We met up John Tyler on his families ranch in eastern Oklahoma. J.T. Had this to say
“I grew up in a rural community in Southeast Oklahoma called Tannehill. The kindergarten-8th grade school I attended was built smack in the middle of a hay meadow, and still stands that way today. I first started playing music when I was eight years old. I took lessons on a mandolin my grandparents bought me, which sat in my room before that, untouched for two or three years until I finally started plucking around on it. My teacher was a Pentecostal deacon named JB Tiner. He and I played old gospel and bluegrass standards, and burnt up the old folks home circuit in McAlester and the surrounding areas. Eventually I took to my dad’s Martin guitar more than the mandolin, and started learning my favorite songs. I was ruined from then on. He bought me my first electric shortly after, and that got me even more excited. I kept on playing through my preteen years at which point I attended Crowder high school, where I learned a lot under a brilliant teacher named John Wilcox. Mr. Wilcox had a knack for instilling in youngins the courage to stand in front of people (though awkward and nervous) to perform, and above all, have fun. After high school I played in a cover band for a year or two, then moved to Stillwater in 2016 and met Read Southall, Jeremee Knipp, and Reid Barber, and together we formed Read Southall Band (Southall), who I’m proud to be touring with today.
I can remember driving my dad’s international tractor when I was too short to see over the back tire, and I can remember him hollering when I’d make full use of the “stump jumper” mechanism in his brush hog. My dad never owned cattle when I was a kid, but had hay equipment and baled hay on the side until quite recently. Many memories were made in the summer sun with my pops.
In about 2011, I first came out to work at Holt ranch, hauling and stacking square hay with my now friend Clyde Scott. Later that year, I began working with cattle for the first time: weaning, branding, doctoring. Dust in the nose, dust in the eyes, shit in your ears. In mine, anyway.
Charles Holt III “Chase” is my stepdad, he’s a third generation rancher. His grandad Charles Holt was a rice farmer during the depression, and plot by plot, he farmed the land and turned over his crop until he was able to buy his own place and get in the cattle business. He moved his cattle operation from Hempstead, Texas to McAlester, Oklahoma in 1953. Charles Holt Jr. (“Mr. Holt” or “Grandaddy”) took over and expanded the ranch as I know it in the years following. Mr. Holt was a serious and sober personality unless you were one of those lucky enough to know him on a personal level.
He was an all around cowboy, philosopher, loving member of his family, and a remarkably talented author and poet. He was blind in one eye and drove like a bat out of hell. He loved iced tea and no filter camels. He imparted knowledge both directly and indirectly, that left an impression on me which I’ll carry for the rest of my life.
Many of these lessons were learned on the ranch where we made this video. Hell, just a few feet away. I have been extremely fortunate to make memories with my sisters Kristen Cook and Paige Lebs, and my late brother Caleb Holt while out working cattle and riding around. Today the ranch is operated by Chase and Clyde solely, and I’m glad to accompany them in whatever chore that needs to be done when I’m off the road. My wife Meg and I look forward to moving back this way in the next few months.
“No Wooden Nickels” is a set of songs that I felt proud enough of to share with the world in my own voice, and I hope someone finds the same joy in listening to them as I did recording them.
“It is not the mind alone that speaks. It is also the heart. And in the conversing of mind and heart is found meaning, and in meaning found purpose, and in purpose is found a life.”
- Charles Edward Holt Jr.
Check out John Tyler on spotify:
open.spotify.com/artist/1oTwo...
This video was recorded with permission from the artist