American Routes ~ Oklahoman JJ Cale

American Routes ~ JJ Cale and Cedric Watson

J.J. Cale came up in the clubs of Tulsa, Oklahoma playing everything from Western Swing to Rock 'n' Roll. He even wrote songs that became hits for his friend Eric Clapton. But it was in the recording studio where he found his true calling. American Routes speaks with J.J. about his career as a guitar man, songwriter and studio wizard. Visit with American Routes Web Radio and hear the history of Oklahoma Music.

Strengths

The book display on "strengths" provides several books about positive psychology.  SWOSU will be starting the "StrengthsQuest" program from Gallup, Inc. soon.  Finding your talents and developing your strengths provides the path to excellence in life and work.  The Strengths program is all about helping students, faculty and staff achieve academic, career, and personal success.

List of Talents

When a person takes the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment, he or she may download a report that identifies their top five talents.  Talents are the ways in which your naturally think, feel and behave.  However, most people have not recognized their talents and often wander in life with little focus.  So, the Strengths program provides a starting point for a person.  Once a person knows his or her top five talents, the goal is to add skills and knowledge to turn those talents into strengths.  You were born with talents, but strengths are earned.  A strength is defined as the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance in a specific task. Finding and developing your strengths is the desired outcome of the StrengthsQuest program.  So, check out this library display today and find out about your strengths - your path to excellence in life and work.

The Blues

The blues, along with jazz, of which it is an essential part, is one of the most significant US musical forms of the twentieth century. Emerging in the rural South around the turn of the century and first recorded in the early 1920s, the musical form’s characteristic feature is of a direct lyrical confrontation with the joys and hardships of individual existence.

A literary and musical form…a fusion of music and poetry accomplished at a very high emotional temperature…these are different ways of describing the same thing. A gigantic field of feeling…that’s a way of describing something enduring, something that could be limitless. How much thought can be hidden in a few short lines…how much history can be transmitted by the pressure on a guitar string? The thought of generations, the history of every human being who’s ever felt the blues come down like rain.

-Palmer, R. (1981). Deep Blues. NYC: Penguin.

The Al Harris Library is hosting a new display on Blues Music. Stop by, take a look, take a listen.