Rock on, Wichita: Book project examines city’s rock ’n’ roll history

From the 1950s to the 1980s, Wichita was a pretty rockin’ place.

That’s the thesis that longtime Wichita historian Jay Price and his student Joshua Rupp are attempting to prove in a new book project.

Aside from being the first city in which the electric guitar was played, Wichita has a rich rock ’n’ roll history, Price contends.

Performers such as Clif Major, Pat McJimsey, Mike Finnigan, Jerry Wood and Berry Harris – just to name a few – greatly contributed to that history, Price said.

“This is the story of that music scene,” he said. “It’s a window into a different world of music than our world today. Today, a band can come together … take a video, upload it to YouTube and all of a sudden it can go viral.

“That’s not how this world works.”

Midwest stopover

Price, director of the public history program at Wichita State University’s Department of History, has produced many books detailing Wichita history in recent years.

He picked up this project in early 2015, after Eric Cale, executive director of the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum, kicked around the idea, Price said.

Price pitched it to Rupp, one of his master’s students, to write as a thesis, he said.

Rupp’s thesis explores the “sociological impact of rock and roll on Wichita and Wichita on rock and roll,” according to Harry Dobbin, the book’s art director.

“It’s a little more reflective of rock and roll,” Price said. “We’re not a city that necessarily changed rock and roll … but there’s a sense that if it plays here – if it reaches here – then something’s really making an impact.”

Wichita’s geographic location proved convenient to many performers traveling through the Midwest “who were looking for a place to make a couple bucks on the way to their next big gig,” Dobbin said – B.B. King, Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash, to name a few.

This book, though, hones in on a generation of Wichita rockers and a time in the town’s history when live music was king.

“This really is the study of a generation of musicians who come of age in the post-war years,” Price said. “There’s this very rich, lively live music scene here in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s … and that’s just not quite how we entertain ourselves these days. There’s a little bit of a live music scene, but not to the degree that there was in this period, so this really (was) the heyday of live music.”

‘Yearbook’ help

The book, which has yet to receive an official title, will be split in two parts: The first will detail Wichita’s rock ’n’ roll history in that time period, and the second will be a “yearbook” featuring bands from the period.

The historical portion of the book is completed, but the team needs help with the “yearbook” half, which will attempt to document every local band from that era.

Originally, Price was going to cut the book off in the 1970s, but he said he soon realized “you’ve got to look into the ’80s too.”

“There’s a second half to many of these guys’ careers that, in many ways, happened in the ’80s,” Rupp said. “That was a rejuvenation, I think, for a lot of guys that played early rock and roll.”

The only real criteria for inclusion in the rock ’n’ roll book is that the band must have played public gigs in the Wichita area sometime from the 1950s to the 1980s – “not just in a basement,” Dobbin said.

They currently have photos and information for about 90 bands, Dobbin said, but they want to ensure no one is excluded.

Price, Dobbin and Rupp are seeking photos of bands from that era, as well as any historical/biographical information about them and their members.

The impetus for the yearbook, Price said, comes as members of that generation are beginning to die. Most of this history is recounted through recollections and photos, as pressing albums was an arduous task then, and surviving recordings can sometimes be scarce.

“It’s this amorphous, fluid network of people,” Price said. “Getting a handle on it is really tough, and even people who are right in the thick of it, (they say) ‘Oh yeah, that group. They had that drummer, what was his name? I forgot.’

“That’s what we’re trying to find.”

The book is expected to be released before year’s end, Dobbin said, in time for the holidays.

This story was originally published August 11, 2016 at 5:25 PM with the headline "Rock on, Wichita: Book project examines city’s rock ’n’ roll history."