Blues Community Builder

Submitted by Dave Copenhaver

“K Denton’s name has been synonymous with quality music as long as I can remember. His clubs, The Esquire in Oklahoma City and The Blue Onion in Norman, were the places to be all through the 60’s, 70’s and into the 80’s. It was great live music six nights a week and sometimes seven. In the summer of 1966, he gave my first band Spix V the opportunity to play every Wednesday night. My father would drive me and the guys from Sulphur to The Blue Onion in Norman and I had the chance for incredible musical education.

“What a time it was for a 14 year old kid trying to learn the music and learn the ropes. That’s what K did. He gave the opportunity to musicians and the public to hear great live music. On the weekends you could hear groups like Third Avenue Blues Band and Jerry Fisher and the Nightbeats and all of the great regional bands from Texas and Kansas. In the 70’s and 80’s K gave us the opportunity to see great national acts, people like Stanley Clarke, Sons of Champlin, Albert Collins, Roy Buchanan, Larry Coryell and many, many more. No one could be more deserving to be inducted into the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame. Thanks K. for all the music.”

Directly from K. Denton:

I was born January 14, 1938, in Oklahoma City. When I was about 7 years old my Dad and his cousin Bill, purchased the Soonerland Ballroom in Clinton, Ok. I guess that was my introduction to live music and being able to meet and be around musicians. I attended my senior year of high school in Alexandria, Louisiana, and got to help a local band, The Boogie Kings, with set-ups and promotions. They played “boogie” and the Blues. My freshman year of college in San Antonio, Texas, I continued helping bands by booking some local bands for fraternity and sorority parties.

In 1965, I was delivering Coors beer to local clubs in the Oklahoma City area and The Esquire Club came up for sale. I bought it! The Esquire was located at 10th and May Ave. but the bands that played there for me were from all over Oklahoma City and beyond. A few of the bands that played there were the 3rd Avenue Blues Band (Harold G. Jones had played drums in HS with Gary US Bonds)), Jerry Fisher and the Nightbeats, Lou Rawls, Charles and Barbara Burton, to name but a few. I was fortunate to own the Esquire for 5 years. Also Harold G. Jones and We the People.

In 1970, I bought The Blue Onion club in Norman, Oklahoma and owned it for over 10 years. This club provided a larger venue so I was privileged to share my love of live music with more fans. Over the years I booked Freddy King, Albert Collins, ZZ Top, Ernie Fields, Sr. & Jr., Gatemouth Brown, Delbert McClinton, and so many more. I made lifelong friends at the Esquire and The Blue Onion. Now days most of the music I get to listen to is in my “man cave” in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, although I did get to attend a Christone “Kingfish” Ingram concert in Oklahoma City earlier this year. The music lives on…