Songs about 'The Weather': Oklahoma musician Joe Baxter releases new album

Joe Baxter jokes that Oklahoma songwriters can't help penning tunes about the weather, especially as they get older.

“I guess the weather plays such a huge part in our daily lives in a place like Oklahoma 'cause we have extremes that other people don't have,” he said. “Songwriters are always looking for some sort of inspiration, and nothing will inspire you like a 15-degree November day. ... It'll get your attention, the same with one of those July or August days where it's so hot you can't breathe.”

The Midwest City singer-songwriter's new album is called “The Weather,” and he's forecasting an album release show Friday night at Oklahoma City's Blue Door. He's also scheduled a Saturday morning session at Arcadia's Round Barn, where he's been coordinating the musical offerings for eight years, as well as a Saturday night release show at The Branch cocktail lounge and grill in Tahlequah.

Weather permitting, naturally.

“Our pioneer ancestors, they lived and died by the weather. My great-grandparents homesteaded, and then my grandma and grandpa bought their place from a Cheyenne-Arapaho chief named Little Bear out west of Okarche. They stuck it out during the Depression, during the Dust Bowl. So, the weather is in my genes,” Baxter said.

Lifelong love

The fourth-generation Oklahoman, 61, is a self-described "Air Force brat" who has lived in the Sooner State since 1966, when his family moved back to Oklahoma. One of eight siblings, he said he was raised in a musical home.

“I'm not that slick of player, I've never been a big lead guitar man. ... But I've always been a songwriter," said Baxter, who is retired after a long career at Tinker Air Force Base. "That's kind of kept me on an even keel over the years. I know it saved my soul when I was a youngster."

He founded the rock band The Regular Joes in 1990, playing hundreds of shows across Oklahoma and recording five studio albums of original music. After 15 years, he said he got tired of being his own roadie and started penning more acoustic songs.

He was between recording projects in 2016 when his Regular Joes bandmate Randy Cottrell expressed an interest in producing an album for him. Baxter realized he had the perfect storm of songs.

“As a songwriter, your two go-tos are always love and the weather,” he said.

“Rain on a July Night” chronicles a woman's love life from tears of heartbreak to tears of joy, while “Face to Face” tells of an old sailor heading to balmy Biscayne Bay to track down an errant lover. The characters in his story-songs also seek a Dust Bowl breather of “Rain on the Wind,” rest with the “Cool Breeze in the Hills” and find themselves “Standing in the Snow.”

Musical ambassador

Along with Cottrell on lead guitars, piano and backing vocals, Baxter worked through “The Weather” with Anne Luna on bass and cello, T.Z. Wright on accordion, Dale Pressley on violin, Rachel Tucker on banjo and Nick Gedra on mandolin. Cottrell and Luna will accompany him at the Blue Door as "The Minimals," while Luna and Wright are slated to play with him at The Branch, as well as the Round Barn, where Baxter is a longtime volunteer.

Since 2010, he has hosted an open acoustic jam at the Route 66 landmark on the second Sunday afternoon of each month. More recently, he has organized Morning Music Sessions every Saturday in the gift shop, and he's hoping for mild weather in spring to launch an outdoor concert series. The musicians play for free, and admission is free.

“They're donating their time and their energy for the Round Barn, and it's a good cause. It's our history and heritage … and we're like ambassadors,” Baxter said. “I've met people from everywhere: every continent, every state in the union, you name it. ... They go back to Argentina or Canada or Iceland and they tell people, ‘Yeah, yeah, the Round Barn in Oklahoma, they had music and it was a good experience.' And we like that.”