Thomas Young rubs his beard while standing outside The Deli on Campus Corner. He remembers his late friend, musician Boyd Littell.
He smiles at the thought of filling in with one of Boyd’s Norman-area bands and how Boyd would sit next to him at rehearsals and tell him if he was playing a song right.
“Whether he wanted to be an educator or not,” said Young of the musician and former OU School of Dance employee, “he most definitely was to a lot of people.”
Littell died after a bike crash last week in Portland at age 40.
Communities of musicians and dancers in Oklahoma and Oregon were staggered by the loss of Littell, who lived with the belief that less is more — whether in stripping down music to its essential elements, never getting a driver’s license or simply tucking his jeans into his socks to keep his pant leg out of his bike chain wherever he rode.
In Portland, dozens turned out Nov. 5, a few nights after his death, for a vigil in Colonel Summers Park, the site of his crash. Back in Norman, family and friends hope more will turn out Nov. 24 for a wake at The Deli, a site of some of his early musical ascents.
Trading CDs
Boyd grew up in a house full of music, with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Frank Zappa filling his ears.
He and his two older siblings traded music the way some kids traded Halloween candy, consuming as much as possible.
As they got older, Littell took the lead. He would introduce them to new music and artists, recognizing his siblings’ and friends’ musical tastes. But Littell could play, too. He began to hone what would become his life’s craft in both garage bands and the Norman High marching band, where he was a percussionist, before graduating in 1995.
“You’d just hand him an instrument and within five minutes he’s got it figured out,” said Susan Greer, Boyd’s older sister, who is director of alumni outreach at OU’s College of Education.
In life, and death, Littell shared commonalities with his older brother Paul, who was a musician as well.
Both could immediately pick something up after hearing it on the radio.
Both were bike enthusiasts turned bike messengers who never got their driver’s licences.
And, in a freak coincidence, both died in crashes — Boyd cracked his skull on Halloween and Paul ruptured a thigh artery in San Francisco in 1993 at 20 years old.
Littell, 15 when Paul died, inherited the bike messenger bag his brother rode with in San Francisco.
“That was sort of the talisman for him,” Greer said of the bag and its influence, recalling how Boyd dove into music and bike culture after his brother’s death.
She doesn’t yet know whether her little brother had it with him at the time of his crash.
But he used it every single day, she said.
Live Music
Feeding her brother’s love of music, Greer used to sneak Littell into Liberty D’s — now Pepe Delgados — to watch regular live music when she bartended there in college. He would hide at a back table with a Coke as he absorbed blues, reggae and rockabilly and expanded his musical diet.
The love of live music grew within him.
Soon, Littell went from listening to performing. He became a staple at The Deli, which advertises itself as Norman’s only 7-day-a-week live music venue. Eventually, friends and family say, he played with almost every band in Norman there.
“The word that I would use to describe Boyd is ‘authentic,’” said Justin Morris, 37, while tuning his guitar before a recent show at The Deli. He and Littell met in 1998 when Morris, a guitarist, came to college and needed to learn how to play bass as well.
Littell gave him advice, teaching him how to create his own style and space with the instrument. He remembers Littell’s blunt honesty and how he would never sugar-coat anything as a player or a peer.
“He had a really uncanny way of balancing the line between a great hang and a critical mentor," said Morris.
An eye for dance
Over time, Littell’s musical influence crossed from Campus Corner to OU, where he worked as an accompanist in Austin Hartel’s modern dance classes for 15 years.
He spent enough time in Hartel’s classes that he could probably teach them himself, the OU associate professor said. Littell collaborated with Hartel and students, writing music for many of their capstone projects and performing live with them.
They would spend extra hours together talking, innovating and creating.
“He developed an eye for dance,” Hartel said.
Their creative process worked harmoniously and created a friendship that extended beyond the classes.
“We worked together, but it never felt like work really,” Hartel said.
Littell came to see all the ballet and modern dance performances and in return, Hartel went to Littell’s concerts.
“He could get up and give corrections and tell my students what they were doing wrong,” Hartel said. “I’d be like, ‘Boyd, what did that look like?’ And he’d be like, ‘Well, they didn’t get it.’”
When Littell left for Portland in 2014, he needed a new challenge. Boyd had played out the Oklahoma music scene and needed to expand his horizons.
Hartel told him he could always come back and play for his class.
“In the back of my mind, I always thought he would come back," Hartel said. “I just kind of have to let go of that I guess.”
Greer is planning a wake celebrating her brother’s life. It will take place 2 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 24 at the Main Street Event Center and then 7 p.m. at The Deli.
Correction: This article was updated at 1:01 p.m. Nov. 9 to reflect the correct date that Boyd Littell died, Oct. 31.
