Overheard: Two musicians walk into a bar …

Tuesday night at the Mercury Lounge. At the bar sits singer-songwriter Wink Burcham, tipping back beers and shots, having just convinced his friend, the blues guitar wizard and bandleader Dustin Pittsley, to stay for one more. Curlicues of cigarette smoke hover like rain clouds while Johnny Cash croons about prison from the juke box. Between the pair slides a recording device, picking up their conversation mid-stream as Burcham tries to recall a long-forgotten tune he wrote.

Wink Burcham: I used to have that old song. [Singing] “Get it ’fore the gettin’s gone / Get it while you still can / And I know that you don’t like it when I say what I say / But I say it anyway.”

Dustin Pittsley: It’s funny to hear you say you used to have a song. Used to have a song? You still have the song.

WB: Yeah, but those are the only words I remember.

Tulsa Voice: Who’s making music in Tulsa that really turns you on?

DP: John Moreland.

WB: John Moreland, for sure. He’s one of the best songwriters anywhere.

DP: That’s the guy that’s gonna go places. [Tulsa guitarist and master luthier] Seth Lee Jones said the other day, “If the music industry was really about the music, John Moreland would already be famous.”

WB: Amen.

DP: I play with Paul Benjaman constantly. And Paul always gives everybody compliments, like, “You were great tonight. Just great.” But I go home after playing with him, and I either want to quit, or just practice my ass off, depending on the night.

WB: And Clay Welch. Man, when Clay Welch plays that Django Reinhardt-style gypsy jazz, that’ll blow your mind. Unbelievable. And watching Cooper Waugh play, I sometimes want to strangle that kid. I wish I played that well when I was 20, 21 years old. I wasn’t even near that good. I’m not near that good now.

DP: But my favorite Tulsa guys of all time — first of all, Jimmy Karstein. Chuck Blackwell. But really, my favorite Tulsa guy, period, is Tom Skinner.

WB: I agree with you 100 percent. Tom Skinner is like our Bob Dylan. Everyone around here looks up to him. Always has.

DP: And he’s done a lot of big shit.  Hell, he played bass with Garth Brooks.

WB: The guys who play with me up here on Tuesday nights [members of the Low Dogs String Band], they’ve played with Tom Skinner for years. So when they called me up and said they wanted to play with me, I didn’t even believe them. What do you guys want with me? You guys play with Tom Skinner.

DP: I love hearing Wink, I love hearing all my friends, but if I get a chance to hear Tom Skinner, that’s the guy I’m going to hear every time, of anybody in town. Wink?

WB: I think we ought to get another shot.