David Skinner Bio

David Skinner / Guitar and lead vocal

Bluesman David Skinner excited to enter Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame

By JOHN WOOLEY World Scene Writer
6/15/2005

When guitarist-vocalist David Skinner showed up at the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame on a Saturday morning several weeks ago, he thought he was going to be meeting his friend, Hall board member Steve Alter

Then, he thought, they'd be going over ideas for upcoming blues concerts with Chuck Cissel, the hall's chief executive officer.

He met them both, all right. But instead of talking about shows, they talked about Skinner.

"Chuck asked me about some of the people I'd played with -- Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, ZZ Top -- and I realized he was asking about my musical history, not about any shows we might do," recalled Skinner recently. "Then, about 15 minutes into this, Chuck said, 'Well, at the induction ceremony, you'll get this ribbon and you'll get this and this,' and I said, 'Excuse me, but what are you talking about?'"  Continued....

That's how he found out he was going to be the newest blues inductee into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame.

"I looked at Steve, and I didn't know what to say. Then I went outside, got in my car, sat there for five or 10 minutes and cried. I didn't tell people about it for a few days, because I was afraid they'd call up (from the hall) and say, 'Just kidding,'" he added with a laugh. "And there are so many wonderful players from Tulsa, like Jim Sweney, Chris Campbell, Debbie Campbell -- people who have been so nice to me since I've been here and who probably deserve it more than me. Frankly, I had a hard time with the idea for awhile."

A Tulsan since 1980, he was a part of the Austin scene in the '70s, living and playing around brothers Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan and becoming an original member of the first band to feature future blues star Lou Ann Barton.

Born in a small town in Washington, Skinner grew up in Henryetta, Texas. There, he recalled, "Mom and Dad always had music on. They listened to Tchaikovsky, (the soundtracks of) 'Pal Joey' and 'South Pacific,' Louis Armstrong, the Weavers, everything. Then, I saw the Beatles on 'Ed Sullivan.' That became what every teenage boy wanted to do."

Skinner had already been singing in public for years, at one point appearing with Conway Twitty at a state fair gig. By the time Skinner graduated from Texas' Midwestern State University, he'd picked up lead guitar as well, and he was savvy and confident enough to move to Austin, even though he didn't know anyone there. That was in the fall of 1972, and the Austin music scene was hopping.

"I got hooked up with some folks who ran with Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan," he remembered. "We were all hippies, living down there and starving. Back then, you could buy a six-pack of Texas Pride beer at Safeway for 89 cents, and you could make peanut-butter sandwiches for not much money, so that's what we lived on.

"Kim Wilson had just moved down from Detroit, and he and Jimmie, with some other people helping out financially, rented the basement of an insurance building at Waterloo and Sixth, got a beer license, and started a little club. (Wilson and Jimmie Vaughan's band) The Fabulous Thunderbirds got started there, and it was the first place Rockola played."

Rockola was the band Skinner co-fronted with Barton, who was then still a teenager. The group stayed together for three years, eventually moving to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. From there, his music took Skinner to Louisiana, back to Dallas, and then to Colorado, where he worked some shows with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and John Cable, who was then a Nitty Gritty guitarist.

Skinner was on his way west to join Cable when he stopped off to see friends in Tulsa. He stayed for a few days, and by the time he was ready to head on to Colorado, Cable suddenly quit performing because of health issues. Skinner made the decision to stay in town, where he found plenty of work over the next few years with the likes of Janet Rutland, Larry Cagle, the Gators, Polly Ess and Tatu.

Then, he stopped playing. There were a number of reasons, including the birth of his second child, deaths in the family, and simple disillusionment. The hiatus started in 1995 and lasted for three years.

"In 1998, (guitarist) Gary Whitley called me out of the blue to go play," he said. "I don't know why. We knew each other, but we didn't hang out or anything."

That job eventually led to "a little blues band" called Night Train, "which was neat because we didn't rehearse -- we'd just pull out songs on stage. It was really just a guitar band, in the '60s and '70s style, a vehicle to play as much as we could."

Night Train went along for quite a while -- "playing sporadically," as Skinner put it, until last fall, when he had the opportunity to reunite with drummer Tim Smith and bassist Mike Hughes, who'd been in the Polly Ess Band. With the addition of veteran keyboardist Bill Phillips, he had a new group -- the first-ever band that's carried his name.

Early this year, the David Skinner Band began alternating with Scott Ellison's outfit Tuesday nights at Blues City. Now, the group is planning to record a live CD there, to be followed by a studio album that Skinner hopes will be out by the end of the year. (There'll also be a "post-induction party" at Blues City on July 15.) Skinner hopes that once a CD or two gets out there, the band can start expanding its territory.

"We want to market ourselves to regional blue clubs that don't mind a bunch of old guys rolling in to play," he said. "We don't act like we're old on stage, though -- although we feel like it the next morning."

And so, after trying to leave it all behind for awhile, the newest blues inductee into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame appears to be back in blues for the long haul.

"I remember one time after a Night Train job, saying to my wife, 'You know, music is such a blessing, and at this time of my life it's really such a blessing just to get to play,'" he said. "'Epiphany' may be too strong a word for what I felt then, but that was when I realized what it really meant just to be able to play. Music is a wonderful thing, and it means so much just to get out and do it."