Cross Canadian’s ‘mission’ a success
Oklahoma red dirt band Cross Canadian Ragweed recently released ‘mission california,’ an album that features harmony vocals from LeeAnn Womack. Fans of laid-back acoustic country will enjoy the album.
When it comes to red dirt music, Oklahomans know CCR doesn’t stand for Creedence Clearwater Revival; it stands for Cross Canadian Ragweed.
With their latest album, the four musicians from Yukon show the world why they’ve garnered enough attention for articles in Billboard and Guitar One magazines, as well as USA Today. “mission california,” the group’s sixth album since its start in 1994 and the follow-up to last year’s “Back to Tulsa: Live and Loud at Cain’s Ballroom,” was released Tuesday.
The collaboration of vocalist and guitarist Cody Canada, guitarist Grady Cross, bassist Jeremy Plato, and drummer Randy Ragsdale has made it clear they’re here to stay.
“We figure if we’ve been around for 13 years, we’ll be around for 30,” Canada said in the “mission california” bio.
The band’s name comes from a juxtaposition of three of the members’ names – you guess which ones.
“mission california” was recorded at breakneck speed – five days to cut 15 tracks (only 13 of which made it onto the album), and an additional 20 days to refine and edit.
But this was more time in the studio than they’d had in the past, thanks to their relentless, 200+ live shows per year schedule.
“We never really had time to do studio stuff ‘cause we were always worried about getting back on the road,” frontman Cody Canada said in the press kit. “This time we’d record, sit back and listen and say, ‘Nah, that’s too digital. Let’s yank that and do something different.’ It was us sitting back and really listening for once and really harnessing it on a studio record.”
“mission california” is a sublimely refreshing departure from the superficiality of today’s mainstream music. It brings to mind late nights in seedy, hole-in-the-wall bars listening to bands play their hearts out for disenchanted, drunk patrons for a minimal wage (if any), just because playing music is what they love to do.
The first single, “I Believe You,” jumped from the No. 13 spot on the Texas Music Chart last week to No. 4 this week. The song takes on a gospel sound, with choral background vocals and lyrics set to revival-inspiring percussion and uplifting fast-paced guitars.
CCR also breaks out melancholy memories in the slow, acoustic-based “Lawrence,” to which LeeAnn Womack lent harmony vocals. Womack also sings backup on “Cry Lonely” and “I Believe.”
Canada said he wrote “Lawrence” after seeing a homeless family in Lawrence, Kan., singing for tips like they didn’t have a care in the world.
“The dad had a guitar, the mom had a tambourine and there was this little one-year-old baby sitting in a stroller, really dirty, singing along like it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary,” Canada said in the album’s press kit.
Canada changes the mood and pays tribute to the band’s native state with the catchy, upbeat “In Oklahoma,” a song he co-wrote with Oklahoma artist Stoney Larue.
The band channels Kenny Wayne Shepard’s “Blue on Black” with second track “Dead Man,” chock-full of twangy guitars and downplayed but effective percussion.
“Walls to Climb” emerges as the album’s most outstanding track. Canada rips his heart out and slaps it on his sleeve (“I can’t lend my ear I don’t wanna hear/Your cry for sympathy”) to a background of superb harmonica and rock guitar solos.
The harmonicas continue on in “The Years,” a Tom Petty-ish tune about Canada’s life experiences (“I worked the day and the night life/ I drilled the bars and I drilled the ground”).
Canada describes it as “the first song I ever wrote that actually made me feel like I’m getting older.”
“100 percent of that song is true – my mom and her dirtbag Mexican boyfriend, the part of Texas that was a sanctuary for all of us kids, working in the oil fields, coming back to Oklahoma and making my way to Stillwater, where the music was hot,” Canada said in the album’s press kit. “It’s an autobiography, probably the most personal song I’ve ever written.”
“Jenny” is a classic song of hope and lost love, an acoustic tune about a girl who comes back from California minus her blues, but plus a new diamond ring. It’s reminiscent of Black Crowe’s “She Talks to Angels.”
“mission california” is the ultimate proof of why the Stillwater-based red dirt genre made its way to being considered a bona fide music style. The album is honest, toe-tapping red dirt at its finest.
Fans of blues, country, classic rock and everything in between will love this album. Fans of the other extremes (rap and metal), shouldn’t even bother.
However, if you like the type of laid-back, live acoustic that can be heard any given night at a bar on the Strip, give “mission california” a listen. You might – no, will - like what you hear.
Ragsdale sends a head nod to “all our friends out there who make it possible for us to feed our kids doing what we would do for free” in the “Thanks” portion of the CD booklet.
Judging by this statement and a relentless touring schedule, CCR probably lives by the credo of a line from the album’s seventh track “Smoke Another”:
“You got to keep on keepin’ on/ ’Til there’s nothing left.”
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