You can take the boy out of Oklahoma, but you can’t take Oklahoma out of the boy.

That’s the short story for Tulsa-bred, Brooklyn, N.Y. singer Beau Jennings, who will be returning to the Midwest for a string of fundraiser shows to help pay for a filmmaking project honoring his boyhood hero and Oklahoma legend Will Rogers.

Jennings has joined forces with OU alumnus and independent filmmaker Bradley Beesley (“The Fearless Freaks” and “Okie Noodling”) to shoot a road documentary called “The Verdigris,” wherein Jennings will travel across the country to significant places from Rogers’s life, including locations in their home states, Hollywood and Alaska.

It’s a big project, but Jennings isn’t daunted. Still in Brooklyn, busily preparing for the impending mini-tour The Daily caught up with him last week for an interview via email. Here’s what he had to say.

The Daily: What’s your earliest memory of anything having to do with Will Rogers? How did it make you feel?
Jennings: I used to visit the Will Rogers Museum when I was a kid. I grew up not far from there so from the very beginning there was a sense of ‘this guy and I are from the same place’. Later I came to appreciate that more and more when I began to grasp the wide net he’d cast around the world — it really turned into a sense of pride in being from Oklahoma. And that sense of pride really came into focus after living in New York, where you are sort of forced to find things that identify you. The name of the project, “The Verdigris,” is a reference to the river that runs through both my hometown and Will’s.

The Daily: Why go through all the trouble of traveling the country to film a documentary? It seems like a really big, involved, difficult project.
Jennings: The scope of Will’s life demands that sort of heroic effort. I may be in the minority on this, but I get frustrated with how Will is often portrayed now — as a simple smiling hillbilly with a funny quote or two. He influenced decisions by multiple U.S. presidents, he was the No. 1 movie star and newspaper columnist at the same time, he was one of the first champions of aviation, he met with multiple foreign leaders’, the list goes on. It’s tough to overstate his popularity and importance in his day, but for whatever reason history has done him a disservice. But to answer your question, I wanted this project to be worthy of its subject matter.
The Daily: How did you hook up with Bradley Beesley [the OU alum who directed the Flaming Lips’ film, “The Fearless Freaks”]? Was the idea for the documentary his or yours or more of a collaborative effort?
Jennings: The idea is mine and had been brewing for a few years by the time I’d met Brad. He’d mentioned the idea of making a simple music video one day, and I sort of came back with something else altogether, because at that point I was really looking for someone who knew what they were doing who could help.
The Daily: What do you hope to learn from this? What’s your goal?
Jennings: The ultimate goal with “The Verdigris” is to explore as honestly as possible a great source of inspiration for me, to try and discover what made Will such an incredible figure of history and what can be learned from that. I’ve sort of told myself that’s the only thing I can worry about, because the other things I’d like to see — more notoriety for Will, more awareness of Oklahoma’s rich history, more cultural progress in the state, etc. — can only happen as a result of an honest look at these things.
The Daily: Is there anything you’d like to add?
Jennings: The show at The Chouse is ultimately a fundraiser to help us get this movie made! We will be taking suggested donations at the door but also through a kickstarter page we launch [today]. Also, Ryan Lindsey is playing a set of songs from his upcoming solo record. Also we will find a way to have the Thunder game on.

Looking behind the film
A short interview with Austin, Texas-based filmmaker Bradley Beesley, who graduated from OU in 1994 with a degree in art.

The Daily: Beau said you mentioned making a music video and that he came back and suggested this idea for a documentary. What about the project appealed to you?
Beesley: Beau’s enthusiasm for the subject matter is contagious. He has really derived inspiration from the life of Will Rogers and is earnest about it-that’s what is appealing.
The Daily: You’ve done a lot of work focusing on very specific and fascinating aspects of Oklahoma culture. Do you think that Beau and this film have the chance to help promote or somehow affect that culture for the better?
Beesley: I’m not certain that people of my generation remember Will Rogers as an American hero or the intellectual icon that he was. If Beau’s film can revive Will’s legacy and educate Oklahoman’s about his past, that would be a positive affect.

IF YOU GO
WHAT: Beau Jennings & The Verdigris Revival Band and Ryan Lindsey
WHEN: 7 p.m. Saturday
WHERE: The Chouse, 717 W. Boyd St.