Washington Rucker – Biography & Career

Washington Rucker

1998 Inductee Washington Irving Rucker was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on March 5th, 1937, and attended local schools through to graduation from Booker T. Washington High, developing a talent for the drums along the way. By his teens, Washington was working with bluesman Jimmy “Cry Cry” Hawkins and was soon off to UCLA to study and get … Read more

Justin Echols – New Orleans Jazz Club

Justin Echols

Inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 2012, police officer Justin Echolscroons the standards with a voice as smooth as melted chocolate and manipulates the ebonies and ivories as if he were born in a New Orleans jazz club. When Echols was faced with near immobility after a catastrophic car crash, the Oklahoma City police sergeant … Read more

Wallace Willis – Biography & Music

Uncle Wallace Willis

Uncle Wallace Willis (sometimes Wallis Willis) was a Choctaw freedman living in the Indian Territory. He is credited with composing several Negro spirituals. Willis received his name from his owner, Britt Willis, probably in Mississippi, the ancestral home of the Choctaws. He died, probably in what is now Atoka County, Oklahoma, as his unmarked grave … Read more