Family, friends and fans of Bob Childers, an influential figure in Oklahoma’s “Red Dirt” music circles, gathered in Oklahoma City on Sunday to celebrate the life and memory of the prolific and much-covered songwriter.  Childers – whose music was a blend of country, folk and roots-rock that drew inspiration from the work of another revered Oklahoman, Woody Guthrie – died April 22, following a long battle with lung disease.

Alternately recognized as the godfather or father of Red Dirt Music, the “Red Dirt Bob Dylan” and “Dylan of the Dust,” Childers, 61, wrote a ton of songs and had his work covered by literally hundreds of other artists.  Restless Spirit – A Tribute to the Songs of Bob Childers, a three-disc collection released by Binky Records in 2004 with the goal of raising some money to help defray his medical bills, contains 56 of Childers’ compositions recorded by more than 50 different artists.

Although he grew up in a non-musical family in West Virginia, Childers loved and lived music.  He studied music at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960s.  After wandering around the country for several years, Childers settled in Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1972.  In the late 1970s, he began a lasting friendship with singer-songwriter Jimmy LaFave, who helped him record his debut album, I Ain’t No Jukebox, in 1979.  The album evoked critical acclaim.   Within three years, Childers was touring nationwide and had released a follow-up album, Singing Trees, Dancing Waters.  In the mid-1980s, he moved to Nashville and encouraged other Stillwater artists, including Garth Brooks, to move there. 

Although he released two albums during his first year in Nashville, Four Horsemen and the all-instrumental King David’s Lament, Childers’ gypsy spirit prompted him to seek out a new music scene in Austin, Texas.  It is there that he recorded Circles Toward the Sun in 1990, which sported a couple of minor hits – “Restless Spirits” and “Mexican Mornings.”   He later returned to Stillwater, where he released more albums – including Nothin’ More Natural, Hat Trick and Live at the Back Door – and acted as narrator during a 23-city, LaFave-produced tour of the Woody Guthrie tribute show, Ribbon of Highway – Endless Skyway in 2003.