Uploaded April 2021 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
This session is part of “Perspectives in History,” the 2021 Oklahoma History Conference. Beginning in the 1960s, Kiowa-Comanche guitar slinger Jesse Ed Davis rose to great prominence in the music business. Born in Norman and raised in Oklahoma City, Davis first honed his chops with country star Conway Twitty and blues icon Taj Mahal before becoming a major studio and live performer representing the Tulsa Sound from his new home in California. His work with fellow Oklahoman Leon Russell led to gigs with Bob Dylan, John Lennon, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and other rock and roll legends. Yet, there are no elaborate scholarly histories of Jesse Ed Davis, his iconic contributions to popular music, or his career that both reflected and transcended his Native background. Indeed, Davis’s success first stemmed from his incredible musical talent. But if his musical reputation kept his phone ringing, then his identity as an Indigenous artist infused his experiences with deeper meaning. Through an exploration of this principal theme, this session will celebrate an underappreciated musician whose remarkable life can be simultaneously and uniquely told as music history, American Indian history, and Oklahoma history.
Douglas K. Miller’s first book, Indians on the Move: Native American Mobility and Urbanization in the Twentieth Century (UNC Press, 2019), discusses how and why Native peoples imagined cities as places for new Indigenous futures in the twentieth century. He has two new book projects underway: one about Jesse Ed Davis’s remarkable life and career and one on histories of American Indian incarceration from the colonial period to the present.
This session is part of “Perspectives in History,” the 2021 Oklahoma History Conference. Beginning in the 1960s, Kiowa-Comanche guitar slinger Jesse Ed Davis rose to great prominence in the music business. Born in Norman and raised in Oklahoma City, Davis first honed his chops with country star Conway Twitty and blues icon Taj Mahal before becoming a major studio and live performer representing the Tulsa Sound from his new home in California. His work with fellow Oklahoman Leon Russell led to gigs with Bob Dylan, John Lennon, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and other rock and roll legends. Yet, there are no elaborate scholarly histories of Jesse Ed Davis, his iconic contributions to popular music, or his career that both reflected and transcended his Native background. Indeed, Davis’s success first stemmed from his incredible musical talent. But if his musical reputation kept his phone ringing, then his identity as an Indigenous artist infused his experiences with deeper meaning. Through an exploration of this principal theme, this session will celebrate an underappreciated musician whose remarkable life can be simultaneously and uniquely told as music history, American Indian history, and Oklahoma history.
Douglas K. Miller’s first book, Indians on the Move: Native American Mobility and Urbanization in the Twentieth Century (UNC Press, 2019), discusses how and why Native peoples imagined cities as places for new Indigenous futures in the twentieth century. He has two new book projects underway: one about Jesse Ed Davis’s remarkable life and career and one on histories of American Indian incarceration from the colonial period to the present.
