In a Salina Home, a Family Keeps Cherokee Songwriter Carl Belew’s Music Playing
By Cara Cowan Watts, Cherokee411.com
SALINA, Okla. The home in the middle of this small Mayes County town still holds Carl Belew’s music, and now it holds his granddaughter, too. Michelle Belew bought the home her grandfather once owned and is renovating it room by room, raising her own daughter and grandson under the same roof where a Cherokee Nation citizen wrote songs that Patsy Cline, George Jones, Willie Nelson and dozens of other country music greats would one day record.
Michelle Belew shared her grandfather’s story with Cherokee411 in an interview at that Salina home. She works as a residential lender at All Capital Bank in Locust Grove, but on this day she was simply a granddaughter, walking through memories of a man who never stopped being proud of where he came from.
Carl Belew was a Cherokee Nation citizen, Michelle Belew said, though his citizenship does not trace through his Belew ancestors. She said the family’s citizenship comes down through the McGee side, Miss McGee and Rosa McGee, since the Belew name itself does not appear on the Dawes Rolls. She also noted that several well known Cherokee families carry the surname Ballou, a name sometimes confused with Belew, though her family is not connected to that line. Michelle Belew said the Belew name was originally spelled “Belue” and changed in the late 1700s, a detail she has been tracing by hand, penciling her own branch onto a family tree her cousin Paul sent to her father.
It is the kind of small-town honor that says everything about how Salina feels about him: a stretch of highway near town is named Carl Belew Memorial Highway.
Belew was born April 21, 1931, in Salina and died of cancer Oct. 31, 1990, at age 59, according to biographical sources including the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and Diane Diekman’s research newsletter on classic country artists. He grew up an Oklahoma farm boy and worked as a plumber before chasing music, first to California, then to the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport from 1957 to 1959, and finally to Nashville.
He charted 11 times as a recording artist on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, but it is as a songwriter that Belew left his deepest mark. By the time he died, he had 266 songs copyrighted with BMI, according to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, which inducted him on Oct. 10, 1976, in Nashville alongside Dallas Frazier, John D. Loudermilk, Moon Mullican, Curly Putman, and Mel Tillis. The Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame inducted him posthumously in June 2017 in Muskogee, and his son, Robert Belew, accepted the honor on his behalf.
Michelle Belew said her grandfather recorded eight studio albums and had 11 hit songs between 1960 and 1972. Among his best known recordings as an artist are “Am I That Easy to Forget,” which reached No. 9 on the country chart in 1959, and “Crystal Chandelier,” a No. 12 hit in 1965 that became a country standard two years later in Charley Pride’s version, produced by Chet Atkins.
His pen reached even further than his own recordings did. Songs he wrote were recorded by Eddy Arnold, Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves, Waylon Jennings, Skeeter Davis, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam, and Willie Nelson, according to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame’s inductee record. Eddy Arnold’s 1965 recording of “Stop the World (And Let Me Off)” reached No. 1 on the country chart, and Engelbert Humperdinck’s 1968 version of “Am I That Easy to Forget” topped the adult contemporary chart.
But for Michelle Belew, the bigger names in her grandfather’s life were the friends who came around the house: George Jones, Tulsa radio personality Billy Parker, Charley Pride, and Hank Williams Jr., who recorded Belew’s “Lonely Street” in 1971.
Carl and Catherine Belew were married 48 years, Michelle Belew said, and Belew committed his life to God and was baptized in 1985, five years before his death. Love found its way to the next generation the same small-town way: Michelle Belew’s parents, Bobby and Leah Belew, met while Leah was working at the Dairy Deal in Salina.
The family remembers Belew as humble and generous, a natural storyteller with a favorite yarn about “Candy Mountain,” and a man who took people in when they needed help, at times giving them a place to live. When a fire destroyed many of his belongings in 1978, Belew kept performing anyway. Michelle Belew said her mother embroidered him a stage outfit with a Cherokee design and a guitar pattern, and he wore it at the benefit shows that helped him recover. The family also recalled a 1993 tribute event that celebrated his rockabilly-era recordings.
“Family and kindness” were what mattered most to her grandfather, Michelle Belew said.
For listeners wanting an introduction to Belew’s music, Michelle Belew recommended his 1968 RCA Victor album “Twelve Shades of Belew.” His CDs are also sold in Pryor, at Book Exchange & Bible Bookstore on Main Street, owned by Chris Hardy.
The songwriting runs in the family. Michelle Belew said her father, Bob Belew, has registered hundreds of his own songs. One, “I’d Love You All Over Again,” was written and composed by Robert (Bobby) Belew for Michelle’s mother. Bob Belew once walked away from a recording deal of his own, Michelle Belew said, choosing instead to stay home and minister. He put his faith ahead of a music career.
The gift did not stop with Carl or Bob. Michelle Belew said the whole family carries it, voice and instrument alike, and that even their private family songs, the ones written just for each other, are good enough to record, each one rooted in a deep love of children and family.
Michelle Belew would not let this reporter record it, but in that Salina home she sang a little diddy her grandfather once made up for her and his other grandchildren. It was jaw dropping, fun, endearing, emotional, and so much more. It felt like being wrapped in a musical hug.
Michelle Belew is building her own archive of that legacy on YouTube, where she posts under Belew Music and Ministry Archives: Michelle Belew’s YouTube Channel.
This story started, fittingly, at that Pryor bookstore. Chris Hardy featured Carl Belew’s CDs in a Facebook post, and that post caught Cara Cowan Watts’s eye and set off a bit of community sleuthing that eventually led to Michelle Belew and the rest of this story.
When Cherokee411.com was founded, its mission was to tell stories about modern and historical Cherokees that no one else was telling, and to tell them in a way no one else was telling them. Carl Belew’s story is rural Cherokee Nation at its finest, a world that still centers on family, love, music, and faith.
Wado.
Cherokee 411 | 1827 W Reno St., Broken Arrow, OK 74012
Phone: (918) 401-0370 | Email: [email protected]
Sources:
Interview with Michelle Belew, granddaughter of Carl Belew, conducted by Cara Cowan Watts for Cherokee411.com.
View full details of Carl Belew’s career.
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, inductee record for Carl Belew.
Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, 2017 induction class record.
Diane Diekman, research newsletter on classic country artists.
Robert (Bobby) Belew, “I’d Love You All Over Again“.
Michelle Belew, Belew Music and Ministry Archives, YouTube Channel:
Listen:
Carl Belew, “Twelve Shades of Belew” (1968): search Spotify.
Michelle Belew’s YouTube channel, Belew Music and Ministry Archives.
Robert (Bobby) Belew, “I’d Love You All Over Again“.
