Johnny takes a strong stance on staying independent. By taking such a position, Johnny is one of the pioneers bent on putting the music industry back into the hands of musicians. Friend him on Facebook and you’ll see he never censors his thoughts and his language. In person, though, Johnny is simply a guy with a larger-than-life sense of humor, and just enough ego to keep him edgy and interesting.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

Note: This article was originally published January 18, 2011

“You’d be surprised how much I’ve learned during my breaks over the years,” he chuckled with his weathered voice. Dorsey, 67, has been shining shoes at the court house for 16 years now, and is working his way through the last three months of his time there.

“Yeah, one of my favorite things about this job,” he told me, “is just watching and listening to the people. I experience these people, from all walks of life.”

As we casually took our time during the shoot, I could feel what he was saying. Passing by and interacting with Harold, who appears to be a favorite around the court house, were people who represented a microcosm of Tulsa in a beautiful way.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

Note: This article was originally published November 19, 2010

The woman was Gwendolyn Ransom, and her voice was pure magic. Some of the listeners who stuck around and enjoyed her music described her as “the female Louis Armstrong.” Her voice was wavering, yet strong and passionate. She sang easy tunes, old jazz, and hymns. I was in love.

After the show, she expressed to me her gratitude that so many stuck around to listen to her sing. She wasn’t always a singer, she told me. After a heart attack a few years back, there were mornings where she never wanted to get out of bed. After a number of attempts at other new hobbies, she finally came to singing as a last resort.

“Music,” she told me, “saved my life.”

What makes Gwendolyn Ransom’s musical style unique is that her listeners feel free to join. Her regular Sunday morning gigs at The Blue Jackalope are particularly fun, she says, because they often become a small congregation of musicians who all preach the same message: music is good. Music is universal. And sometimes, music will save your soul.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

Note: This article originally published October 15, 2010

For the full version of this photo featuring the Cain’s banner above, purchase a copy of the January 15th issue of This Land from Dwelling Spaces online or any of our distributors.

You can check out a full-length interview with Shane and his wife Heather in Issue 1 of Prairie Hive, an exciting new Tulsa-based craft/home decor blog & magazine outfit, which featured the Hoods’ mid-century Lortondale house.

Grant McClintock brings us two photos of Dragoo–one from 1987, and a shot from 2011.

A self-proclaimed “synthetic landscape painter,” Grothaus combines different mediums, playing with plastic, LED lights (some of which have motion censors so that they interact with the viewer), painting, and photography to create a multi-media experience.

The artist has recently transplanted to Norman to pursue a graduate degree in art.

This Land video and photo crews were in full effect at the Free Tulsa 2011 music festival–check out the amazing portraits captured by Michael Cooper. The larger 3-D images below were shot by Matt Leach. (And please forgive some of the formatting problems while we tweak the site).

“I didn’t like New York,” he professed to me, telling me stories of the crime, color and heightened volume that led him to join an aunt in Oklahoma.

He started at Southern Hills in 1949, and, despite a brief turn in the Korean War as an American solider, spent the next half century earning the love of many a club member. Matson saw six national major championships, rubbed elbows with the likes of Mickey Mantle, Jerry Lewis, and even Maury Povich among many others. He smiles big for his portrait, standing in a room set aside in his apartment for the years of memorabilia he’s amassed.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make this city great.

Walking around the construction site for the new location, due to be opened in mere weeks, Dittus shows me an experience that Tulsans have never really had: dining, literally, on the river. He and his crew have constructed a building on piers over what used to be an empty beach. The new café will also be something of a homage to the old Tulsa sound, with many relics of T-town history donated by Cain’s Ballroom.

The thing that strikes me the most about Dittus, though, is his laid-back approach to being such an involved developer. He couldn’t seem more relaxed and excited about his new project. It’s that kind of personality that, to me, makes Tom Dittus a True Tulsan.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

The bicycles are donated–some in a functional state, some wholly unusable–and are eventually brought up to standard by volunteer mechanics, hence the sea of bicycle parts that fill the Hub’s headquarters. Barger told me that bike shops in town like Lee’s and Tom’s have been instrumental in helping her find just the right parts. The bikes, restored or sometimes entirely new, are then donated to to the needy who are referred to the Hub by the likes of Day Center for the Homeless, Salvation Army, and The Mental Health Association among others. Once mobile, a new world of possibilities opens up.

As we walked the streets of downtown after the photo shoot, I got a strong sense of Barger’s love for Tulsa. We both agreed that the city is in a state of transition. With downtown development on the rise, and urban corners slowly being re-awakened from a long slumber, it is up to us to get our hands dirty and mold our city into the place we want it to be.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

A hobbyist photographer himself, Bendel’s face beamed with pride as he recognized that the gardens would provide just the right setting.

“The color is brilliant right now,” he said. “I’ve taken many photographs out here with slide film on my old camera.”

I couldn’t have agreed more. The wet fall morning made the plants in the garden pop to the eye.

Bendel was hired on a temp basis to prune dead wood from Philbrook’s large oak trees in September of 1970, and became a full-time employee in March of 1971. Bendel remained part of the crew until 1977 when he was promoted to “Superintendent of the Garden,” which has more or less been his job since, except his title has changed to Senior Horticulturist.

But it isn’t the changes in the job title that keeps Bendel content.

“In the middle of every season I find myself saying, ‘Maybe this is my favorite season in the Garden,’” Bendel told me.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

When I arrived at Mantle’s apartment building, I found entire hallways painted floor-to-ceiling with murals derived only from his imagination.

During the shoot, I saw his works-in-progress (including some of the largest canvases I’ve ever seen) stacked all over the place. Besides the bed, there isn’t a place in Mantle’s apartment that isn’t occupied by art supplies or pieces in progress. Some of them have been there for months, others still fresh. I had a hard time imagining how we got most of them out of the building and transported to his regular art shows.

“When I get tired of them,” he told me in his unique south Louisiana accent, “I just white ‘em out and paint over ‘em. And that happens all the time.”

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

Now retired, Walker is a pillar of the Owen Park community, familiar to and respected by all, but loved to the point where everyone calls him by his first name.

“We all know and love Grady,” said one of his neighbors. “He’s lived here longer than all of us, and he’s seen the community change and grow around him.”

Though a memorable teacher to some and a good neighbor to others, what makes Grady Walker a True Tulsan is his simple ability to sit down with you and have a good conversation. If I wasn’t keeping a schedule that day, I feel like I could have spent another hour sitting on his porch, simply enjoying more of his stories.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

This night, however, was Ariana’s first Tulsa State Fair experience at age three. Ariana wailed for a corn dog until her mother, Kelsey (also pictured), finally rewarded her with one after standing in line. As we walked together through the crowds, her face exploded with amazement over the massive stuffed animals and blinking lights. To top off the evenving, a stranger on his way home decided to give Ariana and her mother some free ride tickets that he hadn’t used.

While I’ve long tolerated the Tulsa State Fair, re-experiencing the excitement of the lit-up, high-up, deep-fried fairgrounds through Ariana’s eyes made me fall head-over-heals for it all over again.

Stay tuned in to This Land this week for my upcoming photo essay on Tulsa State Fair.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

Open for a year now, Shoe Gypsy (a store Kilgore runs with his wife, Noelle) is making its mark on the community. In addition to offering stylish shoes and apparel, Ben and Noelle make sure they also run a business that gives back to its community. It was only a few months previous to the opening of Shoe Gypsy that Ben and Noelle married, helping make 2009 the year that he settled down.

For those who follow Tulsa’s music scene, Ben Kilgore’s name brings up a different image. He was the lead singer of The Hero Factor, a band with a big sound and an equally big heart. Though they broke up in 2007, The Hero Factor had a successful run despite the fact that we never saw them explode into stardom. Three years later, Kilgore has centered himself and found a new direction. His unnamed band is already garnering the attention of such international record labels as Interscope.

Kilgore, now married to a wife and a business, isn’t particularly worried about whether he lands a record deal and becomes the next big thing. He stands outside my studio after our shoot and expresses that he has it good here. As long as he has his head and his heart in front and center, he says, Tulsa is all he needs.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

Hitting the bar for happy hour now makes it seem like it’s been down there for years, though. The community has embraced it as a downtown Tulsa staple, and it has helped breathe life into the Blue Dome District that it calls home. On the morning I met up with Nelson for this portrait, he had quite a busy schedule. He was getting ready to leave for Norman to launch the third spin-off of McNellie’s, a bar called Abner’s Ale House.

And yet, the guy seems pretty down-to-Earth. All of his employees refer to him as a friend on a first-name basis. He also has an energetic sense of humor and fun. While I was setting up, he let me in on a popular prank I didn’t previously know of: the prank of unexpectedly handing somebody a Smirnoff Ice. By rules of the game, the recipient of the drink has 30 seconds to pass it on or they must chug it. He was telling me, he recently shipped a 22 oz. bottle of Smirnoff Ice overnight to a friend in Colorado with a note attached saying, “You’ve been Iced.”

But what makes Nelson a True Tulsan is that he took the risk to redraw the map of downtown. And it looks like he’s not only changed the map, but he’s created a new gravitational center. Since McNellie’s opened and won the crowd, Nelson has opened four other businesses, with two more on the way.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

Featuring original music by Nathan Brant and Sharla Pember with original additional choreography by Ma Cong and art installations by Erin Turner, Geoffry Hicks, and Mark Fredric, Song of the Swimming Sun debuts August 21st at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, Liddy Doenges Theater at 7:30pm.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

If you take a look at Bell’s filmography, you’ll find a long list of productions. His resume includes almost every successful 90′s television show, and plenty of memorable films like Capote, Rescue Dawn, and Hamlet 2. For me, it was the entertainment value of films he had more substantial roles in, like Total Recall, Dick Tracy, and Nightmare on Elm Street 2.

But that was then. Recently, Bell collected a Lifetime Achievement award from Tulsa United, the city’s most notable film festival. Two years ago, he filmed a supporting role in The Rock and Roll Dreams of Duncan Christopher.

When he enters the studio, I can’t quite find the Hollywood in him. Bell is a down-to-Earth guy, readily able to embrace all of his roles (in good films or not) that people would remember him in. He comments on how much growth he has seen in downtown since his last visit, and reflects on his youth spent here in the 50′s. He loves Tulsa and even announced it to a group of fans who showed up to see him receive his award. And Tulsa apparently loves him–our mayor recently declared a Marshall Bell day in honor of the actor.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

In the absence of the usual Diversifest music festival that has taken place for the last several years, the three men have springboarded an idea that catapults downtown music into the limelight while giving local businesses an arena to thrive.

It hasn’t been an easy journey, though. The festival was initially supposed to be a Saturday night party at Matheos’ booming bar, The Crystal Pistol; but it was decided after Diversifest canceled that the three men got together to decide to make their Free Tulsa! concept a more extravagant affair. It’s come at a cost, though. The festival was intended to be free, but now the tickets are $15 for the two-day event. To make it worth the money to their potential festival-goers though, management has booked more than 120 artists to the roster featured on nine stages all the way down Main Street.

While Matheos handles the business side of the festival (investing more than a little heart and soul), Richardson (of local music label Hard Workd Records) and Robertson (of band Recorder and local disc jockey fame) both craft the vision of what the Brady Arts District music festival should look and sound like. And while Robertson, Richardson, and Matheos are the brains, the looks, and the muscle of a gang, the men do what only True Tulsans can: packing downtown with great local music and culture.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

Looking at that neighborhood now, you would hardly recognize it. Sure, the old yellow house is still crummy, now with a couch on the front porch that looks mold-infested. But there’s a change in the air, and I hold one man and his business partly responsible for bringing new life to the place.

That man is Scott Smith and his business is The Blue Jackalope. Smith is a guy with an apparent love for making all things old, new again–and a community has grown around him. In partnership with a neighborhood community garden and organizations like Sustainable Tulsa, Smith has been able to keep his business alive through the gracious word of mouth and unique community events. This past weekend, for example, Smith officiated the wedding of a local couple–and the ceremony was held in the grocery store.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Blue Jackalope’s low-key building helps make it one of Tulsa’s best-kept secrets.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

And then it opened to an excited crowd of 8,665 (more than 800 over official capacity). Though I didn’t ask her about it, I can’t imagine Taylor feeling anything more than vindicated in her vision for Tulsa. Although there were many controversies during her term, such as the re-location of City Hall to the One Technology Center, Taylor remained optimistic and persistent in her drive to bring to Tulsa “a new kind of energy.”

In the opinion of this photographer and citizen, she succeeded. Taylor came into the studio as a very interested and gracious subject with humorous anecdotes about the political cartoons and unflattering pictures she had seen during her days in office.

“I actually cut out the political cartoons and framed them,” she laughed.

In the photo above, I managed to catch Taylor in a contemplative moment as she gazed out the window of my downtown studio, in the direction of the ball park. Her expression suggests an entire continent of experience bridging her to the city outside, an expression that you can only find in a true Tulsan.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.

True Tulsa is a weekly project that highlights the people and places that make our city great.