Cain's Ballroom

Infobox_nrhp | name =Cain's Dancing Academy
nrhp_type =

---

caption =The historic sign of Cain's Ballroom.
location= Tulsa, OK
lat_degrees = 36 | lat_minutes = 9 | lat_seconds = 38.46 | lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 95 | long_minutes = 59 | long_seconds = 35.31 | long_direction = W
area =
architect=
architecture= Late 19th And Early 20th Century American Movements
added = September 04, 2003
governing_body = Private
refnum=03000874 cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2007-01-23|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service]

Cain's Ballroom is a music venue in Tulsa, OK. It was built in 1924 to serve as a garage for one of Tulsa's founders, Tate Brady. Madison W. "Daddy" Cain purchased the building in 1930 and named it [http://tulsapreservationcommission.org/nationalregister/buildings/index.pl?id=13 Cain's Dance Academy] where he charged $0.10 for dance lessons. The academy was the site of the Texas Playboys' first regular radio broadcast where they continued to play regularly. In 1976, Larry Schaeffer purchased the building, refurbished it, and reopened it with the current name, Cain's Ballroom. In 1978, Cain's Ballroom was one of only a few venues to host the Sex Pistols in their only American tour.

Hosting the Sex Pistols underlined the Cain's Ballroom as a pioneering force of the history of Rock and Roll. It also opened the door to the second British Invasion in several sectors of the USA.Fact|date=May 2008

Cain’s Dancing Academy was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on September 4, 2003. It was listed under Criteria B and its NRIS number is 03000874.

The Story of Cain's Ballroom

Founding

As early as 1927, the Tulsa Oklahoma structure was already making international headlines in the music industry. The original owner / commission investor of the building, Tate Brady, used this building as a garage upon its construction in 1924. His garage was soon renamed "The Louvre" and opened to the public. It quickly became an internationally known night spot for the nouveau riche oil boom town. At the time, the international playground for the oil elite was entangled in prohibition. Oklahoma catered to its oil elite, however, with gin joints, speakeasies, 'reputable houses', and bootleg border running. Needless to say, by 1929, this corner stone establishment effectively changed hands to suit the social environment standards.

'Daddy Cain' entered the scene. His involvement in Tulsa society on many fronts led to a turning point in the history of music and the role Cain's played in it. Hosting dance lessons and evening gatherings under the new clean cut name of Cain's Dance Academy, the hot spot hit full gear. Jazz, rag, blues, country, and other hot foot popular genres, were among the band styles booked consistently.

Among this music rebellion seated in the lap of luxury, was a then un-named genre of music which was popular in the southern states. At the time, it was commonly known as "that hot hillbilly music". The musicians involved in this movement were the core root of what became known as Western Swing, which gave birth to Rock and Roll.

Western Swing formed through a subversive network of musicians across the country. Its home base was found in the oil elite states of Texas and Oklahoma. These musicians 'spoke' the language of music which was undergoing a drastic evolution of creativity and expirimentation. From Harlem, to New Orleans, to Chicago, to Oklahoma, to Texas and beyond, these artists were breaking the barriers of social taboo through music. During this time, racial and financial barriers were quite severe in the United States. Oklahoma, known as No Man's Land, held the keystone. The evolution of jazz had been rooted there since the early 1900s.

Cain's was well known for the artistry and diversity of musicians it hosted.

One of these artists was Bob Wills. Following the oil boom, there was an oil bust which heralded the Great Depression across the USA. Bob Wills entered the scene in the early years of these circumstances. By 1932, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys took the basics of jazz, rag, honky tonk, blues, country, cowboy music, dixie land, swing, early big band and other genres to define the future of popular music. Their home base was Cain's Dance Academy.

Even in the midst of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys could pack over a thousand dancers into Cain's each night they played. Their radio broadcast performances from KVOO (1934 - 1942) in conjunction with Cain's were heard coast to coast by popular demand. This unbefore seen level of popularity was due, in part, to their mastery of music and the dazzling Band Man Bob Wills. He led hundreds of musicians through three decades in Cain's with that famous grin which still holds court inside a picture frame hanging by Cain's stage today.

With Bob call-leading the band, they could play any song in their line up and customize it to a style or genre to suit the audience's evening. Harlem Jazz and New Orleans Dixie Land fused with the underlying rhythm of Blues, Swing and gin joint Honkey Tonk in a racially divided nation played by a Cherokee & White cowboy music swing band in Dust Bowl Depression No Man's Land formed the back bone of modern music inside the walls of Cain's Ballroom. Cain's and and the Boys defied racial, financial, and social boundaries with lyrics, music, and the first full force music and movie publicity campaign coast to coast.

Cain's Ballroom, KVOO and the Bob Wills legacy musically owned the country coast to coast for over thirty years.

The evolutions, inventions, and standard set outlines for swing, big band, and rock and roll evolved inside Cain's. The Texas Playboys' guitars and Bob's over hand fiddle work laid the foundation standards for modern music. All the early Rock n Roll greats were influenced by 'that guitar sound' that 'Tulsa sound' that 'Cain's hop' as can be heard in examples such as Twin Guitar Boogie, Fat Boy Rag and Cadillac in Model 'A'. Their drummers broke boundaries alongside the piano players setting standards for modern percussion work, and even drums being allowed to be used on stage at The Grand Old Opry.

Their relentless touring created a new set of standards few modern musicians could keep pace with. They would travel hundreds of miles in a bus (remember, this is the 30's and 40's) for a one night dance hall set, return the next day to Tulsa for a KVOO Cain's live broadcast, do it again the next day and the next and the next all the while making it home to play Cain's Ballroom every Thursday and Saturday night.

It has long been rumored that Cain's polished wood dance floor rests on a series of springs which, well into the early hours of the mornings of the 1930s and 1940s and 1950s, would 'rock' and 'roll' in time to a churning mass of hundreds of dancers crammed back to back inside Cain's dancing in tandem. The current owners discovered during the refurbishing of Cain's that this is not true. The 'rock' and 'roll' motion of the floor was created by the weight and movement of the crowds. The original floor is still in place.

Many genres of dance from Jazz and Hot Foot to Cowboy and American folk, to Dixie Land, the Waltz, Texas / Hollywood fusion and Mexican Folk dance fused together to create dances which we now associate with Big Band Swing, Hop, and Rock n Roll.

Riots of the kind never known before in music halls would break out as Bob and the Boys would play on. By 1938 the classic glossy 'star' head shot photo solidified out of Cain's and the Texas Playboys. That famous grinning Band Man glossy was included in a mail order exclusive book Hubin' It by Ruth Sheldon. The modern system of fan clubs is found in the roots of Cain's. Ruth Thomason was the clever Bob Will's fan who set the modern standards and led the way for fans swooning over stars from crooners to hip shakers. By the 1950s in the early years of rock n roll, Cain's was the birth place of 'turf' and those classic 'greaser gangs'. Rolled up Levi's found their way into fashion as dancers would file into Cain's straight from the cotton fields, ranches, and factories in their regimental cuff rolled blues.

In the late 1960s, Cain's went dark for a brief time as the onset of mass Rock and Roll took the limelight. It was purchased by 82 year old Marie Mayers, a Bob Will's traditionalist, in 1972. She planned to re-open Cain's as a full time dance hall. It experienced very limited success with traditional dance evenings and concert rentals. However, limited it might have been, this began the renovation and next phase of history for Cain's.

Cain's today

In 1976, the year after Bob Wills died, Marie sold Cain's Ballroom to rock concert investor Larry Shaeffer, also a Bob Wills traditionalist. His investment in Cain's focussed on reviving the original elements and structure to its true historic roots. Late 1977 marked the re-opening of Cain's Ballroom with a concert by Elvin Bishop. Shaeffer's show production support was Little Wing.

The Sex Pistols were booked through Malcolm McLaren in early 1978. The deep roots of Cain's influence remained. If Cain's would host this unruly, rank, publicity-riddled band from the UK, others followed suit. Cain's opened their doors and history was made. Past and future, two sides of the ocean, face to face, the history and branched history of music subversion had come home.

The Sex Pistols, members of the original Punk movement in the UK, were ironically a product of the original genres and influences which brought Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys to Cain's. Western Swing. The Blues, Rag, Jazz, Dixie Land and Swing influences which Bob and the Boys fused and evolved in those early years, had found their way to the UK.

In the 1940s, WWII American troops often formed bands among their members to play as a reminder of home, and for 'Yankee dances' hosted in the UK. Among these popular dance genres were Big Band, and Swing - the early children of Western Swing. Among the players would often be found Western Swing musicians fresh from the heartland of America. They could easily blend into any formation of band due to their back ground and knowledge of Western Swing subversion and revolution of cotton field 'Blues' and true Jazz. In the early 1950s the organised Blues movement found their way to the UK in the aftermath of WWII. Many of these early artists worked in the same subversive, underground circles and recording studios alongside Bob and even Cain's.

Many compilations found on the juke box in McLaren's original "Let it Rock" store front and later the subversive store front "SEX" shop, which he founded with Vivienne Westwood, can be traced directly to the Blues, Jazz, and Rag artists who made the first break through into the United Kingdom via Cain's influence through Bob Wills' international status.

After the Sex Pistols gig, Cain's enjoyed a wild range of successes primarily in music bookings and oddity performances. In the 1980s, Cain's embarked on a new Inter-continental fusion in rock history. Shaeffer took a business partner named Davit Souders who was influential in the underground 'New Wave' scene. Tucked away in Tulsa was a branch of this 'Post Punk' movement. It was connected to Cain's and the tradition of subversive music experimentation. Souders orchestrated the influx of international artists in this growing genre and solidified this emerging movement to Cain's.

Ownership of Cain's passed from Larry Shaeffer to The Finnerty brothers in the late 1990s. The new millennium has seen new ownership through Rodgers Properties in October 2002 hosting Doc Roc Productions as its show production team. Since that time, Cain's has experienced an impressive increase in bookings of cross genre hubbin' and has housed a vast array of our modern age of musical subversion and experimentation artists.

References

External links

* [http://www.cainsballroom.com/ Cain's Ballroom Site]
* [http://tulsapreservationcommission.org/nationalregister/buildings/index.pl?id=13 Cain's Dancing Academy]