It’s a busy afternoon inside Studio Records, 409 S. Trenton Ave., as numerous music fans flip through the racks of vinyl. Near the entrance, Brian Horton is hanging posters to promote upcoming Horton Records events, including this Saturday’s 12th Annual Rock-N-Folk-N-Chili Cook Off at Cain’s Ballroom.
This year’s concert includes Amber Watson and Red Dirt Rangers opening the festivities on stage before a collection of local musicians celebrate the fifth anniversary of “Back To Paradise: A Tulsa Tribute to Okie Music.”
“That will be a wonderful celebration of a record that is one that I’m most proud of that Horton Records was involved in,” Horton said of the 2020 record, which featured 17 covers of songs originally recorded by local artists like Leon Russell, JJ Cale, Don White, Steve Ripley and more. Advance tickets are $25 and available at cainsballroom.com.
The annual event serves as the major fundraiser for Horton Records, a nonprofit organization that in early 2026 will celebrate 20 years of helping produce and distribute music from Tulsa musicians of all genres. There will be chili served from local restaurants and some of the bands, plus a canned food and coat drive at the door. Donors receive a free Horton Records shirt.
“People don’t really understand sometimes, and we don’t broadcast it that Horton Records is all volunteer. There are no paid positions,” Horton said. “Everybody that’s on our board of directors and myself all have full-time jobs doing something else, so we commit everything we can to doing fun and cool things in the Oklahoma music community.”
Horton sat down with the Flyer to discuss Saturday’s concert and the slate of events to come.
You’ve put your heart, sweat and tears into this event for many years, and now it’s year 12. It’s an event you considered ending a couple of years ago, but the overwhelming response seems to have reinvigorated you. How does it feel to be about to do it again at Cain’s Ballroom?
Man, it’s crazy. Twelve years of that and we’re really about 20 years of Horton Records, which is wild. There’s a lot of this event that weaves together with Horton Fest that’s in January.
I’ve attended this event for many years, and I don’t even know how it started. What’s the backstory?
It all started out at Dilly Deli before it was Dilly Diner. A bunch of musicians got together and threw me a surprise birthday party. It was awesome. Downtown was not like what it is today. It was a little more sparse. I think there were probably four or 500 people who showed up. It was a blast. Paul Benjaman called it “Horton Fest.” The next year, Fassler Hall had opened up, and Brian Fontaine, who works for McNellie’s Group, was very involved in getting Horton Records going, and hosted Horton Fest there for a couple of years.
It was just a weekend of getting touring bands and Oklahoma bands together. And I was like, “Man, I don’t want to do this. It’s not about me and my birthday.” If we’re doing Horton Records stuff, we need to have a fundraiser event that is a celebration of all things Tulsa music and all these other cool things connected in our community in Tulsa music. So that’s how we started it.
And you get to do it at Cain’s Ballroom, which is considered one of the best music venues in the country.
A lot of these Oklahoma artists weren’t playing at Cain’s back then, and now a lot of them have played there over time. So to look back at the humble beginnings and how it evolved and started, and to be in the 12th year now, it’s pretty remarkable.
I can’t thank Cain’s Ballroom enough for believing in Horton Records and some of the crazy ideas we have to do things. And some of them probably aren’t even feasible, but they’re willing to jump in and support it. And that staff, the chili cookoff wouldn’t be happening for 12 years without Cain’s. It’s the perfect place for it. Its setup is fantastic. It’s iconic.
There’s more than live music at this event. There’s also chili to be eaten and more.
We get to highlight all these cool restaurants and a lot of new startups. A lot of startups will come out and participate in the chili sampling portion of the event, so that’s been fun. Then we have some established restaurants that have been around a long time.
Then we’ll have Chris Mantle there painting something that’s up for sale. It’s usually a psychedelic buffalo, I think he did a scissor tail one year, and who knows what he’ll do this year, but it’s always fun. He gets kids involved up there painting with him. We have a silent auction. We do our best to pull in visual artists from the community and try to find some cool things.
We’ve got a caricature artist this year and face painting for kids, and we usually have little coloring books of Tulsa musicians or Tulsa things for kids. We try to make it family-friendly, where people can come out and hang out and have a good time.
It still has all the basic tenants around the community. We still collect food. We’ve been doing this not just because SNAP benefits are going away, but every year, we collect food donations at the door for others in need, and we collect coats for Youth Services of Tulsa.
The headliner this year is the “Back to Paradise” performance to celebrate the fifth anniversary of its release. I know this is a special project for you and Horton Records. Give us the backstory and why it’s happening this weekend.
We got 20 different Tulsa artists together, took them out to Paradise Studio, which used to be owned by Leon Russell and is now owned by Rick Huskey. Jesse Aycock and I primarily selected songs that people know and a lot of obscure stuff — songs people didn’t know about. We matched people up and put a plan together, and we went out there, and it was 17 songs in four days they cut, which is insane.
It was a very wonderful experience and then the pandemic hit. We had a release show that was live streamed at Cain’s in August of 2020. Marshall Brewing Company made a special beer for it. It was a really special record in a really horrible time in the world and that was five years ago. We had some side discussions and said we should really do that show again, because a lot of people didn’t get to see it.
This weekend’s fundraiser isn’t the only thing you have going on. There’s also the weekly Hangs. How are those going?
We’ve been doing the Friday Hangs since April at the Tulsa VFW Centennial Lounge, and it’s a really cool space. We love the staff there. We’ve created a great partnership with them, and people are responding to it. They’re coming out every Friday. It’s an early show and it’s a free show. The shows are at 7 p.m., there’s no cover and we always have free pizza. We just want people to come out and enjoy music.
One of the things that’s special about it is we’re helping the Tulsa VFW’s mission when we’re doing these events. When people come out and patronize those events, that is helping fund and grow awareness about the VFW’s mission. They’ve seen more people showing up to their Saturday breakfast and their lunches during the week. People have joined the VFW, but it’s a VA. It’s open to the public. It’s not veterans-only. So that’s a lot of fun.
Before I let you run off to hang more posters, tell me about Horton Fest, which is at Cain’s Ballroom on Jan. 24.
Horton Fest is multifaceted. It’s my birthday, I’m stepping away from my corporate job, and it happens to be roughly 20 years of Horton Records. We’ve got some local favorites playing and some touring artists that absolutely loved Tulsa and we built relationships over time. J.D. Simo and Luther Dickinson are on tour on the West Coast, and they didn’t want to miss it, so they’re catching like a 5 a.m. flight in California to fly back to be here in time just for this and then turning around and flying back to California.
We have Ian Moore, longtime friend, huge fan and lover of all things Tulsa. Then there’s a new band called Mike Mattison & Trash Magic. Mike’s a singer for Tedeschi Trucks Band. There are going to be some surprises. Who knows who’s coming to town and might show up and play as well?
The night before we’re having a special Friday Hang at the VFW on Jan. 23, and that’s going to be a free show with free pizza. We’re going to have a slice-off. We’re going to get all these pizza joints in Tulsa to donate pizzas and we’re going to let everybody sample pizza all night and we’re going to have people vote, and we’re going to crown a slice king or a slice queen — a slice person.
Then we’re going to do a Midnite Choogle where Dustin Pittsley and Jesse Aycock are going to do a kind of a close-out-the-night jam, and who knows who’s going to go up there and set in with them.
Find out more about the 12th Annual Rock-N-Folk-N-Chili Cook Off, including the full lineup, here.
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