Tommy Goodroad
BY ED FELIEN
Tommy Goodroad and The Highway Birds made it home last month. On Thursday night, July 11, they played songs from their new album, See You Around, at 7th Street Entry. Pictured above is Peter Briggs on electric steel guitar, Tommy Goodroad on guitar, George Adzick on fiddle and Cooper Gatzmer on bass. Most of them grew up in Seward and graduated together from South High. The drummer, Sam Stroup, and Cooper have been playing in bands together since fifth grade. Their new-fangled honky-tonk style of country music was a welcome treat to the sold-out hometown crowd. Everyone had a real good time.
Guthrie Tribute Album
There’s a new album out that is the first hometown tribute to Woody Guthrie. It was recorded on December 1, 1988, at the historic Crystal Theatre in Okemah, where Woody performed as a child.
The event played before a full house. Besides Larry Long and seventy school children there was banjo virtuoso Alan Munde, “Fiddlin’ Pete” Watercott, gospel pianist Shirley Davis, Woodrow (Wotko) Haney and Olen Edwards. This was not only the first time that an African American choir had ever graced the stage of the Crystal Theatre, but that Woody Guthrie’s words were spoken in both the Seminole and Creek language.
Released by Larry Long Music in association with Rock the Cause Records and The Orchard.
