Earl Oliver

Earl Oliver was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, but later moved with his family to Southern California. At age 14, Oliver began playing as a professional musician and in 1969 moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he performed at local jazz and rock music night clubs such as The Melting Pot, La Bohème, The Vintner, Family Farmacy, and the Seventh Seal Coffee-House by the early-1970s.[1] While studying music, he was given singing lessons from one-time Metropolitan Opera diva Margo Weiss.[2] He also became involved in stage acting within a few years with memorable performances in Bye Bye Birdie, George M! and Don't Drink the Water at the Glendale Center, as well performing as a magician at The Magic Castle. In 1977, he portrayed the "evil sorcerer" in Aladdin at Pamela and Walter Gilmore's Golden Mall Playhouse. Around this time, he began producing a variety show, The Showcase, which included musicians, singers, comics, clowns, fire eaters, poetry readers and other entertainers. It was very successful on the night club circuit, being regularly featured at the Horn in Santa Monica, and received praise from the LA Weekly in July 1979.[3]

In the 1980s, Oliver returned to the music scene finding limited success with the bands JUMP CITY and The Sphere. He also entered the recording business producing radio advertisements for local camera stores and shoe emporiums, doing voice overs and writing advertising jingles. Also during this time, he began developing the stage persona of "a blues shouting, guitar playing" singer called the "Walkin' Blues Man". The character would become a familiar sight at countless parades, music and art festivals, county fairs, farmers markets and other outdoor events throughout the West Coast of the United States and in Canada for the next 20 years.[4]

By the end of the decade, Oliver had also developed a unique variety act by incorporating magic into his musical performances, such as draping a scarf over his guitar at the end of his set and making it disappear, which was favorably reviewed by the San Fernando Valley Daily News in October 1989.[2] In 1992, Oliver began producing a monthly cable-access television program, "Earl Oliver & Friends: Live from LaVal's", later called "Live on Location", which featured variety acts at La Val's Subterranean basement club.[5] The show became very popular in San Francisco and was eventually broadcast in 16 stations throughout the region until 1995.

Oliver held a number of entertainment and music-related occupations throughout his life including as a disk jockey, carnival barker, broadcast journalist, answering service operator, voice artist, and ring announcer. However, he was primarily employed as a graphic production artist and later, with rise of the internet during the 1990s, as a web designer and corporate trainer.

As a young man, he developed an interest in professional wrestling, being the nephew of Rip "The Crippler" Oliver, and was especially a fan of famed Championship Wrestling from Florida play-by-play announcer Gordon Solie. In 1995, Oliver started a website in his honor, Solie's Vintage Wrestling, dedicated to the history of professional wrestling.[6] It was the first of its kind at the time of its opening and remains the oldest professional wrestling website still active. He was also the editor of the weekly Solie's Wrestling Newsletter from 1996 to 2003.

In addition to Solie's Vintage Wrestling, Oliver has also occasionally contributed to WrestlingClassics.com and was later interviewed in The Wrestling Channel Radio Network's first original production Jeremy Hartley's Up Close and Personal.[7] In 1999, he publicly criticized SLAM! Wrestling columnist Eric Benner for a controversial article on the Hart family following the ring death of Owen Hart.[8] He was occasionally in contact with Solie, who later endorsed the website, shortly before his death in 2000 and was quoted by both wrestling websites and the mainstream media upon the publishing of Solie's biography Gordon Solie: Something Left Behind five years later.[9]

In 2001, he was called "one of San Francisco's undiscovered treasures" by San Francisco Arts Magazine.[10] In October 2003 he moved to Fort Bragg, California where Oliver and his wife Lonna settled in a 90-year-old farmhouse. After being laid off from IKON Office Solutions' Print on Demand Division in 2005, Oliver left the corporate world to become a full-time musician and writer. In his familiar "Walkin' Blues Man" act, he has appeared at such civic events such as the Palo Alto Art Walk and Project Read for the San Francisco Public Library. He has been a regular performer on the Skunk Train, a heritage railway running between Fort Bragg and Willits, California,[11] and was on hand with Greg Schindel, The Trainsinger and The Black Bart Gunfighters to celebrate its 120th anniversary.[12]

Oliver also formed a partnership with Mendocino Coast music legend, Butch Kwan, releasing the Skunk Train Blues album, and performed together for over two years appearing at the 2004 and 2006 Caspar World Folk Festival, "Art in the Gardens" at the North Coast Botanical Gardens, and headlined the 12th annual "Local Licks Live" concert sponsored by KOZT 95.3 FM. Beginning in 2005, they were regular performers at Fort Bragg's annual "World's Largest Salmon BarBQ". In recent years, he has revisited several of these events as the lead vocalist for The Groovinators.[13][14]

On May 8, 2010, and again on May 26, 2012, Oliver sang with the Symphony of the Redwoods during their annual POPS Benefit Concerts. At the 2012 concert, Earl was asked to perform with the orchestra for the finale of the show, a "Tribute to Old Blues Eyes" medley of Frank Sinatra hits.[15] [16] [17]