North Fork Red has its origins in family, fun, and early-mid 20th century Country & Western. Our music expresses the culture and character that pervades the vast expanses of Southern Oklahoma where our parents were raised. On long road trips, we would fall asleep in the back seat listening to them sing harmony on songs like ”Don’t Fence Me In,” “The Green, Green Grass of Home,” and many others. Both our parents were accomplished musicians. Our father, Dan, sang and played guitar and harmonica, and our mother, Myrna, sang and played piano. We grew up listening to their record collection with albums by Hank Snow, Jimmie Rogers, Marty Robbins, and Sons of the Pioneers.

Our father learned to play from his mother, Blanche, and his older siblings. We have a picture of him entertaining his bunkmates when stationed in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany in 1958. He never hesitated to learn a new instrument or find an excuse to sing and play. One day when we were young, he announced he was going out to a bar near Cache, Oklahoma called the Wooden Nickel to hear a new country artist; surprising, because he never went to bars. He came back with an album from the artist called “Redheaded Stranger” by the then unknown Willie Nelson.