John Wooley has been a Tulsa World entertainment writer since 1983. He was one of the first people in the country to interview and write about country-music stars, such as Garth Brooks, Ronnie Dunn, and Dwight Yoakam. He was also the first person to predict in print that Brooks could be country music's next big thing.
He knew and wrote about Dunn when he was working in Tulsa with the Sidewinders and Screamin' Ranch Band. Wooley also interviewed Oklahoma native Tim Dubois before DuBois left his teaching job to become one of the best-known songwriters and record executives in country music.
Wooley has always been especially interested in Oklahoma artists and the musical forms either created or popularized by Oklahoma artists, including western swing, the classic Tulsa Sound and Red Dirt music.
Occasionally, he plays his Vox Jaguar organ on the Red Dirt Rangers' "We Don't Have to Say Goodbye" and Steve Ripley's new single "Gone Away," which he co-wrote with Ripley and DuBois.
Several of Wooley's articles and columns have won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Associated Press. He has also been commended by the Oklahoma Legislature and given the key to the city of Tulsa for his stories and radio broadcasts about western-swing music.
His KVOO radio show with Disc Jockey Hall of Famer Billy Parker, which began as an all-western-swing program called "Wooley Wednesday," was one of the station's top-rated shows for 12 years. He is also a regular commentator on public radio station KWGS, and recently he and Parker were inducted into the Cowtown Society of Western Music Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas.
Wooley is the editor, co-author, or author of eleven books, including "How To Make It In the Music Business" and his latest horror novel "A Wash In the
Blood." His previous novel, "Dark Within," was a finalist for an Oklahoma Book Award. Wooley also wrote the script for two movies and wrote and produced the western-swing documentary Still Swingin'.