Wade Burrow

I recently attended the 32nd Annual Freaker’s Ball at Cain’s Ballroom.
I enjoy attending events like this, because typically there will be tons of local bands there. I really enjoyed Rook, Down for Five, and Doomsday Junky.
Imagine my surprise, though, when I ran across a solo act consisting of one guy, a guitar, and a harmonica. The guy’s name is Wade Burrow. He’s a Tulsan that sings stories through his music. His music genre seems to span that of blues, folk, and mild country. The most impressive part of his music are his lyrics. Wade tells a story with every one of his songs. While listening to him play, I decided that his first CD, I Ain’t Dead Yet, would make a very nice addition to my collection of local music. If you’d like to listen to some of his tunes, go to www.wadeburrow.com and check out some streaming mp3’s he offers up on his website.
My favorite song from Wade Burrow (so far) is “Walking On Broken Glass”. Here’s an excerpt from the lyrics:
In a world of gay cowboys and vulgar people at award shows thanking god
It makes you wonder why we’ve propped up such parasites to look upon
But I should be tolerant and accept it though it really doesn’t seem right
If I said all I really would like to say I’m sure I’d be ostracized and I…
Sometimes I feel I’m walking on broken glass
With no shoes on my feet
- Meecitywuker.com

Wade Burrow is the Music Noyz.com Artist
Wade Burrow is the Music Noyz.com Artist of the Week - Wade Burrow does a style of music I really don’t enjoy much, a strumming early Bob Dylan type folk type thing. I’m more a British Blues Alt type guy but I will tell you this ! In a time when Springstein is trying to sound like Dylan 1964, and the real Bob Dylan has gone 30 yrs ago I’d rather listen to Wade Burrow than both of them. Great voice, great lyrics, just a man his guitar, harmonica, and words. Lovers of Acoustic Neil Young, Billy Bragg, Dylan, and Springstein will love him !
- Musicnoyz.com

Wade Burrow is an everyman with a voice. His boy, Ian, is 3 and he's got a baby girl, Cassidy Lane, on the way. The Burrows' live in a blue, three-bedroom home in Broken Arrow. Every morning, the 28-year-old drives his Chevy downtown to work as a customer service representative for AT&T Inc. In his traditional folk song, "Walking on Broken Glass," Burrow sings of watching his fellow "economic slaves" shuffle off to their 9-to-5s. "They seem stuck just like me/It would take a lottery or some act of God to set my people free." Burrow is just like them but he won't stay silent. He has something to say. On his new disc, "I Ain't Dead Yet," Burrow strums an acoustic guitar and plays a harmonica -- one just like Woody Guthrie's -- to create sparse but spirited folk music. Burrow's sound owes much to Guthrie, a man he respects as a legendary working-class hero.

"The most important message he sends is we have strength as a middle class," Burrow said. ". . . That's the most important -- that we can come together and have a say. "Sounds like I'm some sort of a revolutionary. I didn't know I'd be talking like this," Burrow said in a recent sit-down interview. Whereas Guthrie's guitar famously killed fascists, Burrow's ax simply helps him critique modern culture and tell heartrending personal stories. On the lead cut, "Humble Pie," the artist bashes, among other things, celebrity worship and politicians who pledge to put families first only to "make darn sure that both parents have to work." Although it's hard to raise a family on a single income, Burrow's wife, Brandy, stays home with young Ian. "We made a decision that, you know, no matter what -- even if we lose the house -- if things go bad, we're going to make a decision to make sure that family comes first," Burrow said, "not plasma screen TVs, not expensive cars." In "A Perfect Topic of Conversation," Burrow praises his bride singing, "Babe, I know you'll love me until I am dead and maybe even beyond/But up until my dying day, I'll take care of you." He then playfully adds he might even mow the lawn. On "Take Me Back," Burrow lashes out at corporate radio, which plays tunes filled with "loose words with no wit or meaning." Burrow's own words aren't lacking in purpose in his revealing song, "My Final Word," a tune Burrow admitted is "a tough song to talk about." It finds him addressing his father, a man who years ago took an 11-year-old Burrow and his younger brother out of school, and from their sister and mother. "I was homeless, out of school and working Sheetrock with my father in Las Vegas, of all places," Burrow recalled. "We were running from my mother . . . He believed my folks in Okmulgee, which was my mom's family, that if I ever actually lived with them, I'd be in danger of hell." At one point, his father, who frequently quoted the Bible, and his brother, lived in the cab of an '82 Chevy truck. "It was cold in the desert in February," Burrow remembered. One day, Burrow finally told his father "I'm tired of living on the streets. We need to go back to where family is." The artist hasn't seen his father in years. Last he heard, his father tells people he has no children. Burrow ends the song by singing, "I'm 28/It feels great/I have a son and a woman that I love/They don't go without meals, don't feel unsafe, or abused, or unthought of." The final track on "I Ain't Dead Yet" is a mournful tune about Burrow's drug-addicted sister, who abandoned her two children about a year ago. "Ballad in A Minor" is grim, but Melissa's reality is considerably brighter these days. "She's getting her life back together," Burrow said. "I'm real proud of my sister. She fell on some hard times and made some bad decisions, but she's admitted that. She's getting back and they are going to have a mother soon." There's another song on the record, "I Haven't Been Prayin,' " in which Burrow sings of falling from grace, only to find God holding him when he called out His name. Each night, Burrow, who's believed in God since he was 7-years-old, said he prays for simple things with his wife and son. "I pray to be blessed and that's about it," he said. "I pray for my sins to be forgiven, and I pray for God to bless me with what He's willing to bless me with -- what I deserve." Wade Burrow - Tulsa World

Wade Burrow should be forgiven for sounding so much like his infl uences because his message is irresistible.

For some reason, it just sounds good, especially when paired with the sweat rolling off a beer bottle, sipped on a hot Oklahoma August afternoon to the tempo of cicadas wheezing in the trees.

The singer/songwriter even acknowledges the fact that he sounds so much like Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie that, under the “infl uences” spot on his MySpace page, he states “too obvious to note.”

His new album, “Weary Minded Thoughts of a Workin’ Man,” will be marked by a release party Saturday at the Blend Coffee House in Broken Arrow.

While his vocals sound much like Dylan, Burrow said he draws more lyrical inspiration from Guthrie’s plain-speak.

Years of trying to make ends meet and helping his wife raise two kids have driven home the “weary” that comes out on this album (see “Goin’ Home”). And Burrow recently became a union steward at his AT&T job, representing workers in disciplinary hearings for the Communications Workers of America.

Burrow said he had an epiphany while watching a recent interview with now-imprisoned former Tyco chief executive Dennis Kozlowski on “60 Minutes.”

The interviewer asked Kozlowski why he pursued more wealth when he already had so much.

“And he said, ‘Well, it’s a way of keeping score.’ And I thought, ‘My God. Is that where we are as a nation, where we have guys at the top keeping score while we just take what we can get?’ ” Burrow asked.

“I’m just trying to speak to that. And if you get everybody talking about how I don’t wanna be in debt to my eyeballs, I don’t wanna have to be worried about taking a job at any rate of pay because I have to pay these bills or I’m going to go completely under ... That sort of thing is just what’s driving people these days, and I think it’s radically unhealthy.”

Burrow also realized that daycare workers were spending more time raising his son than he and his working wife did. Now his wife, Brandy, stays home with their kids and Burrow supports them.

Those realizations and concerns come out in songs featured on the new disc, including the title track, “Spotting Judas” and “I’ve Got Holes in My Pocket.”

You can catch him in coffeehouses and clubs around Tulsa, sprinkling the people with his ideas.

Burrow declares he’s not preaching socialism, although he’s waiting for that accusation. It’s more of a populist idea, he said.

Outside of that, he’s a regular song-and-a-guitar guy looking for a way to get his music to pay the bills.

Someone has taken notice.

Burrow said his song, “Becoming a Redwood,” was selected for the PBS documentary series “Roadtrip Nation,” which shows a group of former college students traveling the nation looking for interesting stories.

Depending on whether the episode with his song appears on TV and how often, he could start getting a regular royalty check.

It likely won’t be much, but it prompted Burrow to set up a publishing company to control the rights to his songs.

- Tulsa World