Steve Ripley – Creator, Producer and Historian of Oklahoma Music Part 6
Ripley had a special relationship with the Red Dirt Rangers. In fact, when he inducted them into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2017, he reminisced:
Once upon a time… Twenty-some years ago…The Red Dirt Rangers showed up at The Church Studio – my home away from home in those days. They were filled to overflowing with positive energy and good vibes… Lots of hugs – and ‘Hey Brother’ stuff. Old cynical Uncle Steve thinks… Well, ain’t that cute. Not that I was agin it or anything. But I have known them to meet up some place… drive to the studio… get out of their respective cars and vans and started greeting each other like they hadn’t seen each other in weeks – when it had just been 45 minutes. But they soon won me over. I went from ‘Oh brother…’ To ‘Hey brother… Hey Cuz…’ Because it was genuine. And it was catching. And that’s the heart of the Red Dirt Music deal – movement – genre. That’s why it has a legitimacy… That’s why it continues to thrive.
They were fresh from recording two previous records with Grammy award-winning producer and musician Lloyd Maines (yes, father of the Chick’s Natalie Maines) when they began recording with Ripley. The Red Dirt Rangers – John Cooper, Ben Hahn, and Brad Piccolo – worked with Ripley on three albums. On their Staring Down the Sun album (2002) they recruited Oklahomans Bob Wiles, Jimmy Karstein, Rocky Frisco, Terry “Buffalo” Ware, Lee Norfleet, John Wooley, and Ripley. Corey Mauser, legendary fiddle player Byron Berline and his long-time collaborator John Hickman on banjo, and Roger Ray on steel guitar also set in.
Piccolo wrote Dwight Twilley’s Garage Sale after being mesmerized by all the rock and roll memorabilia and an enviable guitar at the Tulsa sale. Twilley was invited to sit in on the song. Piccolo said, “he brought his voice machine, which he used on all recordings, which was an oddity to Ripley, but he dealt with it.” Piccolo told me that it was pure magic working with their “hero, the legendary Steve Ripley. Our energy it just struck. Steve would do live tracking as much as possible and would take what we’d recorded into his hermit studio to fine tune it. The next time we’d come in we’d hear it and say ‘wow – that’s us?’ He put in way more beyond our budget, we should have paid him ten times the amount we did.”
Cooper said working with Ripley was incredible not only for his professionalism but also due to his ability to make things happen. “We were working on Ranger Motel (2007). Pic and I wrote a song called Psychedelic Cowboy as a tribute song for Doug Sahm (of the Sir Douglas Quintet) after he passed away in 1999. He was one of our first heroes and that Tex-Mex sound really got us. At the time, we also had two accordions in the band – Charlie Peadon and K.C. Moon. So, when we were recording this song, we wanted this great keyboard sound, kind of an Augie Meyers sound. You know, Augie was in the Sir Douglas Quintet. Steve suggested that we call Augie and see what he’s got goin’ on. Steve dialed Dylan’s number because Augie had also worked with Dylan. I’ll be damned, we had Augie on the phone about an hour later, planning to come to Tulsa to record with us. He arrived in two weeks. He ended up on eleven of the album’s fourteen songs.”
Ben Han, John Cooper, Augie Meyers, and Brad Piccolo
Ranger Motel was the final Rangers disc recorded at Ripley’s legendary Church Studio. Along with the regular Rangers additional artists included Jimmy Karstein on drums, Randy Crouch on fiddle and steel guitar, and Don Morris on bass guitar. Augie Meyers played Vox Jaguar organ, Hammond B/3 organ, grand piano and accordion, and Oklahoma Blues and Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Famer Jimmy “Junior” Markham sat in on harmonica. Piccolo said his favorite projects were working on Lone Chimney and Ranger Motel with Ripley. “The sound is big, grandiose… because Steve would indulge us. We had sitars, tuned water glasses, gongs, all kinds of stuff.” And of course, Ripley’s stories were always incredibly interesting, “I’d sit with Steve while tracking rhythm guitar and he’d tell stories. Here I was sitting next to Royalty! My hero who had dinner with the Beatles!”
Ben Han told me he felt like Ripley lifted him up in positive ways and always brought the best out of him. Ripley also got Han to drink tea, which he does to this day, to help his voice. He said, “You can’t go wrong hanging out with a genius. I felt like I had come to a place of worship when we were in the studio with Steve.”
The Red Dirt Rangers adored Ripley, and their bond was truly unique. As Ripley stated in his Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame induction for them, they are truly lovable, their energy contagious, and they are ecstatic to be living their musical life. Cooper recently told me, “I have what I consider ‘billion-dollar friends’ because of being in this band and doing this. They are worth everything to me.” Over the years Ripley recorded many other musicians and was a friend to local bands. Doc James of Tulsa’s premier reggae band, Local Hero, explained to me:
I heard about him from some other musicians at the time. Explosive Records sent bands to Steve. He was a truly exceptional artist, and I don’t use the term lightly. Steve was more about let the work speak for you. He has that type of mind, and he will persevere until he gets it perfect. When you come across such talent, you want to collaborate with them. Whether you liked it or not, he would tell you what he thought. You don’t want people who will say yes just to collect your money.
Steve gave us a crisp sound for our album Forward For a New Generation. We got national acclaim for that. He could record. That album was in major films and in a skit on Saturday Night Live. Steve had a great mind for music. He was an artist in every degree. We got to be real friends. That Church Studio was his life.
The Mellowdramatic Wallflowers were a young Tulsa band that grew close to Ripley. “One night, pretty late, we decided to go to Ripley’s studio and knock on the door. Amazingly, he answered the door and let us in,” drummer Jarrod Gollihare recalled recently:
We were friends with his kids – Elvis and Angelene – who had been coming to our shows and they helped open that door. That late-night meeting was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. He was very kind to us. Steve wasn’t usually a flibbertigibbet [overly talkative] …until he got to know you. I felt like I had stepped into a magical world, an eccentric place filled with vintage recording equipment and strange objects, with a Hammond organ, vintage guitars, Mellotron and his handcrafted instruments. There was a guitar shop upstairs and a repair room by the control room. Steve let us record demos for free and he personally recorded them. He was a talented musician, songwriter, producer/engineer and had a very good ear. If he was helming the board when you were recording, you could trust it. In 1999, we recorded our major label release, Mock Heroic, at The Church.
Eventually the band renamed themselves Admiral Twin and Gollihare and Ripley’s lives continued to intertwine in spectacular and bittersweet ways.
Jarrod Gollihare (2nd from right) and The Mellowdramatic Wallflowers later known as Admiral Twin
Brothers Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson were friends with Ripley’s children in Tulsa. Elvis explained that “Mike Garrett, who was a friend of my dad, had recorded some of the first Hanson demos. That’s probably how my dad heard about them, before they were singing 50s doo-wop songs at Big Splash. They had an EP called Boomerang. He helped them a lot because they were recording their own stuff and called when they needed a certain piece of equipment for the day or would transfer tapes from one format to the other. We all became great friends, hanging out all the time. We would go to Hanson events. And with Hanson we co-hosted the biggest New Year’s Eve party at The Church.” Underneath (2004) was recorded at The Church and tracked and mixed by Steve. It was a live performance for fan club members only during their Hanson Day Celebration in 2003. Ripley also mixed songs on Lost Without Each Other [Japan EP] (2005) and The Best of Hanson: Live and Electric (2005). Taylor recently explained “this year 2023) during our H Day event, we are highlighting the Underneath acoustic ep made 20 years ago this year!”
Hanson Fans Lined Up to Enter The Church Studio
Parker Ferrell is active in the Tulsa music scene and has played in many bands, including his current one, Nightingale as well as his solo effort, Love Runs Through. “My high school rock band, Xanadu, won the Battle of the Bands at the Cain’s Ballroom in 2005” Parker told me recently:
We believed that we ought to record an album. Steve was a friend of my father, Ben Farrell, a singer-songwriter who had owned The Church Studio before I was born and before Steve bought it. So, we went to The Church Studio where I first met him.
He gave us a tour of the recording studio, which was filled with Steinways. He may have had 40 Wurlitzers that he had purchased from Tulsa Public Schools stacked up in the basement. Neumann microphones of all types were on the pianos. There was everything you could possibly think of for superb recording. Many guitars were hanging high up on the walls and were unique: Gibsons, Martins and some that he had made. It seemed like a dream to me.
He didn’t impose much but would sometimes make suggestions. Steve told us if you had (Fender) Telecasters in your hands you’d go right to the top. But we were acoustic, and he respected that. He and I were in the control room together once, and in my naiveté, I asked him if he thought this could be a hit. He responded, ‘It depends on what you do with it.’ I suddenly realized we had to do a lot of work to do, it’s not luck and chance, it’s a lot of work in the music business.
Artists occasionally dropped by to record a song or two. Electric blues musician Scott Ellison told me that his friend Jamie Oldaker called Ripley and organized a session at The Church Studio for him during a break while touring. “It was one of the most cherished moments of not only my music life, but it was the first time I met Steve and we clicked immediately! I mentioned how much I liked a certain Bob Dylan song and bang, that’s all it took, and we were friends. Ron Getman and Debbie Campbell recorded the most beautiful background vocals. The song we recorded was The Heart is Always True. I learned six years of knowledge in music in the three days I was with Steve, and it was one of the highlights of my life.”
According to John Wooley, the Los Angeles band Jackshit found The Church Studio through Tulsa music promoter Anita Faragher. The LA trio included drummer Pete Thomas, founding member of Elvis Costello’s group the Attractions, bassist-vocalist Davey Faragher, who later joined Thomas in Costello’s new group the Imposters, and guitarist-vocalist Val McCallum who had played with Jackson Browne, Lucinda Williams, Bonnie Raitt, Loretta Lynn, and others.
The three found a common interest in old-time country and honky-tonk music and began gigging on the side as a group. “The whole deal was for them to come here and make a certain sound, so they didn’t bring any instruments in but a bass,” explained Ripley. “They just went through a pile of amplifiers I had in the studio and picked one I’d gotten at Golden Pawn five years ago but never used. Pete made a kit from drums he found around the studio, centered around a kick drum that came out of Lot 431 from the Tulsa Public Schools auction — a marching-band bass drum.” Ripley engineered several songs for them. “I loved those guys, and I think they loved the studio,” he said. “We had a great time. I think it beat everybody’s expectations. They came here to make it work, and that’s what they did.” As usual, Ripley remained friends with the group. In fact, Pete and Davey played in a band with Steve on his last live performance.
Val posted this after Steve’s death: “We made our 2nd Jackshit record with Steve at his Church Studio in Tulsa about ten years or so ago. The legendary studio that Leon Russell started back in the early 70s, later purchased by Charlene and Steve Ripley. The Church was sacred ground and just walking through the front door was a spiritual moment for Pete, Shorty (Davey) and I. It was packed to the gills with Steve’s cool vintage gear and his very cool guitars were hanging all over the walls. The space had serious vibe and we were thrilled to be there. Charlene and Steve were proud of their legendary studio and the energy in the room was great because of it. They were great hosts and treated us like long lost family. I love the record we made with Steve, and I love having it to remember him by.”
Jackshit at The Church Studio
A few of the other musicians not mentioned yet, who passed through The Church Studio doors during the 19 years Ripley owned it include Steve’s old boss Bob Dylan, Bo Diddley, Rick Vito, The Whites, Carmen, Carlton Pearson, Brooks and Dunn, Jana Jae, and NBA player and talented jazz bassist Waymon Tisdale, Speedy West, Jimmy LaFave, Chainsaw Kittens, Kevin Welch, Kieran Kane, and Garth Brooks.
Trade Union (2009) was the last Tractors album recorded at The Church Studio. There were 22 musicians and singers who performed on the album. Casey Van Beek plays bass on all the tracks and background vocals on many. Jimmy Karstein is credited with drums on most of the tracks. It included a song, Up Jumped the Boogie, created for author Stephen King. King’s book “Desperation” (1996) quoted from the song Baby Likes to Rock It. Ripley thanked him with an invitation to be on the next Tractors recording and King, a huge Tractors fan, replied with a letter to Ripley that included this P.S: “Have you ever thought about a good ‘ole shit-kicking’ country song concerning people coming back from the dead?” Although they never got together, Ripley was inspired to write Up Jumped the Boogie with Leon Russell. Leon plays piano, sings, and plays the blues guitar on the bridge.
The slide-guitar and baritone on J.J. Cale’s Rhythm Bone was created from an old recording session with Cale. Prior to Cale and Eric Clapton’s Grammy-winning duet, The Road to Escondido, the initial “demo” was recorded in Tulsa. After the song was rejected from a later Cale album Ripley said, “John sent me the demo and the master tapes, and we built this magical song around those tracks leaving Cale’s original vocals and guitars.” Cale later told Steve that Trade Union was his favorite Tractors record.
One night after dinner with the Ripleys and Sweet Emily (Emily Smith – the inspiration behind Leon Russell’s song Sweet Emily), they headed to the Church Studio. Charlene explained that “Leon said matter-of-factly, ‘I’m gonna write a song called Good Old Days. Do you have one called Good Old Days?”
What erupted from Russell was his tribute to their friendship. “It was a cute tip of the hat to that side of me,” said Ripley. Within minutes, Russell had pounded out a hopping, piano-driven tune about all-night dancing, DJs, and rhythm and blues.
Leon Russell and Steve Ripley at The Church Studio
Ripley summed up his thoughts about The Tractors and The Church Studio in the liner notes on Trade Union CD:
This is the last Tractors record recorded at The Church Studio in Tulsa. After nineteen years, we sold the building and are moving to the country – the farm – where I grew up in Pawnee County.
When we started the first Tractors album, there were no CDs. By the time we finished, there were no vinyl records. We had some great times at The Church Studio. Made some pretty good music. Maybe of bit of history, or at least added a little – added a little to the Bob & Johnnie Lee Wills – Leon Russell – J.J. Cale Tulsa music legacy.
Oklahoma has such a rich heritage. Home to outlaws and Black Wall Street. Dirt-poor farmers and black-gold rich oilmen. Cowboys and Indians. Hillbilly fiddlers and big band jazzers. Country & Western and Rhythm & Blues. Oklahoma’s own Western Swing. All of the above – all mixed together. That’s what The Tractors – as a thing- struggles to be, all of the above. As we move on to the next state of recording at the farm, there’s little question we’ll look back on The Church Studio era as the good old days.
— Steve Ripley
Look for the next installment of the Steve Ripley story soon. We’ll look at his life after moving to his farm near Pawnee, as well as his time at OKPOP – including his radio show, some memories from his friends, and his legacy.
