By Christina Campbell Phoenix Correspondent
Harley Hamm is the very definition of showman.
At the recent Woodstock Tribute Show at The Roxy Theater in Muskogee, he left the stage to swagger up and down the aisles in the middle of his performance. With the fringe swinging on his leather jacket and the ostrich feather bobbing on his hat, he leaned in close to wink at women in the audience, all without dropping a single note on his cordless electric guitar.
Hamm said Vaughan has had a significant musical influence on his life since childhood. “I liked the way he played, the way he dressed and sang,” Hamm said. “Growing up in my music career, people were always telling me that I reminded them of him. And I can emulate him pretty close in my playing.”Hamm’s tribute shows have gained momentum with each performance.
Eearlier this year, Harley went into the Recording Studio and Recorded a 6 Song CD “I just wanted it to be a short, sweet,” he said. “I didn’t record Stevie’s songs, but I recorded it in his style.”
Hamm said he was particularly honored to have recorded two of the instrumental songs with 78-year-old organ player Bill Willis of Broken Arrow and the band, SOBs (Shades of Blues). “He was the organ player for Jimmie Vaughan, Stevie’s brother. Willis started attending Hamm’s gigs at the Hard Rock Casino in Catoosa in 2004. At the time, Harley said he did not realize the man was a famous keyboardist. He always sat in front of me when I was playing, "He’d just sit there and grin.”Redd finally spilled the secret. “Imagine how surprised I was to find out this nice old guy had been playing with a national act,” Hamm said. “I had no idea he lived right there in Tulsa.”
Hamm and Willis, along with Ferry on drums, went almost immediately to a studio in Tulsa and recorded an organ trio CD, even before they had a chance to play a gig together.Hamm said his Stevie Ray Vaughan CD is a way of honoring Willis, who died in 2010.
“Bill did his last gig with me and died about a month later,” Hamm said. “I liked him a lot and we were really great friends. The CD is a tribute to Stevie and to Bill at the same time.”
