RENTIESVILLE — The 35th annual Dusk ‘Til Dawn Blues Festival returns this weekend at the Down Home Blues Club, but this year’s three days of celebration in one of Oklahoma’s original all-Black towns will be somewhat somber as musicians and music lovers mourn the woman who made it all possible: Selby Minner.
“It’s just not the same here,” said Mary Kirksey, the juke joint’s bartender, during a recent jam to raise funds for the festival. “Selby isn’t running around, teaching about the history of the space, telling stories and greeting people as she used to.”
For 34 years, Minner supported the dream of her husband, nationally famed blues legend D.C. Minner, by turning his childhood home in Rentiesville into the region’s biggest blues hub. Selby played as the bassist in D.C.’s band, and even after his death in 2008, she could still be found singing the blues with her four-string every year at the Blues Fest, which she organized.
Selby Minner died June 9. According to reporting from The Oklahoman’s Brandy McDonnell, police encountered her brother, Louis Carl Guenther, “visibly covered in what appeared to be blood.” Guenther told police he had killed his sister with a hammer and a knife and that they would find her body in her home at the blues club.
When: Friday, Aug. 29, through Sunday, Aug. 31
What time: 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. each night
Where: Down Home Blues Club, 103020 D.C. Minner St. in Rentiesville, OK 74426
Admission: $20; kids under 12 free; donations accepted.
Minner’s friends say Guenther is mentally ill, and his attorney reports he “will not, and perhaps cannot, communicate on any meaningful level with defense counsel” regarding the murder charge he faces. A judge ordered Guenther to be evaluated to determine whether he is mentally competent to stand trial.
Minner’s death speaks to the tragedy that can arise from unchecked mental illness, especially in rural Oklahoma, where services are hard to come by. But her life spoke to the unifying power of music, and her legacy underscores the tenacity of the tight-knit community in eastern Oklahoma she called home.
She left friends and family behind grieving while racing to pull together this year’s festival.
“Selby was the kind of person who saw good in anyone,” said blues guitarist Homer Johnson, who helped book the 50 bands set to play three stages over three nights. “Her death was essentially caused by a failing mental health care system and her trust in her brother, whom we didn’t trust.”
The Minners’ dream
A longtime Tulsa guitarist, Johnson played in Selby Minner’s band for years, and he took the indoor stage at the Down Home Blues Club on Sunday, Aug. 3, during a practice session that doubled as a fundraiser to support the 35th annual Blues Fest. He recalled D.C. Minner building his childhood home up into the juke joint it is today.
“This place was just a little shack, and he added on to it,” Johnson said. “D.C. traveled to Chicago and L.A., and when he came back he built it up himself with help from the community.”
Imagine an area the size of a living room having a dance floor, stage, bar and kitchen. When Minner returned to his childhood home in Rentiesville, he expanded the house to include all the space needed for him and Selby to live, make music and plan the Dusk ‘Til Dawn Blues Festival, along with room for what eventually became the D.C. Minner Rentiesville Museum. Now, the club has been in operation for nearly 40 years.
Eventually, the Minners built stages on the land and turned it into an outdoor venue that attracted thousands from all over the region every summer. The first blues fest occurred in 1991.
Just down the road from the juke joint, the battle of Honey Springs took place 162 years ago. Some of the musicians who play during Sunday jam sessions also perform in Civil War reenactments of the 1863 battle.
After her husband died in 2008, Selby Minner created a museum at the Down Home Blues Club to preserve his legacy and the town’s history.
The club opens from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. every Sunday, featuring a house band and opening acts. Anyone can go visit the museum, listen to the bands practice, partake in a pot of beans and enjoy each other’s company.
“This is where people come to feel like family,” Kirksey said. “You might not know anyone when you walk in, but you’ll know everyone by the time you leave.”
‘Selby used to do it pretty much all by herself’
At the Aug. 3 jam session, attendees recalled Selby Minner as the driving force behind the Dusk ‘Til Dawn Blues Festival. She handled public relations, artwork, T-shirt designs and booking bands. As her loved ones now work to honor her memory, they mourn not only a friend and family member, but also a brilliant event planner who brought in thousands over the years to Rentiesville, a town of about 100 people.
For more than three decades, the festival has taken place every Friday, Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend, running from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. The Minners constructed three stages, where dozens of bands perform over the course of the weekend. After spending the first half of the evening under the stars, acts move inside the Down Home Blues Club in the early hours of the morning to continue the festival until, true to its name, dawn.
This year, Selby started planning the 2025 festival in March, listening and collecting demos from blues artists and groups in Oklahoma and across the region.
The planning process can take a full six months, according to Jayne Stiles, board president of Friends of Rentiesville Blues Inc., a nonprofit organization. The ten-member organization is responsible for putting on the event this year.
“But Selby was so efficient that she would complete everything in four months,” Stiles said. “We either have to let it die as it is with her, or just determine we are going to do something with what she left us.”
As Minner’s friends tried to come to terms with the June tragedy, the community had less than three months to plan, fundraise and secure the set list of bands before the festival at the end of August.
Hilary Conley, Selby’s youngest sister, said they would spend hours on the phone at night discussing the process of putting the festival together. Every year, Conley looked forward to volunteering and helping her sister’s dream become a reality. But this year, she said the grief has been too heavy to carry.
“This is the first year that I’m not heavily involved in the process of putting on the festival,” Conley said. “Selby used to do it pretty much all by herself. She had a lot of volunteers, don’t get me wrong, and this year it’s all volunteers. But she did a lot of it by herself.”
‘This community can hold it together’
At the Aug. 3 jam session, grief hung heavy in the air, but Mary Kirksey helped attendees enjoy the food and friendship they needed that Sunday.
“Selby was a very loving and caring teacher,” Kirksey said. “We are just trying to carry her legacy and show her that that’s what we’re here for.”
Stiles said those working to maintain the festival have faith that it will survive.
“I don’t mean a godly faith, but believing that this community can hold it together,” Stiles said. “Every morning, I wake up saying, ‘Hey we can do this,’ knowing we only have $100 in the bank right now but need $55,000. Doing this event just doesn’t feel wrong in your soul. So I know it’s all going to come together.”
Others at the blues club expressed concern about whether people might attend this year’s festival just because they are interested in the tragedy surrounding Minner’s death rather than in preserving the music and honoring the history.
Rentiesville originated as one of Oklahoma’s all-Black towns. From 1865 to 1920, Black Oklahomans, many of them Freedmen formerly enslaved by the Five Tribes, created more than 50 towns, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.
Now, only 13 of those communities remain incorporated. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Rentiesville had a population of 411 in 1910 and hit a low point in 1990, when the population was 66. The population grew again from there — coinciding with the development of the Dusk ‘Til Dawn Blues Festival — to hit a second peak with a population of 128 in 2010. But by the 2020 census, the population had dropped again to 103 residents.
All-Black towns face many of the same struggles as other small communities in rural Oklahoma. In Rentiesville, the Minners and blues have helped keep the town on the map for decades. With Selby’s sudden death, there are growing concerns about the financial sustainability of the Blues Fest, particularly when it comes to securing favorable banking arrangements and grants, which Minner had previously managed successfully.
“Selby wanted to make sure that this feeling of love and the story of D.C. and this Black town was told and preserved, and she did a very good job at that,” said Jason Chandler, the Minners’ grandson. “She may not have been Black in a Black town, but she was definitely an ally and supported the blues fully. So all D.C.’s dreams were her dreams.”
Chandler, who runs the Minners’ estate, unlocks the doors of the Down Home Blues Club every Sunday night and worked concessions and parking for the Blues Fest growing up. He said he will do anything in his power to keep the festival going.
“I’m starting to preserve this history and festival forever by bringing my family to the festival and teaching my wife, son and twin girls about D.C. and Selby, blues music and the operations of the festival,” Chandler said.
The deadly consequences of poor mental health care
Selby Minner’s death is still raw in Rentiesville, not only because of the historical hole and love she left behind, but because of what her death reveals about mental health in rural Oklahoma.
“Nothing bad ever happens in Rentiesville,” said Alfred Gil, the blues club’s groundskeeper. “We all have mental illnesses here, but we ain’t never had no fights down here.”
Gil believes Selby did not pay close enough attention to the condition of her brother, who remains in custody without bond and who received a mental health evaluation at the end of July. It’s unclear how McIntosh County District Attorney Carol Iski’s office may proceed with Guenther’s murder case.
In rural areas, Oklahoma’s mental health care and criminal justice systems offer less access to diversion programs and treatment options. Police and court systems frequently become frontline responders to mental health crises.
According to Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, while the state ranks near the bottom nationally for public mental health funding, spending just $53 per person — compared to a U.S. average of $120 — Oklahoma ranks near the top for mental illness among adults in rural areas.
Untreated mental illness can lead to tragedies like Selby Minner’s, and individuals in jails rather than treatment facilities often have little access to mental health or substance abuse services. According to OCJR, fewer than 10 percent of rural facilities offer those services.
On top of that, stigma keeps many from seeking help in tight-knit communities where privacy is scarce. Accessing facilities can often require a 40 or 50-minute drive for people who live in rural counties.
For the friends now carrying on Selby’s festival, those facts are not abstractions, they are lived reminders of how quickly untreated mental illness can turn into tragedy.
As for Guenther, he appears to have joined the approximately 180 Oklahomans in custody needing competency restoration services, 135 of whom are in the “initial evaluation” stage. Earlier this year, the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services entered into a consent decree to settle a lawsuit alleging unconstitutional delays in mental health competency restoration services. An interim report issued by court consultants suggests work to improve the system remains slow.
Remembering Selby Minner
Selby Minner was not born in Oklahoma, but her influence on the Rentiesville community has run deep. And even though she did not start her career as a blues bassist, she has left an important legacy in the realm of blues music.
Born in Rhode Island, Minner began her career as a studio artist after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design. At the Aug. 3 jam session, Chandler pointed out the place where she continued to foster her background in visual art.
“The room right up there is her art studio,” Chandler said, gesturing to windows blocked by curtains. The area was part of her living space and remains closed to the public, but “it is filled with her original art pieces,” Chandler said.
According to Chandler, Selby always made people feel like they were special.
“I was their step-grandson, but Selby never made me feel like I wasn’t part of her family,” he said.
Others at the club echoed that sentiment. Gil, the blues club’s groundskeeper, said Minner was like a mother to him. She taught him how to make high-quality items out of the little he had.
“She gave me a hammer, some wood and nails, and taught me how to make a fence. So I built that fence right there that surrounds the property,” Gil said.
Everyone at the juke joint had a story to share about Selby and how loved she made them feel. Even Johnson, who said he often clashed with Minner about who should perform at the festival each year, emphasized her ability to make people feel like they could do anything.
“One thing she would do is tell everyone how good they were,” Johnson said. “Sometimes she made mistakes by encouraging people too much, making some people believe they were better than they really were.”
Johnson believes that ultimately lead to her death.
“It wasn’t her fault, but she often had misplaced faith in people,” Johnson said. “I never trusted her brother.”
This year, community members hope the festival will be bigger than ever — but not too big. They want to see new and familiar faces alike, and they want people to come for the love of blues music and to honor Selby and D.C. Minner.
“They had a dream, and that dream was to make a stage for blues musicians to play blues music, where people could come and hear something that is really good,” Coneley said.
Most of all, people hope to do right by their late friend.
“I’m excited and a little nervous about the changes they might make,” Coneley said. “But it’s time to trust other people to make good decisions. I want to see the festival do right by her. She deserves that.”
The Dusk ‘Til Dawn Blues Fest takes place this weekend from Friday to Sunday. Every evening, bands will be playing on three different stages at the Down Home Blues Club, located at 103020 D.C. Minner St. in Rentiesville. The site is listed on some maps as 103020 S. 4230 Road. Tickets are $20 per day. More information is available on the Friends of Rentiesville Blues Facebook page.
(Correction: This article was updated at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 26, to correct attribution of a quote. It was updated again at 2:10 p.m. to correct the spelling of a name and a detail regarding the construction of the Minners’ home. NonDoc regrets the error.)
