Bluesman D.C. Minner passed away...

I was a Stage Manager for 9 year's for Norman 'Jazz in June', and we had D.C. and Selby every year. He was a very kind and funny guy backstage.

What a 'blue Tuesday' when the good Lord called D.C. home, my prayers go out to Selby, they have truly made Oklahoma proud & it's Blue's history rich, a phenominal couple, I feel honored to have gotten the chance to meet them both.

We lost a legend in blues and music with the passing of D.C. Minner. Our loss is heaven's gain... play on D.C., play on...


D.C. Minner, the blues musician and singer who with Selby started the annual Dusk Til Dawn Blues Festival 16 years ago, died Tuesday. He was 73.

Services are pending with Ragsdale Funeral Center in Muskogee.

Minner was born in 1935 in tiny Rentiesville, a town he would put on the blues map.

He served in the Army as a medic during the Korean War.

A skilled musician, he performed with artists ranging from O.V. Wright and Freddie King to Chuck Berry, Eddie Floyd and Bo Diddley.

He and his wife, Selby Minner, met during the 1960s when she was singing and playing acoustic blues in northern California clubs.

The couple toured for 12 years before settling back into Rentiesville in 1979.

While Minner was growing up there during the Prohibition years, his grandmother owned a corn-whiskey hall.

In 1988, the Minners reopened its doors as the Down Home Blues Club. They hosted the popular Dusk Til Dawn Blues Festival at the club each year during Labor Day weekend.

"If you play blues to get rich, then you really are making a mistake," Minner once said. "So we don't do this for the money. What we do do this for is for the love of the music."

D.C. Minner was a member of the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame.

The Minners had served on the state Arts Council since 1990 and were active in artist-in-residency programs, bringing blues into schools.