Musician John Elisha performs at the Bluebonnet Bar on Nov. 9.
Editor's note: This story is featured in OU Daily's winter magazine, which will be available in print in late-November. Check out the other featured stories at the bottom of this article.
OU’s move to the Southeastern Conference invites a host of new visitors and shines a spotlight on Norman’s entertainment industry. With the city's history of a carefully curated music scene that has been home to an inspired, connected and community-driven group of artists, the future of live music is receiving new interest in the face of looming change.
The entertainment landscape has had to adapt due to challenges including ever-changing music trends, the turnover of businesses and the COVID-19 pandemic that shuttered live music opportunities around the country. However, the perseverance of a network of local businesses, the Norman Arts Council, the Norman Music Alliance and an abundance of dedicated artists has helped the community continue to thrive.
On any given night in Norman, live music can be found across the city by those who seek it.
On Campus Corner, live music spills into the streets from The Deli, a longtime hotspot that hosts a range of artists from blues to rock, 365 days a year. A couple blocks away, the smell of Italian food and the sound of rich music flows out of Othello’s Italian Restaurant.
Located downtown, Norman’s oldest bar, Bluebonnet, books musicians six days a week in its quintessential dive bar environment. Within a two-minute walk is Opolis, a micro venue that hosts a wide range of musicians and DJs in a modern industrial environment.
The Red Brick Bar and Bison Witches Bar & Deli both regularly host performers, and the Resonator venue frequently holds concerts, plays and galleries in its minimalistic, versatile space.
Converted into a performing arts studio from a historic train station, The Depot offers a concert series, galleries and workshops in downtown Norman. Just a 13-minute walk away, longtime neighborhood fixture Midway Deli holds concerts in the outdoor space behind the restaurant.
Scott Martin, president and CEO of the Norman Chamber of Commerce, believes a vibrant live music scene will be a central element to the city’s success as OU enters the SEC.
“What we'd like to see more of is just constant, regular programming and concerts that are taking place in a myriad of different kinds and sizes of venues that can appeal to a lot of different people,” Martin said.
The Aints perform at The Deli on Oct. 30.
In anticipation of the SEC move, Martin traveled to three established SEC cities: Fayetteville, Arkansas; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; and Lexington, Kentucky, to get an understanding of how Norman can amplify and boost its already dominant live music scene.
Martin said the live music scene in other SEC towns was at the forefront of the visitors’ experience and many venues had open-air storefronts that allowed venues to pull people in from the street.
His goal is to expand and find ways to incentivize the incorporation of live musicians into more businesses on a regular basis.
“We need things for people to do. That's restaurants, that's bars, that's entertainment, both on Campus Corner (and) in downtown (Norman). We need that on a regular basis for our business districts to be thriving,” Martin said. “They really need probably 250 days of the year programmed with different things that people can come see and do.”
Norman most likely can’t match the live music scene and vivacity of Nashville, Tennessee, home of Vanderbilt University, or Austin, Texas, home of the University of Texas at Austin which will join the SEC alongside OU in 2024. However, Martin and others believe Norman has a chance to develop an entertainment scene that centers live music of comparable vibrancy and quality.
In their current states, Campus Corner and downtown Norman act as the two hubs for the city's arts, entertainment and nightlife.
Campus Corner, walking distance from OU’s campus and the Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium, is home to boutiques, restaurants, bars and clubs. Many of the businesses on Campus Corner are relatively new to the area, including the nightclub Heist and restaurants like Raising Cane’s and Yo! Pablo.
Game days fill the streets of Campus Corner with OU fans, where a large TV screen shows games from around the country and businesses are posted on the sidewalks inviting customers inside. On weekend nights, restaurants such as The Deli, Othello’s and O’Connell’s Irish Pub & Grille host live music from local artists with college kids and older Normanites alike enjoying the scene.
With a myriad of local businesses, restaurants and bars, downtown Norman is at the center of the city's arts scene. Main Street, home to The Sooner Theatre and The Studio, sees the 2nd Friday Norman Art Walk every month and the Norman Music Festival every April.
Scott said he believes just a couple of weekends, game days and festivals are not enough to keep people and visitors entertained and Norman needs to develop its local live music opportunities in order to see a flourishing and booming arts scene.
Derek Paul is a singer, songwriter and guitarist with a decade of experience in the Norman music scene. He is a booking manager at The Deli on Campus Corner where his band, The Aints, has been playing Monday nights for eight years.
Paul said he first experienced the Norman music scene and The Deli in what he calls the “heyday” of red dirt music, a blend of country, folk and rock. When Paul began as a musician on Campus Corner, The Deli was one of just a handful of live venues.
Singer, songwriter, guitarist and booking manager Derek Paul during an interview at The Deli on Oct. 30.
“You had The Deli, always, but you had Brothers, you had Red Dirt Cafe,” Paul told OU Daily. “You could come here and go to four or five different places on Campus Corner that had music, and over time, when EDM started becoming popular with the younger crowd, you saw less of an emphasis on this kind of thing and more of DJs.”
On an average Friday or Saturday night, college students flock to Campus Corner. Long lines form outside spots like Heist, Nompton Social and Sideline Bar & Grill, where DJs mix popular beats for crowds to dance to.
Paul pointed to how the rise of social media, especially TikTok, has changed the way that music becomes popular. Instead of users seeing content from those they follow, TikTok’s algorithm builds a feed curated to the user. If a track is marketed in a way that fits with popular trends, it can go viral before the entire song has even been released and reach a larger audience more quickly than it would on the radio.
“The old way was that you record an album. You're going to have three or so singles off that album, and you tour it for a year while you're writing and recording your new album,” Paul said. “Now, no one really does an album. They might do an EP, but for the most part, you're doing a single, putting it out and then another single, so the attention span is different."
Even if the college crowd often veers toward the club DJ experience on a weekly basis, Norman Music Festival has seen its crowds grow year after year with audiences open to hearing music of all genres by artists large and small.
Norman Music Festival provides a place where Oklahoma artists connect with audiences and with each other. The festival’s ability to gather a crowd is one element it has in common with popular weekend venues like Heist.
Shari Jackson, executive director of the Norman Music Festival and The Depot, said the base of Norman’s music scene is very strong.
“We are seeing an embarrassment of riches in terms of quality of music, musicians, bands, in a variety of genres, and it's terribly exciting,” Jackson said. “We're watching bands that are local (become a) hit nationally.”
Norman’s current venues provide a strong base for artists to develop. However, Jackson said Norman’s current infrastructure struggles to keep its up-and-coming artists.
“We watch that happen time and again,” Jackson said. “We can't sustain that here and then bands of all genres end up going elsewhere when we could have (had) them calling us home.”
After studying at OU for three years, Bee & The Hive lead singer Bee Pichardo left the university and moved to Oklahoma City in 2022 to focus on her music career. Later that fall, the band was signed by an Oklahoma City-based label, Catapult Recordings. Bee & The Hive is one of several Norman-based musicians and bands to move out of the area to larger markets like Oklahoma City or Tulsa, with some even leaving the state.
Alex Siegel performs at Opolis on March 1.
Established platforms for local musicians like The Deli and Bluebonnet Bar only have a capacity of around 100, and Opolis can hold about 150 people. However, Norman needs venues for large crowds to come together to gain popularity across the board, according to Jackson.
“When you talk about audiences and the ability for the music scene to really gain some ground, Norman as a college town really should have one, probably two or three venues that have the capacity for a few hundred people,” Jackson said. “Those mid-sized venues are very powerful in terms of helping set the tone for our music scene.”
Larger venues would offer local artists the ability to play for bigger audiences but would also provide space for touring musicians. Many venues have proximity clauses that require a certain number of miles between each venue artists play at.
In September, a group of city, private sector and university leaders proposed a $1 billion entertainment district with an arena that OU athletics would be the primary tenant of. However, the leaders said they hope to host concerts in the venue and encourage performers who usually go to other mid-size venues in the state to instead come to Norman. The district has not been approved by council as of early November, leaving artists to routinely choose venues in Oklahoma City or Tulsa over Norman.
“There are some really good venues that opened up in (Oklahoma City) and you would see a lot of touring acts, either on purpose to go play the better venues or because of proximity clauses,” Paul said. “Are you going to go to (Oklahoma City) or are you gonna go to a smaller venue in Norman?”
Resonant Head opened in Oklahoma City earlier this year and holds over 250 people. Beer City Music Hall opened in 2022 and has a capacity of 500. The Criterion opened in 2016 and has a capacity of 4,000. Tower Theatre, one of Oklahoma City’s many older venues, can hold 1,000.
Tanner Miller co-owns the Bluebonnet Bar along with his wife, Michelle. With live music six nights a week, Bluebonnet is an active player in the Norman music scene.
As a business owner working in the center of Norman’s arts scene, Miller said he’s seen the impact of Oklahoma City’s growing music infrastructure over the last 10 years.
“With a medium-sized venue, you can invest in a whole part of the community,” Miller said. "That’s a way you can invest in the entire arts.”
With the hope that OU’s SEC move will bring more attention to Norman’s music scene, Miller wants the focus on uplifting the current artists of the city.
“The money is going to come no matter what with the SEC,” Miller said. “I want to see an investment in growing and sharing our musical talents and gifts.”
Norman has a wealth of talent and a strong community of dedicated individuals working to build a self-sustained music infrastructure within the city, Jackson said.
Laine and the Laters performs at Opolis on March 1.
Along with venues, the second element Jackson believes is necessary to support music in Norman is the existence of record labels and booking agencies.
“We have the engineers. We have recording studios. We have producers. We have people that know how to help bands put music together,” Jackson said. “But labels and booking agencies and agents, that's where we're short. That mid-level piece of music industry that really makes it hit.”
As the SEC move approaches, Jackson said she hopes Norman’s energy will focus inward and support the current network of local artists.
“I would love to see in this run up to the SEC, … that we lean into how to support all of the amazing, wonderful things that we have here and provide more opportunities,” Jackson said. “Whether that's venues, space, festivals, concerts (or) events, to be able to show all of those folks exactly what Norman is: it’s an extraordinary place, with amazing, interesting, incredibly talented people.”
This story was edited by Peggy Dodd, Taylor Jones and Karoline Leonard. Grace Rhodes, Mary Ann Livingood and Nikkie Aisha copy edited this story.
