Steve Ripley: Part 7 – Moving to The Farm

By the mid 2000s, Steve Ripley had taken the country music industry by storm with his band, The Tractors. Their self-titled debut album and the single “Baby Likes to Rock It” became the fastest-selling debut album from a country group to reach platinum status. The band’s success led to two Grammy Award nominations and the Country Weekly 1995 Golden Pick Award for Favorite New Group. Additionally, Steve Ripley had been successfully running the iconic Church Studio in Tulsa for 19 years, solidifying his reputation as a respected and influential figure in the music industry.

Steve Ripley was the whole package, or the deal, as he would say. His technique can be credited to his engineer’s ear for sound and the influence of local Oklahoma music (and his love of Elvis), just like other great studio producers like Sam Phillips of Sun Studios. In addition, Ripley was renowned for his creative use of technology and for creating many of the instruments he used. Similar to Phillips, Ripley considered his studio to be a laboratory. Along with having close relationships with well-known musicians from all over the world including Eddie Van Halen, Leon Russell, Bob Dylan, and even Presley’s former band, he also had a profound love for his family, friends, and collaborators. He worked closely with all of them and mentored numerous aspiring artists.

He preferred the studio to live touring. “Not that I don’t love to play live but when you’re from Tulsa and the Leon Russell/J.J. Cale School of Recording, you always have a studio. Whether it’s in your house or you have one, and that’s what you do every day, and the gigs are in addition to that, as opposed to the other way around. If you’re a normal country artist, what you do is play all the time and every once in a while, you stop and record for two weeks.”

After Ripley’s father passed away in 2003, the family farmhouse near Pawnee became available. Charlene took on the responsibility of maintaining it and they began the process of relocating. “Our partner, Glen Mitchell, was ready to reduce his involvement,” she explained. “The Church was draining resources, so it seemed like a good time to wind down and relocate. Plus, Steve loved the Farm.” The Ripley children, now adults with their own aspirations, stayed in Tulsa.

In 2005, the Ripleys established a full recording compound aptly named the Ripley Farm Studio, featuring the small house, a guitar shop, and a 5-bedroom main house with its own separate control room. Ripley transformed each bedroom into a recording booth connected to the studio downstairs.

He started recording projects beginning with a Red Dirt Rangers full-length CD and a collaboration, Ripley and The Rangers. John Cooper told me that “Steve initially started our Lone Chimney CD at the Church Studio but moved us out to the Farm. Nearly all of the instruments on the record were played by Ripley and the three original Rangers. Although, a young John Fullbright came in and played eight instruments. We’d met him when he was 17 years old and in high school. We were playing near Okemah, and he showed up with a banjo, all quiet and shy. It took us two and a half years to make the record. Steve was notorious for taking his time. But we told him ‘We want you to make a record that you want to make.’ We didn’t care how much time it took. We wanted him to make the record, and, in my opinion, it is our best.”

“Those were truly the best of times. For fun, we called ourselves the LCC, or the Lone Chimney Consortium, and it was the heart and soul of our little community. Each month, we would come together to share a meal, savor some wine, and talk about music. Our efforts even caught the attention of the Pawnee newspaper, a publication renowned for its quaint social columns. We chuckled when they mentioned the ‘big meeting at the Lone Chimney Consortium.’ Snow days became cherished occasions, marked by drinks and grilled cheese sandwiches. We’d hang out with Steve, and he’d ask, ‘Want to hear Leon play with George Harrison and Jim Keltner?’ and then he’d play some old tapes. It’s hard to describe in words. It was a time of magic that seemed to go on forever. Our Lone Chimney recordings are the result of that exceptional time, which lasted for three or four years.

The former director of OKPOP, Jeff Moore became a close collaborator of Ripley’s. Their friendship created several ideas to promote Oklahoma art and culture. He remembers the exact date he met his friend. He was at the board members meeting of the Oklahoma Film and Music Office. “I met Steve at the Circle Cinema on Nov 29, 2007. I had heard that Steve wanted to meet with someone from the state office. He was interested in preserving film and wanted to find someone who could help Leon Russell put the Oklahoma State Seal on his bus. Leon’s team had contacted the state, but it didn’t go anywhere, which frustrated Steve.  We later found a way to do that.”

“After the board meeting that night,” Moore told me, “I finally got to talk to Steve. He listened as I shared my idea of doing an exhibit on Oklahoma rock and roll history, mentioning names like Jim Keltner, Jesse Ed Davis, and Leon. Steve seemed interested in helping and mentioned his interest in getting the Oklahoma seal on Leon’s bus and some films he’d like to talk about. We had a conversation under the streetlight outside the cinema and I felt a connection with Steve.

“I was invited, along with others from OHS, to the Ripley Farm Studio to discuss my project. I sat in the room with Oklahoma historians Larry Odell, Dr. Bob Blackburn (director of the Oklahoma Historical Society), and photographer Bill Moore. I just sat there and absorbed. I didn’t really ask questions. Steve exemplified how it works being a creative person in a creative industry, there are patterns that come up – an etiquette to learn.  I had no idea what I was doing – but wanted to do something great so badly so I listened.

Amazed by Ripley’s incredible Leon Russell collection, Moore was unaware of how he acquired these items. Moore said “Initially, I assumed he had owned them for years, but I later discovered that he and Charlene played a crucial role in preserving and eventually contributing them to the OKPOP collection. Steve’s influence touched countless lives and he had a vast network of acquaintances. He introduced us to many individuals and was instrumental in facilitating future interviews with Oklahoma artists and their projects. It was truly inspiring that he desired to be involved.”

Steve Ripley, Jeff Moore and Jamie Oldaker at The Farm

Leon Russell’s Musical Archives Deal

The incredible journey to preserve Leon Russell’s archives includes dramatic threats, urgent travel, semi-trailers, old moldy tapes, and the ultimate preservation of his legacy. Steve and Charlene Ripley played a crucial role in securing Russell’s music and archives and finding them a home at OKPOP. Russell likely never imagined how much of his life’s work would be saved, celebrated, and shared with fans, both old and new, around the world.

Ripley’s account, shared with John Earling in a Voices of Oklahoma interview, illustrates his commitment in a hilarious Ripley way. “At the end of a seven-year dialogue with Leon, who I’d worked with since ‘76, off and on, about his master tapes…  I always think now that it was kind of a bluff for him to ‘throw them away’ as he might say, but the real thing I know that was true is that he was tired of moving them around. It’s a bulky thing. It’s a mass of stuff. They weigh a lot. He didn’t see the value in them, necessarily, that I did. I think the bluff he started talking about was disposing of them, or what to do with them, and I erupted on him, probably in an improper way, but I was yelling at him and stuff, that evolved into a dialogue about having Charlene and I as caretakers for his master tapes.”

“So, I’m walking in the woods… and Leon calls on the cell phone… the quote, I believe was, ‘if you want those tapes you’d better come get ‘em cause I’m fixin ta throw ‘em away.’ He sounded a little less of a bluff that time than the seven years prior. So, we dropped everything, as broke as we were, and headed to Nashville and brought back two semi loads full of stuff… And this is the second quote, ‘If you ever want to do anything with those tapes, you’ll need the equipment that goes with the tapes,’ Cause a lot of Leon’s stuff was recorded on 40 track, 2-inch tape and he had two 40-track tape machines. But there were less than seven, we don’t know exactly, maybe only three or four ever made and used, and Leon had two of them. And you can’t play them on anything else. Then it became the tapes, the equipment to go with tapes, then some stuff to sell and stuff for the museum. We brought all that stuff back and we shifted.

“It’s been a gradual shift, it’s in this little room I did my little show shifting seven to eight years working with the OHS about what to do with the Leon stuff. The goal became the OK POP museum where it was ultimately destined for. They did the deal that had to be done [legally acquire the archives]. Leon had to face that, and it went to the state of Oklahoma. He did well with that. I don’t know if he was ever happy about it because Leon didn’t look back at all.  He was a guy that can just keep going – ‘I can write five songs right now – here we go.’ That was his genius.”

Ripley’s musical roots came full circle with his family history. “So, the last few years, it’s not the only thing I do, but the emphasis is on transferring those tapes of Leon.”  He told Earling, “let me tell you this story, that I told to Leon, when they – the Oklahoma Historical Society, were making the deal with Leon for the transfer of possession of the tapes. As a little kid here on the farm, in this building where we are sitting, is what dad called the granaries… I assume they put grain in there and had a loft for hay. On the farm, there’s always fence to build. If it was raining, [Dad would say] you kids get out there and clean out those granaries. If you don’t have anything else to do, put that guitar down, and clean out those granaries.’ The only other time [I heard that] was when I went to work for Leon in ‘76 and I am his engineer (he fired me once and re-hired me) so probably in ‘77 or ‘78 during the second time I was hired, he says to me ‘if you have nothing else to do (I didn’t take it as a criticism) you can work on that tape library.’ He had all these tapes, and they were semi-organized at the time. So now, here I am in the granaries working on the master tapes. It’s really a bizarre kind of thing.”

Charlene clarified, “so on March 18, 2007, we went to Leon’s warehouse in Nashville and brought back all the tapes to the Farm.” There was a lot of other Leon-related paraphernalia as well, enough to fill up two full semi-trailers of Russell’s music and memorabilia. “We built tape libraries and organized and documented what we had. Steve worked on transferring them to digital – first making sure they were dried and safe from damage. We had various ideas about how to make sure they were safe forever and eventually believed Oklahoma Historical Society and the soon-to-be OKPOP should take care of them. We presented the idea to Leon, and he ended up signing an agreement with OKPOP in 2015.”

In addition to building things, Ripley continued recording and expanding his knowledge and love of Oklahoma music. In 2009, Oklahoma Historical Society reached out to him during the development of an exhibit on the History of Rock and Roll. He used The Farm studio to create and host his 20- radio show series, Oklahoma Rock & Roll with Steve Ripley.  It was broadcast on all of the NPR affiliates in Oklahoma. Public enthusiasm for the topic led the OHS to begin developing plans for the OKPOP Museum. Ripley’s collaborations with both Leon Russell and the OHS proved very productive for the state. The shows were aired on KOSU in 2009 and again as an encore presentation after he passed away in January 2019.  

Here’s how Ripley described his plans for the show in 2009: “We’re gonna take a look at not just rock and roll in Oklahoma, but the roots of rock and roll, and we’re gonna follow those roots wherever they take us and let them tell us how we got to this place today… how we got to this thing we call Oklahoma Rock and Roll. As the weeks go by, we’re gonna try to dig deep into the details of the music, and the artists and the musicians that made that music, and how it all ties together. But for the first couple of shows, what I want to do is to try to present the overall picture. I think you’ll find some surprises, and I think at times – I hope at times – you’re gonna be stunned just like we have been each time we find that extra special thing, and that direct link to Oklahoma.”  He excelled in tracing Oklahoma’s contributions to American music.

Some stand-out shows from the radio program include a time Ripley cold-called Thomas Leslie “Snuff” Garrett. Garret was an A&R Director for Liberty Records who produced 60s hits by artists such as Bobby Vee and Gary Lewis. At one time, Garrett and  J. J. Cale co-produced A Trip Down the Sunset Strip (attributed to the Leathercoated Minds – their short-lived psychedelic studio band). After their initial excitement and chatter in connecting, Ripley interviewed Snuff about the Walter Brennan recording of “Old Rivers” about an old man and his mule.  Of course, Ripley could recite the words along with Brennan. Snuff giddily confided that he had always lovingly referred to their mutual friend Russell as “Leonie.” Ripley could bring out the silliness in the midst of a serious history lesson.

Ripley often sang along or repeated the chorus as he played songs on the air, as in the intro to an interview with Jimmy “Junior” Markham (1941-2019), an Oklahoma harmonica player and singer. Markham had been inducted into both the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame and the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame and is considered a pioneer of the Tulsa Sound. He discussed his early days in L.A. with Leon Russell and Jesse Ed Davis, a Native American guitarist from Oklahoma who was well regarded as a session artist, a solo performer, and was a member of Taj Mahal’s band. 

While discussing guitar players, Ripley featured the Muskogee-born jazz guitarist Barney Kessel, who was part of the famous LA session players known as The Wrecking Crew. The show highlights Kessel’s record of On Green Dolphin Street with commentary from Ry Cooder. Additionally, Ripley provides a comment about how most ‘on air personalities’ these days don’t even listen to the records when they play them. They just do a bunch of talking then cut the music in. It’s disgusting really! (scats a little), But I’m groovin with ya baby!”

As joyful, soulful, knowledgeable, and entertaining as the radio shows were, Ripley always ended with a heartfelt message: “Remember, family is what’s important. Tell your mom you love her. Kiss your babies. We’re all in this together. Bye-bye, kids.” He was sincere and often shared the same sentiment with young musicians and friends. Ripley truly believed that love is a gift from a higher power and essential for survival.

Finally, in 2016, with the help of Jeff Moore, OKPOP acquired the Leon Russell Archive and Ripley became the official Curator of the Leon Russell Collection. Though suffering from health issues at the time, Ripley carefully preserved and digitized the audio archives of Leon Russell and Bob Wills, and helped train and mentor others.

A collection of Bob Wills’ personal belongings was donated by the Wills Family to the Oklahoma Historical Society in 2012. Among them was a sizable audio archive that featured about 130 transcriptions of radio shows from the 1940s. OHS entrusted Ripley with the task of restoring the previously undiscovered radio recordings of Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys onto 180-gram vinyl albums. These individualized transcriptions were originally made on tapes that was intended to be heard just a few times. Furthermore, the audio started to get worse in the more than 60 years that had passed since the recordings were made. The tapes were full of pops and other distortions.

Even Ripley, who remixed and digitally restored the album’s songs, acknowledged that the degradation of the recordings caused him to give up on the restoration effort multiple times. Ripley claimed that he would frequently spend days working on a single song’s part in order to eliminate everything that would detract from the listening experience. “There was always a balancing act of eliminating noise but trying to keep the sound of the band. And I found with software that’s recently been released I could get rid of almost all the noise, but the band started sounding funny. So, I tried to walk that balance beam, not fall off one way or the other.”

Though he had learned he had prostate cancer, Ripley kept his health issues to himself. His love for the OHS projects and Leon kept him going during his final days. “Steve was such an inspiration to all of us at the OHS, his vision and dedication to the OKPOP project has been invaluable,” Jeff Moore shared with me. “He truly loved Oklahoma, he introduced us to so many of his friends and colleagues in the music industry, we will always be indebted to him. His passion and energy will continue to live through everything we do in OKPOP.”

Moore hired Jarrod Gollihare, a Tulsa Musician (Admiral Twin, Mellowdramatic Wallflowers and writer, to assist Ripley. Gollihare remembers, “Jeff asked Steve if he would allow me to be his apprentice. Jeff knew Steve had cancer although it was a secret at the time. I was beyond honored to work with him at OKPOP and transfer the Leon Russell master tapes to digital for proper archiving. Some of those old tapes were water damaged, moldy, and it was a complicated process to save them. Steve had developed a way to do that – cleaning, baking, and transferring them to digital. If not for Steve and Charlene, those tapes it would have been lost, the state would never have gotten them.”

Gollihare continued, “When I found out I was going to work with Steve, I basically said I’ll come over for free if you teach me what you’re doing. In the past he was awe shucks-y. But it was a dream come true for me. After I earned his confidence, he said ‘Here’s the deal. I have cancer and I’m dying. I’m trying to pass on this knowledge to you.’ It was bittersweet to say the least. He was suffering and had good days and bad days, but more active days early on. He would always try. It would help him get inspired when he knew I was coming out to the Farm, and we would work together.”

Steve Ripley and Jarrod Gollihare working on Leon Russell tapes/archives

Ripley was never far from Bob Dylan’s orbit. In a concert at what was then the Tulsa Theater, Dylan’s Road Manager pulled Ripley from the audience and led him to a guitar and amp set up on stage. A stunning set ensued, punctuated by the rare occurrence of a stage comment from Dylan. “Steve Ripley up here on stage with us,” he announced with a sly grin, “… almost like time standing still.”

In 2016, when the Bob Dylan Archives arrived in Tulsa, the George Kaiser Family Foundation asked Ripley to create a live musical event to celebrate the arrival of a priceless collection of early Bob Dylan recordings and other unique items such as tapes, journals, books, and historical artifacts. This event marked the beginning of what would later become the Bob Dylan Center.

On A Night Like This was a one-night musical revue at Cain’s Ballroom on May 20, 2016, featuring Ripley leading what he called The House Band Approximately. People flew in from around the world to catch the show. Ripley curated the event and showcased his love for Dylan. He handpicked many legends of Oklahoma music, including some young musicians, and the awe-inspiring McCrary Sisters. Ripley was surrounded by a band of brothers he had close relationships with, including Fats Kaplin, Terry “Buffalo” Ware, Jimmy Karstein, Pete Thomas, Davey Faragher, Daniel Walker, John Fullbright, and Jimmy LaFave.

On a dimly lit stage, amidst the symphony of instruments tuning and soul-stirring wails, there arose a gradual crescendo of “Watch the River Flow.” In their all-night rockin’ gospel café, Ripley took center stage in his red Converse shoes, with a radiant smile, and heartfelt appreciation for his fellow musicians. Jimmy LaFave delivered “On A Night Like This.” Almost exactly a year later, Jimmy would leave us. The unforgettable performance showcased Dylan’s original melodies and unparalleled lyrics. The band delivered an extraordinary show, with a discernible glow on Ripley’s face throughout. It was truly a remarkable night.

Ripley’s creativity never stopped. His son, Elvis, shared that his father once made a “guitar” out of trees. Using two trees with guitar strings stretched between them, Ripley placed pickups at various points along the strings. “The natural movement of everything, including the wind and even the vibrations from a passing truck, caused the strings to pick up electromagnetic disturbances and record various fluctuations in the surrounding field. Although not all the sounds were audible at the time due to some being in the 2-3 hertz range (which is below the level of human hearing at around 20 hertz), they could be sped up and amplified to become audible.”

Earlier in his life Ripley had created a large stringed instrument he called Jubal. Elvis explained that “in the Bible (Genesis 4:21), Jubal was the inventor of music. He was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. Jubal is the ancestor of all musicians.” It hung on the wall at The Church Studio for many years. As Elvis described, “it sounds like thunder when you’re out in a big flat area, the way that thunder rolls across the land – if there’s any texture in the land scape it is sharper, but thunder will roll toward you from miles away.  Jubal was played with a mallet and hand, even with a big piece of wood.”  Elvis recorded and shared a haunting sample of Ripley and dear friend, Fats Kaplan, collaborating on a piece at The Farm. 

Ripley still had energy, and it shows in the Ripley family Christmas video from 2016. Sweet and charming, set to the Skaggs Family’s Hanging Round the Mistletoe, the Ripleys prepare for Christmas dinner and enjoy an evening fire at their beloved farm. They continuously bump into each other under the mistletoe. It’s a lovely home video with Steve, Charlene, Elvis, Paige, Angelene and Jonnny gathering together for the holidays with evident joy.

Watching it is almost like time standing still.

Look for upcoming stories about Steve Ripley – his passing and his legacy – in the next weeks. And if you have your own Ripley stories, we’d like to hear them.