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SELBY MINNER  BLUES ON THE MOVE         KBA      B                                                                                                                            Blues Foundation Award in Education
song list:
ORIGINALS: Love Junkie, You Gotta Help Me, Are You Having Any Fun, I've Been Too Good, Full Moon Over Rentiesville, For A While, City Walkin' Blues, You Were Mean To Me etc,... 
STANDARDS: Love and Happiness, Hideaway, Pretty Girls, Take Me to the River, Voodoo Child, Standing on Shaky Ground, Let the Good Times Roll, Red House, My Girl, Blue Suede Shoes, I'll Play the Blues For You, Crosscut Saw, Sunshine of Your Love, Route 66, Let's Get Married, Piece of My Heart, Worried Life Blues, Miss You So, Under the Boardwalk, Lonely Nights, Give me One Reason to Stay Here, Sweet Home Chicago etc...
                    
FOR Blues Inc.   (918) 855-0978   Down Homes Blues Club    701 DC Minner Street  
Rentiesville OK 74459
email: dcminner@windstream.net    www.dcminnerblues.com                                                     Selby Minner

     
                         
       Selby Minner                  
                                              Selby               Selby and Blues on the Move Dan, Frank Ray, Greg 'Clutch' Lawson

                       Selby continues on with Blues on the Move with Dan Ortiz on lead guitar!

  Selby Minner

     
                        Selby Edmond Jazz Lab with Miss Amy, Selby at Rentiesville Blues Fest,, Selby Inducts Miss Blues into the OJHOF

Selby Minner  Is busy keeping the music alive and kicking working both as a solo and fronting her band, Blues On the Move. She recently has added guitarist Dan Ortiz to the band. Dan is from Lawton OK, having had his own bands in Lawton, Zirndorf Germany, and Ocala Florida.   He is an exciting guitarist, Selby is on the bass and the pair recently returned from a month tour to Southern Arizona - Tombstone, Bisbee, Green Valley, Patagonia... and plan to return in February. .

 Track Record:
Selby has performed on stage with Albert Collins at Mayfest in Tulsa, pened for Albert King at the OJHOF Juneteenth Festival for 20,000 people, Johnny Rawls at the Cimarron in Tulsa and in his band for several years at the Rentiesville Dusk til Dawn Blues Festival over Labor Day weekend, Drink Small, Hubert Sumlin, Lowell Fulsom in Tulsa at the Juneteenth on Greenwood Festival and in OKC at Traditions 89, Big Bad Smitty, Larry Davis, Smokey Wilson, Little Johnny Taylor, Tony Mathews, Harry and Debbie Blackwell, Lucinda Williams at the Cains and countless others. She has worked tirelessly to develop the music community and spread the good word about Oklahoma Blues.

OK Blues Hall of Fame Presents at the OK Jazz Hall of Fame - From Rentiesville to Tulsa!

The Photo exhibit of DC Minner's Career and his Blues festivals entitled "From Black Town To Blues Festivals" opened at the OK Music Hall of Fame in Muskogee and soon after in Tulsa at the OK Jazz hall of Fame, Both events were actually eclipsed by the Show Ms Minner brought to these venues to celebrate the openings...17 count seventeen OK Blues Hall of Fame inductees and their bands put on resounding shows from 6 pm until 2 am...and Minner brought the entourage back to the OJHOF last fourth of July as Well!!

Background:
Minner
was born in
Providence RI in 1949 and attended art school there at the RI School of Design. Her friends dragged her to a concert by Janis Joplin in the school dining hall and her life was changed on the spot. All of a sudden the blues she had been finding and listening to seemed accessible, and Selby knew she had to try and sing the blues no matter what. Soon after a four hour Jimi Hendrix concert at Brown University in the old gym was another great inspiration.

She left Providence in 1971 with guitarist Jim Donovan. They formed the acoustic blues group Home Cookin’ and worked coffee houses in Chicago , DC , New Orleans and eventually gravitated to the flourishing Oakland – Berkeley – SF blues scene. They worked the clubs for 4 years. The group disbanded and Selby worked as a solo, also forming the Shady Ladies Blues Band. Longing to play electric blues she bought a bass from Peggy Mitchell and started the transition. Soon she met and grouped with DC Minner  who had retired from 18 years as a bassist backing such luminaries as Freddy King and OV Wright…DC was now on guitar, needing a bassist, and a ‘match made in heaven’ got together and got busy.  DC Minner, Selby and Blues on the Move. The band lived on the road for 12 years booking themselves from border to border and eventually to Europe . They worked as a three piece, finding local drummers along the way. The pair returned to DC’s birth place in Rentiesville and reopened his Grandmother Lura’s corn whiskey house as a blues club in 1988. They start5ed the  Dusk til Dawn Blues Fest started in 1991. By this time the couple was on the Touring Arts and Artist in Residence rosters of the Oklahoma Arts Council. This led to lots of Blues in the Schools work, eventually garnering them the Keeping the Blues Alive Award from the Handy people in Memphis ; An international Award in Education in 1999. DC has passed away, and Selby, together with the non-profit Friends of Rentiesville (F.O.R.) Blues Inc., is keeping the Festival alive and have great plans for the development of the OK Blues Hall of Fame.
         


and here she is sitting in with Lucinda Williams at the Cains, 5-1-07 photo by Bryan Clifton,   Rentiesville Blues Festival


Dan Ortiz is new to Blues on the Move. Born in Chicago and raised in Lawton OK he had his band Starflight when he was stationed in Germany. They toured bases across that country. He returned to the US and ran a home town version of that band in Lawton. Dan moved to Texas and later Florida. He played music there for 18 years. His guitar work is nuanced and powerful, and is influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Freddie King, B.B. King, Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown and Stevie Ray Vaughn.

BACKGROUND:

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For the love of the blues

By Dave Ruthenberg, Columnist       Enid NEWS
 

Recently I have found myself feeling a little homesick for the blues, and, let’s be honest, while Enid has a lot to offer, blues is not among those offerings. Live music in Enid is somewhat akin to the punch line in the “Blues Brothers” movie when Jake and Elwood stroll into Bob’s Country Bunker Saloon and the bartender tells the boys not to worry because the bar has “both” kinds of music: “Country AND Western.”

So, off I went in search of some genuine live blues in Oklahoma and let me tell you, the pickings were rather scarce. So imagine my relief when I found a juke joint in a little town called Rentiesville. Better yet, the club was bringing in Lil Ed & The Blues Imperials, one of the top blues acts out of Chicago. But a pretty cool thing happened along the blues highway; I not only found some great blues but also found a genuine love story.

Rentiesville is a small community about 75 miles southeast of Tulsa. It’s so small it does not even have its own post office, but it is the epicenter of Oklahoma blues. It’s also one of only 13 towns remaining out of an original 40-50 communities that were founded in eastern Oklahoma by freed black slaves following the civil war with an eye toward making the area the nation’s first all-black state. Obviously that never materialized.

Rentiesville also is the home to D.C. Minner’s Down Home Blues Club which is run by Selby Minner, the charming, engaging and talented widow of the late D.C. Minner, a member of the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame who, aside from being an established blues star in his own right, played alongside musical greats like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Freddie King. And for Rhode Island native Selby Minner, who has called Rentiesville home since 1988 when she and D.C. moved here after spending several years touring the nation, with a heavy emphasis on the West Coast, this has become a true labor of love in every sense of the word.

Together, D.C. and Selby (they married in 1979 after meeting in California) became the first couple of Oklahoma blues when they made the decision to renovate the property where D.C.’s grandmother operated a “corn whiskey house” several decades earlier. “It was a place with a jukebox and where people came for entertainment and bootleg whiskey,” Selby told me while taking me through a tour of the blues club. “They also made and sold choc beer,” which I learned was good old-fashioned home-brew.

The blues-loving couple completed renovating the house a few years after moving back home. “D.C. did all the work by hand,” Selby explained. But it didn’t end there.

Together, the Minners established the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame in 2004. “That’s what D.C. wanted — he understood he wasn’t going to get wealthy playing blues, but at the end of the day what made it worthwhile was the recognition by his peers. We wanted to share that.”

The couple went on to organize the three-day outdoor “Dusk Til Dawn” blues festival which takes place every Labor Day weekend on the grounds of the blues club and, in 1999, also were recipients of the prestigious “Keeping the Blues Alive” award.

Selby continues to do more than her part in “keeping the blues alive” through the “Blues in the Schools” program as well as offering young people a place to perform on the first Friday of each month (the club is only open the first weekend of each month), with a coffeehouse atmosphere where the bar is closed off and young people are invited to perform during their “Java Jam.”

On this night, Selby’s band, “Blues On The Move” opened up for Lil Ed and Selby’s engaging stage presence, on guitar and vocals, demonstrated how her love of the blues, and for D.C., (who passed away last year at the age of 73) clearly keeps her going. She sang some of D.C.’s original material — apparently there is a veritable treasure trove of unpublished D.C. Minner-penned tunes — and then later jammed onstage with the headliner.

This funky little juke joint seemingly in the middle of nowhere is not, however, just about the blues. It stands as a living, thriving testament to the enduring bond between Selby and D.C. that remains today. You can see it in her eyes and feel it in her words when she speaks about D.C. and, most of all, you feel it in her music.

We should all be so lucky to have such a passion and purpose in life.

Those of us who love the blues are fortunate to have Selby Minner.

(For more information, go to www.dcminnerblues.com)



Ruthenberg is copy editor at the News & Eagle. He can be reached at daver@enidnews.com

DC and Selby Minner worked together for 31 years across the nation and over to Europe:
   Legendary Blues man D. C. Minner returned in 1998 after 25 years on the road to his birthplace in Rentiesville  OK and brought a wealth of music with him. He re-opened his grandmother’s corn-whiskey house The Cozy Corner as the DOWN HOME BLUES CLUB, which ran as an after hours club for 7 years …this evolved into the ongoing internationally respected DUSK TIL DAWN BLUES FESTIVAL, founded in 1991. Minner’s band was added to the OK Arts Council Rosters in 1990.

DC and his wife-bassist Selby play firmly in the OK-TX style of T-Bone Walker, Freddie King, and Lowell Fulson, with singing that is relaxed and ingratiating, funky and LIVE! Their ‘true-juke-joint-for-the-nineties’ continues to his day as a Festival Site, Preservation Hall and Blues Hall of Fame.  The pair has won an international KBA from the Handy People (Blues Foundation in Memphis) for their BITS (Blues in the Schools) work with kids. DC was inducted into the OK Jazz Hall of Fame in 1999, had the street next to the Blues Club named after him the same year; in 2003 he was inducted into the OK Music Hall of Fame and (by popular vote) the Payne County Hall of Fame!

           The Friends of Rentiesville Blues Inc. aka “F.O.R. Blues” is a 501 © (3) non-profit formed to evolve past the “mom-and-pop” into the future.  The couple’s friends have come on board to help keep the Festival alive, grow the site as a music Education  Center, develop the OK Blues Hall of Fame and more. Fun!

            Hear and Buy Selby and D.C.'s CD's >



 

this photo is print-ready at  300 dpi

 
 

                 
   

 


                             
Peace love and Happiness 2006 TOUR     --- Schedule BELOW! D.C. MINNER 1935-2008
   
  V P          Selby        D.C.      about 1979

                           
DC at Dusk til Dawn Blues Fest                   Photo by WGB 'Got the Blues"

Another version of the bio:

D.C.Minner was born in January 28, 1935  D.C was raised by his grand mother (LURA DRENNAN) who ran a corn whiskey house while D.C. grew up. "There was no electricity anywhere around , So she would have the guys come over with  their Acoustic Guitars - that was my first time hearing LIVE MUSIC." D. C. says. D. C. moved away when he joined the service. When he returned he took up bass, and worked out of OKC with Larry Johnson and the New Breeds. It was with this band that  he performed behind O. V. Wright, Freddie King, Chuck Berry, Eddie Floyd, Bo Diddley and many more. He moved to California in the late 60's. Had a band with Tony Mathews in Hollywood. Then he moved to the Bay Area, retired from bass, studied Yoga nda, took up guitar and ran into Selby. She was working the clubs in Berkeley and San Francisco with Jim Donovan playing and singing acoustic blues. Selby had bought an electric bass, and was looking to learn how to play it... the couple got together, with the encouragement of friends, Selby as D. C.'s bass apprentice and left the bay area together in 1977.

D. C., Selby and Blues on the Move toured non-stop for 12 years, and then returned to D. C.'s home place and re-opened the Cozy Corner as the Down Home Blues Club in 1988. It quickly became an after hours club. The Dusk til Dawn Blues Festival was founded in 1991 as a way to bring their fans and musician friends together from across the country, among other things. The couple has won the Handy in Blues Education for their Blues in the Schools work; the Keeping the Blues Alive Award, and D. C. was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame, His proudest accomplishment to date has been having his hometown rename part of the Texas Road that runs alongside the club in his honor. The pair now lives at 701 D. C. Minner Street. So if you're coming to the Festival, come into Rentiesville two exits up US 69 from I-40, and when you get to D. C. Minner Street, you'll know you've arrived!

SELBY’S  SHOW  

1- 08 SONG LIST

Blue = True deep Bl
Italics = an original
Highlighted = in most shows

A

Are you Having..Fun? DC
Ain’t No Sunshine

 

B
Bright Lites Big City

Black Nights

Born To Be Wild
Bar-B-Que

Black Cat Bone

Boogie Chillin’

 

C

Chokin’ Kind

Clean Up Woman

Caught the KATY

City Walkin Blues –S

Cheatin’ in  Nxt Room

CC Rider
Come To Mama Crosscut Saw

 

D

Don’t - Devil Ride

Down Home Blues

Dock Of the Bay

Drown in My O. Tears Do Rite Woman
Driftin’ & Driftin’

Don’t Be Afrd …Dark

E
Eight Men & 4 Women

 

F

Fever
Funny How X Slips A

Full Moon Over
      Rentiesville - DC S

 

G

Goin to New York

Gotta Help Me - Selby

 

H
Hideaway
Hey Hey Bl All Right

Heart Of Rock & Roll House Of Rising Sun High Cost of Lovin’
How Long How L –DC
Hard Times 4 Lovin S
Hey Lordy Mama Hooked on Lovin U -S

Hard Luck Stories


I
I’ll Play the Bl 4 You
I Got to Know

I Hrd U Twice 1st X -D
I Just Wann Make
             Love 2 U

It Ain’t Right – D.C.
Indecisive Bl - S

It Just Don’t Happen
          Every Day – S*

I Can Tell - DC

 

J
Johnny B. Goode

Jelly Jelly
Juke Joint Jump
Jelly Roll - DC

 

K
Kansas City

Key to the Highway 8

Knock On Wood

Knowin’  - Selby

L

Love Junkie – DC
Love and Happiness

Lean On Me

Love Light
Leroy Brown

Live the Life I Love
Lonely Ave

Let’s Give T Romance
(Rents Overdue) A Chance  -D

 

 

 

M

Miss You So

Mercy

Mercedes Benz
Married
(Let’s Get)

Magic Man

Midnight Rider C
Movin’ (Guess It’s Time For..) S

 

N

Nobodies Business

Night Life  - BB King v

 

O
On Broadway

One Good Man

One More Heartache

Ode To Billy Joe

 

P

Piece Of My Heart
Pretty G L’n Guys *
Please Send Me     

    Someone To Love

Q  
R

Route 66
Rather Be Blind

Rainy Nite in GA

Relax Your Mind

Rock me Baby

Rain

 

S

Shade Tree Mechanic

Scratch My Back
Sweet Misery

Sweet Home Chi
Semi Roll On
Shaky Ground

Summertime
Stand By Me

St Louis Blues
Since I met you Baby

Still My Baby

Shoppin’   -S *

Slow & Easy - S

Stormy Monday
Sentimental Fool  -S
Solid Gone
Stumble

 

T

Thrill Is Gone
Teeny Weeny Bit

Too Good – DC, S

Take  Me To the River

That’s How Strong My Love Is
Took A Long Time

Try A Little Tendrnss
Trouble In Mind 8

Time Is On My Side

Take Yr Own Advice S

Truest Things
            I Ever Heard S

Truth  Is The Lite


U

Use Me
Under The Boardwalk

V  

W

Worried Life Blues

When S’thing Wrong B
Who Do You Love
What Have I Done 8

X

Y

You’re Mean 2 Me 12 bar in C- D

You’re Gonna …Cry
Yes We Can Can

with the SLIDE GUITAR

Big Road Blues
Bachelor’s Blues m

Born To Be Wild

Come in My Kitchen
Crossroads

Coo Coo  m

Double Dealin’
Full Moon Over
     Rentiesville

House of the
     Rising Sun

If You Let Me
Killin’ Floor
Lost & Found S

Life is Hard – S

Leave Home

 

 

 

YAYAS - (w backup vocalists)

Baby I Love You

Big Boss Man

Baby Baby Sw B
Bo Diddley

California Dreamin

Chain Chain Chain

Do Rite Woman

Down Home Blues

Don't Let the Devil Ride

Give Me 1 Reason
Hey Hey Bl Is All Right
Hideaway

Kansas City

Love Junkie

Love and Happiness

Mercedes Benz
Night and Day *

On Broadway
Respect

Shade Tree Mechanic
Shaky Ground

Semi Roll On   S

Shaky Flat Blues
Sweet Home Chicago Stand By Me

So Long Baby Bye Bye

Thats How Strong L Is
Wrong Number

Yes We Can Can




PEACE LOVE AND HAPPINESS TOUR 2006
DC & Selby MINNER on tour! with the entire band!  John Seymour bass, Daniel Williams drums, Ray Tubbs keys
918-855-0978 dcminner@uslogon.com
FRI OCT 20 Bisbee AZ The Stock Exchange 520-432-1333
SAT OCT 21 Bisbee AZ St Elmo's Bar
TUES OCT 24 San Francisco CA The Saloon, Upper Grant St 415-989-7666 
THURS Oct 26 Garberville/Redway CA The Mateel - Blues Nite 707-923-3368
FRI Oct 27 Eureka CA Pearl Lounge 707-223-3368
Tues  31st Whale Gulch Meadow Trade Fair  --- Halloween!
FRI  NOV 3 Dunsmuir CA  Blue Sky Room 530-235-9931
SAT NOV 4 Mt Shasta CA The Vets Club
FRI NOV 10 North Fork Grange Junction City near Weaverville CA
SAT NOV 11  Hayfork Mtn. CA The Hayfork Hotel 530-628-5337
SUN NOV 12 Sacramento CA Blues in Schools Benefit 
FRI NOV 17 Bisbee AZ The Stock Exchange 520-432-1333
SAT NOV 18 * Bisbee AZ St Elmo's Bar
WED 22nd Cowgirl Pickup Santa Fe NM 505-982-2565
Happy Thanksgiving!
SAT NOV 25th Madrid NM the Mineshaft Tavern 505-473-0743
SAT DEC 2 nd BLUES CLUB OPEN at home in Rentiesville OK 918-473-2411
* Selby's birthday print page 5 for this schedule
     

 

 


Dusk Till Dawn Blues Festival burns the midnight oil

By Leif M. Wright
Phoenix Staff Writer

Chances are, you have never heard the blues.
Oh, yeah, you’ve probably heard Stevie Ray Vaughn, and you probably watched that movie about Ray Charles.
But you ain’t heard the blues, man.
“Most people think blues is just sad music,” said Selby Minner, one half of DC and Selby Minner, the virtuoso blues pair from Rentiesville. “But blues is party music. After you’ve worked hard, you have to party hard.”
To that end, DC and Selby are hosting their 16th annual Dusk Til Dawn Blues Festival in Rentiesville this weekend at the Down Home Blues Club.
“Musicians love to play here,” Minner said, but she had a hard time putting a finger on why. “Maybe it’s because we’re musicians, too. Maybe it’s because we invite them into our home.”
Either way, musicians love the gig, and some are willing to go out of their way to make sure they get the chance to play.
In fact, a few years ago, Guitar Shorty made it his mission to make the festival.
“He called me up and said, ‘I’m ready to play the festival,’” she said. “But I said I didn’t know if I had the kind of money to get him here. He said, ‘Just tell me what you want.’ I was honored.”
Blues, which is the root for all the rock-and-roll inspired music of today, from country to pop to hip-hop to southern rock, was music created by those who needed an escape from hard times, hard luck and hard lives.
“Blues is how they let go,” Minner said. “It’s got all the emotions, from sadness to joy.”
From its signature pentatonic scales to the three-chord progression, blues forever changed music, and is today still influencing major artists such as Christina Aguilera, whose latest album, which is skyrocketing up the charts, is a tribute to the music from which all other modern music flows.
The Dusk Till Dawn Festival is a celebration of that heritage, the history of a music founded by people pouring out their hearts to three chords and heartfelt solos.
“After 2 a.m., all the headliners get up and play together,” Minner said. “It’s great to see different combinations of people jam on stage.”
The jams often last until 5 a.m., she said.
Most importantly, the festival is a celebration of success. DC Minner, a tremendously successful bass player for many popular acts, “got tired of waiting around for guitar players,” so he took up the guitar and a the blues man made the instrument his own.
It’s a tribute to his success that so many musicians are chomping at the bit to play with him at his home in Rentiesville.
“The feeling here is so laid-back,” Selby Minner said. “It’s not like a city or anything. People just love to come here.”
In the end, it’s about the music.
“Blues has influenced all the music that’s come since blues,” Minner said. “Right across the board.”
You can reach Leif M. Wright at 684-2906 or lmwright@muskogeephoenix. com.

Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.

check out the Bluesland "It's a Girl Thang" interview by Lea Gilmore at:
 
http://bluesland.net/thang/behind.html)
DC BIO as seen on the OK MUSIC HALL OF FAME website:
www.oklahomamusichalloffame.com/minner.html 


                                           
                 
                               D.C. Minner

                                       

  Welcome to
PLUG IN - TUNE UP - PLAY!!

Guitar and bass lessons at the Jim Lucas Checotah Public Library
We will meet every Thursday from 5 til 7 beginners first and then we will take a short break and do the intermediate class - lead scales and more advanced blues progressions. If you have questions you can call me at 918 855 0978. the website is www.dcminnerblues.com 
                                       Here's to having fun and learning some music, Selby Minner

 

 
 
 
                                                
 

 

                                                                     

             

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