Women of Song event paying tribute to Gus Hardin, Debbie Campbell, Betsy Smittle

Multiple music artists will perform during A Women of Song tribute event Sunday, May 15, at Cain’s Ballroom in memory of Gus Hardin, Debbie Campbell and Betsy Smittle.

General admission tickets can be purchased at cainsballroom.com. The event is a fundraiser for the “Women of Song Project: The Heart and Spirit of Oklahoma,” which recognizes the female musical talent that originates from Oklahoma. The project is the vision of Brenda Cline, who spent 30 years in Nashville as an artist manager and record label executive and wants to bring recognition to Oklahoma female music artists of all ages, genres and career stages.

Following are artist bios for Harden, Campbell and Smittle:

Born Carolyn Ann Blankenship in Tulsa in 1945, Hardin was a whiskey-voiced music artist known for her freewheeling, spirited personality and her unique vocal blend of blues, rock, gospel and country. She exemplified the Tulsa Sound.

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Gus got her start in the late ’60s and became one of Tulsa’s premier nightclub singers. She married fellow Tulsa musician Steve Hardin and kept his last name after their divorce.

Hardin signed a recording contract with Leon Russell’s Shelter Records label in the 1970s, but the album she recorded was never released. She later landed a deal with RCA Records. Her 1983 RCA Records debut produced the hit “After the Last Goodbye.” Several awards followed. She was named best new artist by Billboard and Cashbox and won a top new female vocalist award from the Academy of Country Music.

Hardin’s body of work includes multiple chart singles, a CMA nomination for best duet performance (“All Tangled Up In Love” with Earl Thomas Conley) and an American Music Awards nomination for favorite country video (“I Pass”).

Hardin’s career was cut short by a 1996 traffic accident. She performed with longtime friend Don White and his band Okie Soul in addition to playing with her own band. In 2018, she was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame.

Originally from Fort Worth, Texas, Campbell made Tulsa her home in the mid-’70s.

She began playing professionally as a teen in Fort Worth when she was a member of an all-girl rock group, the Kandy Kanes. The group relocated to Hollywood and toured across the country.

After the Kandy Kanes disbanded, Campbell joined Jim Edgar and the Roadrunners, a well-known group that worked the southwestern United States. That band eventually became Buckwheat, a London Records act. Campbell was with Buckwheat for three albums — 1971’s “Movin’ On,” 1973’s “Charade” and 1975’s “Hot Tracks.”

When Campbell arrived in Tulsa, her expressive, versatile voice and ebullient personality caught the attention of Tulsa Sound musicians. She began performing with Rockin’ Jimmy Byfield and the Brothers of the Night.

Campbell signed as a solo artist with Jim Halsey’s Tulsa-based company. Her first solo disc, 1983’s “Two Hearts,” was released on Tulsa’s Churchill Records and distributed by MCA.

Following the album’s release, Campbell toured internationally with country star Don Williams, competed in several worldwide song festivals and appeared as a contestant on the pioneering reality TV series “Star Search.”

Campbell battled cancer and died in 2004. She was 53.

A Tulsa native, Smittle started her music career young. She began playing guitar alongside her father, James Perry Smittle, and singing with her mother, Colleen Carroll Smittle Brooks.

Smittle started an all-girl band (a rarity at the time) in Oklahoma City and formed many bands in Oklahoma. She went on to sing background for Gus Hardin and Ann Bell in addition to performing in bands with Ronnie Dunn.

In 1990, Smittle joined little brother Garth Brooks in his touring band Stillwater, starting on rhythm guitar and changing to bass after Brooks and his bass player had a parting of the ways. She played bass with Brooks until 1995.

Smittle recorded a solo album (“Rough Around the Edges”) that was released in Australia in 1994. A U.S. release was sabotaged due to label conflicts.

Smittle continued to sing, perform and write songs. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2011 and died in 2013.

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