Tommy Crook obit

Tommy Crook • 1944-2026

Oklahoma Music Hall of Famer Tommy Crook dies at 81

 

He was not on the list.

Acclaimed Tulsa guitarist Tommy Crook has died. He was 81.

An entry on Crook in the book “Oklahoma Music Guide” said in-the-know musicians recognized him as one of the premier guitarists in the U.S., if not the world.

"I never heard anybody play any better than Tommy," Texas Playboy legend Eldon Shamblin once said.

The best endorsement Crook ever got came from Chet Atkins, who, during an appearance on “The Tonight Show,” was asked by host Johnny Carson if anyone, anywhere played guitar as well or better than Atkins. The reply: “Yes, Johnny. Tommy Crook in Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

"I never saw the show, and I don't know exactly what he said,'' Crook once told the Tulsa World. "But I bet I've talked to a thousand people who saw the show. It happened all the time when I was playing out at the airport, with all the people coming and going. They'd come up and say, 'Are you the guy Chet talked about?'"

Atkins had heard Crook play at an airport hotel, the Sheraton Inn, where Crook had a standing gig from 1972 through 1984.

Coincidentally, it was Atkins who sparked Crook’s desire to become a musician.

"I got my first guitar when I was 4," Crook told the Tulsa Tribune in 1989. "Dad played and performed at square dances. I was the caller. When I started playing electric guitar at age 7, he let me play music with him. But when I heard Chet Atkins, that lit the fire. He made a guitar sound the way I wanted it to. There were times I'd be in tears because I was so frustrated that I couldn't play just like him."

Crook was born Feb. 16, 1944. By age 11, he was skilled enough to be a performer on Porter Wagoner’s touring show. As a student at Central High School, Crook played in bands with David Gates, Jimmy Karstein, Carl Radle, Leon Russell, JJ Cale, Gene Crose and Jimmy Markham, according to “Oklahoma Music Guide.”

A 2001 Tulsa World story provided a chronological recap. Crook played with Gene Crose and the Rockets in 1960, David Gates and the Accents from 1961-62 and the Valentines from 1962-63. Crook performed on USO tours from 1967 to 1971. The story said Crook, who performed on USO Tours from 1967-71, also has played with Kenny Rogers, Merle Haggard, Pat Boone, Lou Rawls, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis.

"In 1958, Jerry Lee Lewis hired Leon and us to back him up at Cain's Ballroom," Crook told the Tulsa Tribune in 1989. "That was a thrill. He liked the band so well, he took them on the road. I couldn't go because I was still in high school and my folks wouldn't have stood for it."

The story said Crook also was left behind when Gates, the driving force behind the soft rock band Bread, left for Los Angeles.

"Once again, I was too young to go," Crook said.

Crook told the stories about Lewis and Gates after saying this: "I think people naturally think 'If you're so good, why are you still here?’”

Crook turned down an offer to join the T-Bones in 1965 because his wife gave birth the day he was supposed to leave. He chose family.

The Tribune story said there were other reasons he stayed home.

"I could work solo and make as much money as I could going on the road and being a sideman," Crook said. "I really don't want to be someone's sideman, and I'm not into getting on the bus."

Among career highlights: In 1998, the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society asked Crook if he would join some of the world’s best guitarists by playing at an event honoring Atkins in Nashville. The invitation came after the head of the organization encountered a video ("The World of Finger-Style Jazz Guitar") that featured Crook and four other guitar masters.

"The thing is, I've been thinking about doing something like this, playing for Chet Atkins, since I was 10 years old,” Crook said. “All the time, I've been thinking, 'What will I play? What will I play?'”

Crook released his first album in 1968. Others followed. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

A 2004 Tulsa World story said this: Although the great guitarist Tommy Crook hasn't slowed a bit since his years as a teenage phenom, he's already written his epitaph.

"Here's what I want," Crook said. "'He was a good ol' boy, and he played in tune.'"