Since I have so much relative free time on my hands, in-between the solemn recuperating, the constant blood tests and the extensive physical therapy, I’ve been doing a little bit of genealogy here and there as an obsessive hobby, trying to dig up my roots, especially on my father’s side, before I die.
My dad’s Choctaw lineage was a mostly well-documented one, thankfully, allowing me to track the relatives who walked (and mostly died on) the Trail of Tears. I have also found a few things I never knew, such as how my grandfather “Two Gun” Bill Fowler was training to be a Choctaw code-talker just as World War I was winding down…or about my Uncle Lefty, who allegedly murdered a girl in Duncan and spent years in prison for it, a case covered by the creator of Perry Mason…or, as I learned just weeks ago, my dad’s cousin, a little-known rockabilly singer by the name of Don Fowler who recorded a swingin’ twangy tune in the mid-60s.
Hailing from my dad’s hometown of Waurika, little is known, so far, about Don with the exception of his birth, his lone 45 recording and, most triumphantly, his love of the Waurika Rattlesnake Festival. In 1966, he recorded the song “Oklahoma Baby” for Oakridge Records based out of Fort Worth. The front of the cover featured Don and his guitar superimposed over a rattlesnake handler with the words “From the Rattlesnake Center of the World, Waurika, Oklahoma” beaming in big type.
Here’s the song for your listening pleasure:
Of course, the song was a hit in southern Oklahoma—as it should be—but really didn’t move anywhere else, if it was even meant to. But, with that sweet Hank Williams howl and a classic rockabilly sound courtesy of the Country Timers, I really wish I can find an original copy of the 45 single, complete with the backwoods romance flipside entitled “Wedding Bells Over the Hilltop.” So far, it’s pretty impossible to get a hold of, although there are a few foreign rockabilly compilations that contain it.
But, what I always come back to, especially in regards to this record, is the sheer popularity of the Waurika Rattlesnake Festival, a proud citywide tradition that, even with competition from towns such as Apache, Okeene and Magnum now, manages to draw in hundreds of patrons and wrangle thousands of the poisonous serpents, some held in the mid-size viewing cage and some taken to the on-site butcher to make a deep-fried meal of.
It’s funny how Don’s record, despite having tangentially nothing to do with rattlesnakes or rattlesnake-hunting, was marketed to the crowd with such a municipal fervor; the back of 45 does say that Don was a Jaycee, a member of a local booster group who annually promoted the hell out of the event, bringing people from all over the United States—and some foreigners too—to “observe from the side lines.”
That’s some real city pride that, over 50 years later, has got me worked up for next year’s Waurika Rattlesnake Festival, which is probably in the planning stages of the parks and rec department as we speak. To not only see up close one of nature’s deadliest S.O.B.s, but to get a picture holding the deadly beast and then to cross over to the food tent for some deep-fried rattler, I’ve got one question: who wants to go?
And as for “Oklahoma Baby”, if anyone’s got any leads about Don or the 45, hit me up. Cómpralo ya!
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Follow Louis on Twitter at @LouisFowler and Instagram at @louisfowler78.
I really liked that song. Great steel guitar and fiddle. I have eaten rattlesnake. It tasted like frog legs to me.
Who wants to go? Not me. I’m pathologically afraid of snakes, poisonous or not. Even seeing one on TV freaks me out. I have no idea how I got this way, raised in a big city where there are no snakes.
I’ve never eaten snake meat… but I don’t think I’ve ever had any offered to me. I think I would try it if offered, as long as it no longer looks like a snake.
I have eaten alligator. Not much flavor, and it’s like chewing a rubber band.
Louis, you’re a really interesting guy. Did anyone ever tell you that?
I’m his grand-daughter and he adopted my sister and I. I would love to share more info with you! Please email me at paula_okie@hotmail.com
Kind of sounds like Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. And that’s a compliment.
Awesome article!
Ride the snake
This is my Grandpa!! I have A lot of his recorded music! Thank you featuring this article! We have more genealogy as well! He was the best! He was also a WW 2 vet. He passed away in 1993. Has 1 living son , Roger D Fowler in Wichita Falls Tx.
I’ve been and I’m in!
Our mom, Gale is the drummer on that record. She died in a car wreck in 1981
That is a great song and a great story.
Would love to go, but I am also deathly afraid of snakes (Like Gray Chin, even on TV) I cannot watch Wild Kingdom or Swiss Family Robinson because of this. Or even that snake part of Gladiator. ewww.
Would love to know more about the Perry Mason episode. My dad watches it every day on his VHS player.
Earle Stanley Gardner covered the case in the 50s for various men’s detective magazines. I will probably cover it in the future, once I get more info on the murder case. Apparently it also “inspired” The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson as well.
Looking forward to seeing it!
I’ve read that book. Meh.
This is my grandpa!!! How cool is this!!
I like that song. When I was a kid we had like 4 records in the house. Johnny Cash, Dean Martin, some Perry Coumo xmas record, and Hank Williams sr. I listened to Hank for hours when I wasn’t listening to short wave on our huge wood radio/phono console trying to learn Morse
Code.
That song reminds me of the old Hank record. which I hadn’t thought of in decades. Thanks for that. Off to eMule to try to find some old Hank.
Don was our neighbor. He was a great man and quick w a smile. He loved my moms beans and fried taters. My parents joined him in the Country Timers in the 80’s. Don adopted his two wonderful granddaughters after the death of their beautiful mother. They have grown up to be amazing women.
I grew up in Waurika, I remember Don, Billie, Roger, and Gale. Don was a great guy and owned a auto repair shop maybe called Fowler’s garage on south side of town near railroad tracks.
Louis, I’ve been a fan of TLO for several years. Hard to believe you have some Waurikan in your History.
If you do a quick search for Two Gun Bill Fowler, you can read in Ghost Towns of Oklahoma how he thwarted a bank robbery in Addington — the first town north of Waurika, where he was stationed as deputy sheriff. That’s where my folks grew up; I’d heard about him from early on.
Yes, that book has a permanent place on my shelf.