Legacy Lives On
Damon movie to include LaFave song
Jimmy LaFave at his last live performance before his death in 2017 at age 61. [Facebook: Jimmy LaFave Legacy]
JIMMY LAFAVE, right, shares a moment with Kingfisher sister Connie LaFave-Gallupe. His sister said listening to her brother’s music was too painful immediately after his death, “but now it’s a comfort.” [Family Photo Courtesy Connie Lafave-Gallupe
Kingfisher residents now have even more reason to see Matt Damon’s Oklahoma-based film Stillwater, slated for release this summer.
Not only does Damon play an Oklahoma oilman in the movie, much of which was shot in the state, but the soundtrack will now include a song by the late Jimmy LaFave, the son of Kingfisher musical family Frenchy and Betty LaFave.
LaFave was the second eldest of the five LaFave children, who also include current Kingfisher resident Connie LaFave-Gallupe.
LaFave attended high school in Stillwater, which is also where he first made a name for himself as a singer-songwriter whose folksy, country rock style helped establish the Red Dirt musical genre.
He recorded 15 albums in a career that would take him around the world.
After relocating to Austin, LaFave performed on the TV show “Austin City Limits” and garnered a number of awards for his musicality.
Even after his death in 2017 from a rare cancer, LaFave’s popularity and solid musical legacy lives on. He was posthumously
He was posthumously inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame and nearly 6,500 devoted fans continue to follow the Jimmy LaFave Legacy Facebook page maintained by his manager.
The announcement that LaFave’s song “On the Road to Rock and Roll” will be included in the movie soundtrack first appeared on that page and then was shared with the Times & Free Press by Gallupe.
“I’m so proud of my brother Jimmy and his music legacy,” Gallupe said. “I was proud when he was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, but a Matt Damon movie is really cool especially since it was filmed in Stillwater where Jimmy started his long music career at a young age.”
LaFave’s other siblings include Garry LaFave, Robert LaFave and the late LeeAnn LaFave Swamson.
Stillwater is described as a dramatic thriller about an Oklahoma roughneck who travels to Marseille, France, to help exonerate his estranged daughter, who is imprisoned for a murder she says she didn’t commit.