater guys," says John Cooper of the Oklahoma band Red Dirt Rangers. "Steve had a studio in town for our kind of music...first. Steve had the great Stillwater band that made a record...first. Steve was the guy, who (Red Dirt musicians) Jimmy LaFave, Bob Childers, Tom Skinner, Randy Crouch, Gene Williams, Chuck Dunlap, Greg Jacobs. ..thought of as first generation Red Dirt. He was their hero, the guy they looked up to, the guy who made it. ”
At Ripley’s Stillwater Sound Studio around 1973, Bob Childers recorded his songs, as did Chuck Dunlap, and Jimmy LaFave. Another of the pioneers of what we now know as Red Dirt music was Randy Crouch. Randy recorded an album with his band at that time, Home Brew, which included his sister Lisa. They recorded a couple of songs written by Steve.
From those very early days of music in this north central college town, Steve and these men wanted to record songs that they wrote. The songwriter scene of Stillwater was being born. Songs were being swapped in living rooms, front porches, and under the trees on the outskirts of town where college kids were living in old farmhouses. The Stillwater Sound was about to birth a ‘scene’ of songwriters and musicians that didn’t care what ‘style’ of music you played; there were so many musicians with each their own styles that would learn other songwriters’ songs and give those songs their own flavor. Like the Tulsa Sound that had been birthed over the 20 years prior to the Stillwater Sound, their sound reflected their own backgrounds from rock n roll, country, gospel, funk, and folk.
Steve would leave Stillwater around 1976. After a little time in Tulsa and Nashville he moved out to California as he began work as Leon Russell’s personal studio engineer. In 1981 he played on Bob Dylan ’s Shot of Love album and tours. While in LA, Ripley invented the 6 channel stereo guitar. Made famous by Eddie Van Halen and played by guitar greats such as Ry Cooder and Dweezil Zappa. In 1987 Steve moved back to Oklahoma and bought Russell’s former Shelter Records recording studio- The Church Studio in Tulsa… and formed the double platinum award winning country-rock band, The Tractors. He would own The Church Studio until 2006. Steve moved back to the Stillwater area in 2005. He would spend the rest of his life there on familiar ground.
So much more happened by following his path in music… the most important thing that ever happened to Steve was meeting his wife Charlene Grant when she came to the Stillwater Sound Studios to record an album with her high school jazz band around 1974. Charlene and Monica Taylor each graduated from Perkins-Tryon High School just south of Stillwater, right on the Cimarron river.
Family was always his pride and joy, and he and Charlene raised their two kids, Elvis Ripley and Angelene- Ripley-Wright with that same motto. Speaking of great sayings, one of Ripley’s most popular phrases was: Don’t forget, Family is what’s important. Tell your mama you love her, Kiss your babies… we’re all in this together. “