Bob Childers' Gypsy Café music festival brings Oklahoma songwriters together for good cause
Monica Taylor has a clear memory of just where she was when Red Dirt music pioneers Bob Childers and Jimmy LaFave bestowed on her the nickname "The Cimarron Songbird."
"I had a window cleaning business for many years, so I was at the Hideaway (in Stillwater) one day, cleaning windows. I just got done, and they were walking out from having lunch together," she recalled. "We were talking ... and Bob said, 'We need to give her a nickname.'"
The Perkins singer-songwriter also remembers that she instantly turned down the first moniker the late, great Oklahoma musicians came up with for her.
"It was 'the Red Dirt Diva.' Now, it might flow easily off of your lips, but I don't like it. ... But then Jimmy said, 'Ah, I got it. How about The Cimarron Songbird?' And Bob says, 'That's it,'" Taylor said.
While a Red Dirt Diva type might take it as her due, The Cimarron Songbird said she was overwhelmed when she learned that the Red Dirt Relief Fund had named her the 2024 recipient of its Restless Spirit Award.
"I think that it made my year," Taylor said. "It's a huge honor ... and it makes me a little teary about it."
How does the Restless Spirit Award tie into one of Oklahoma's largest songwriters festivals?
The Restless Spirit Award is named for one of the signature songs penned by Childers, who died in 2008. LaFave accepted the inaugural award in 2017, shortly before he died of cancer. It has been given every year since to "a musician who has impacted the Oklahoma music community in a spirit akin to Childers" at the annual Bob Childers’ Gypsy Café songwriters festival in Stillwater.
"We're excited we get to ... celebrate all of her accomplishments over her last 30 years in music, everything from recording and songwriting to creating her Cimarron Breeze (Concerts) series. She's just the keeper of the Red Dirt story in a lot of ways," said Katie Dale, executive director of the Red Dirt Relief Fund.
Billed as Oklahoma’s largest homegrown songwriter festival, the Bob Childers’ Gypsy Café is also the largest annual fundraiser for the nonprofit Red Dirt Relief Fund, which has helped more than 800 Oklahoma music professionals in need since its founding in 2012.
The 13th annual Bob Childers' Gypsy Café is set for May 5 and will feature 70 Sooner State songsmiths performing acoustic song swaps at five Stillwater venues.
"Last year, it raised the most the festival has ever; it raised over $50,000. And we appear to be on track to do better than that this year," Dale said.
Here's what you need to know about the 2024 Bob Childers’ Gypsy Café:
What Stillwater venues are hosting this year's festival sets?
The acoustic music showcase is named for Childers, the Oklahoma songwriter known as the “godfather of Red Dirt music,” and the fanciful nickname for a shed on the grounds of The Farm. the Stillwater homestead where he lived for a time that now is recognized as the birthplace of Red Dirt music.
For the second year, the festival will begin at 11 a.m. May 5 with a separately ticketed brunch at Stonecloud Brewing, 917 S Husband St.
"It was very well-received, so we decided to keep it going. It's also cool because this year's date's is Cinco de Mayo. ... So, we're going to try to weave in some of that Cinco spirit," Dale said.
This year's event has been dubbed the Bob’s “Mexican Morning” Brunch and will include a Cinco de Mayo-themed buffet from local restaurant Good Little Eater, two drink tickets from Stonecloud Brewing and Taylor performing songs from her new "Red Dirt Ramble" album with Jared Tyler, Randy Crouch, Scott Evans, Brad James, Gene Williams, Bob Wiles and more. Tickets are limited and include general admission to the other festival venues.
The festival will kick off in earnest at 1 p.m. May 5, with sets of three or four songwriters performing at four venues:
Eskimo Joe’s Main Stage, 501 W Elm St., will be all ages and outdoors, weather permitting.
Grand Casino Stage at Outlaws, 501 S Washington St., will be for ticketholders 21 and older.
Coors Light Stage at Salty Bronc, 911 W 5 Ave., is for festivalgoers 21 and older.
George’s Stables, 502 W Elm St., is for patrons 21 and older, too.
Festival organizers have created a grid to help attendees plan the best way to see as many sets as possible, and a free shuttle will run in a loop to the four general admission venues from 1 to 7 p.m. May 5.
The event will end with the 7:45 p.m. all-lineup family jam finale on the main stage outside Eskimo Joe's.
Who is playing this year's Bob Childers' Gypsy Café?
Along with Gypsy Café staples like Taylor, John Fullbright, Red Dirt Rangers, Carter Sampson, Tequila Kim Reynolds, Mike McClure, Bo Phillips and Bryon White, the event will include nine songwriters making their festival debut.
Although its roots are in Red Dirt, its organizers pride themselves on assembling an eclectic lineup of Oklahoma songwriters, which this year includes Mallory Eagle, Kierston White, Jacob Tovar, Buffalo Rogers, Paul Benjaman, Dylan Stewart, Gabe Marshall, Joe Baxter and Ali Harter.
Tulsa-based singer songwriter Eric Hunker, the overall 2024 winner of the festival's Jimmy LaFave Songwriting Contest for his song “When It All Ends," will receive his $1,000 prize and perform alongside Mike Hosty and Beau Jennings at 4:15 p.m. May 5 at the Grand Casino Stage at Eskimo Joe’s.
How is this year's festival honoring Restless Spirit Award winner Monica Taylor?
Along with performing at the brunch, Taylor will play at 3:15 p.m. May 5 on the Eskimo Joe’s Main Stage alongside fellow Red Dirt music stalwarts Crouch, Evans and Chuck Dunlap.
She will accept the Restless Spirit Award in a ceremony on the main stage at 7:20 p.m., which will be followed by the live auction of a Gypsy Café guitar signed by the entire lineup and a Taylor-inspired guitar painted by local artist Nathan McCray.
"She is very good at keeping this 'Restless Spirit' alive. ... She sees beauty in all the things around her, and she has figured out how to put that into words and songs. And she has some kind of magic voice," Dale said.
"When I was talking to her, I said, 'Oh Monica, this is your special day.' She said, 'No, it's King Bob's special day, but I think he's gonna share it with me.'"
From the time she first met Childers just before one of LaFave's Stillwater musicians reunions at Willie's Saloon, Taylor said she knew they would be lifelong friends.
"He already felt really special, and the song is not what did it for me. It was just him, because I'd already sung his song ('Restless Spirits') a couple of times. ... I learned a lot from him about paying tribute to your friends by sharing your songs with them," recalled Taylor, who lived and cowrote with Childers at The Farm in the 1990s.
In 2021, Taylor embarked with her husband, fellow musician Travis Fite, on recording her current project, the multi-volume “Red Dirt Ramble” collection. Paying tribute the pioneers of Red Dirt music, it features 55 guest vocalists and musicians.
"It's always been a dream of mine to do something like this," Taylor said, adding she hasn't officially released any of the volumes yet. "When I saw Jimmy kiss his Restless Spirit Award ... I was resolute. I said, 'That's it. Time is a-wasting.'"
In 2013, LaFave helped her launch her Cimarron Breeze Concerts series, which brings top-shelf musicians to her hometown of Perkins for performances in the Old Church Center, 750 N Main, at the Oklahoma Territorial Plaza.
"Every show is just different and really wonderful. It has been so much fun. It's been a lot of work, but, boy, when people start walking through the front door ... and their bringing potluck dishes in, they just let all their worries from the week or day go for the evening," Taylor said.
To celebrate her Restless Spirit Award, she has added as a precursor to the Cimarron Breeze summer season a "Tribute to the Pioneers of Red Dirt Music" concert at 7 p.m. May 4 at The Old Church in Perkins.
"The Gypsy Café festival is so wide. It has such a variety, and it's really cool. But I really just wanted to highlight a few people who were there at the Jimmy LaFave reunion jams at Willie's in the mid '80s, late '80s, early '90s," she said. "Everybody on that list also played that night that I was there, the first night I met all these people ... and these are my people."
How do you get tickets to the Bob Childers' Gypsy Café?
General admission tickets to the Bob Childers' Gypsy Café, the flagship fundraiser for the Red Dirt Relief Fund, are $40 in advance or $30 for students with ID.
A bundle of four general admission tickets also is available for a discount at $140.
A limited number of tickets for the brunch as well as reserved seats for the main stage range from $65 to $150.
To purchase tickets, go to https://www.reddirtrelieffund.org/gypsycafe.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma songwriters flock to Stillwater for Bob Childers' Gypsy Café
