Jason Boland

Texas two-step
By MATT ELLIOTT World Scene Writer
2/16/2007

Jason Boland has become a darling of Lonestar state's music scene Jason Boland & the Stragglers return to Tulsa's Cain's Ballroom Friday after landing some dates with country star Dierks Bentley and riding the buzz of the band's latest single, "Up and Gone."
Boland, a Harrah native, has been stretching out his country/rock band this year, taking his Texas Music Chart darling album "The Bourbon Legend" to the masses.
"We've just been hustling," Boland said.
The single, "Up and Gone," is a traditional acoustic country song about the wanderlust that makes Boland want to get up and drive aimlessly around town, the restless urge to go somewhere but not necessarily with any direction in mind.
It's got steel guitar, banjo and Boland's Waylon Jennings-esque vocals that drive it along. As of this week, it was at No. 18 on the Texas Music Chart.
Boland's band tours nearly nonstop and played one of the last shows at Stillwater's Tumbleweed dance club in December before it closed down.
"It was pretty standard," Boland said. "(We) got to see a lot of faces I hadn't seen in a long time. The nostalgia of it brought out a few people that don't always make it out."
Boland, who lives in New Braunfels, Texas, is one of a host of Oklahoma musicians drawn to Texas's thriving country music market. Good touring bands can make a living playing just in that market.
"This whole area and this scene, it's the size of a country especially if you're one of the bands that branches out into Arkansas and Kansas and Nebraska and more of the surrounding states."
And playing some dates with Bentley ought to turn more fans onto Boland's music. Bentley was nominated for two Grammys for his song "Every Mile a Memory."
Between those performances, Boland said he's also been coming up with new material for his next album, which he'll start working on later this year.
At the Cain's Ballroom he'd like you to "sing along and raise your glasses up and have a good time."

JASON BOLAND AND THE STRAGGLERS
When: 7 p.m. Friday, with openers the Red Dirt Rangers
Where: Cain's Ballroom, 423 N. Main St.
Tickets: $14 in advance, $16 day of show.
available at Starship Records, Reasor's, www.Gettix.net, the Cain's box office, 584-2306