Red Dirt Rangers mark anniversary with Tulsa concert
MUSIC: PAYNE COUNTY GROUP CELEBRATES 20 YEARS; REUNION TO INCLUDE BENEFIT SHOW AT CAIN’S BALLROOM IN TULSA

BY BRANDY McDONNELL

Published: August 28, 2009

Oklahoma music pioneers the Red Dirt Rangers are celebrating two decades of blending Western swing, folk, rockabilly and a variety of other styles into the homey sonic stew known as red dirt music.

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In customary red dirt fashion, the Payne County band will mark its 20th anniversary tonight with a Cain’s Ballroom concert that also will function as a musical family reunion and benefit show.

"In a nutshell, they can expect the unexpected,” Red Dirt Rangers guitarist/singer Brad Piccolo said of the event. "It will be a constantly changing group of people sitting in. ... It will be a typical red dirt show.”

Along with the Rangers, the lineup will feature up-and-comers the Turnpike Troubadours and a one-night reunion of the band Medicine Show.

"They’re like musical cousins of ours; they started their band within about six months of when we started ours 20 years ago. They’ve kind of quit playing, but they’re going to reunite for this since they feel like it’s a great cause,” Piccolo said.

The show will raise money for Oklahoma musicians who need financial help with medical care.

"We’ve been playing together so long that we know it seems like about every musician in this region,” said Piccolo in a phone interview from his rural Payne County home, where he was wrangling his 2- and 4-year-old daughters.

"Musicians often don’t have insurance, or if they are (insured), if you have a major procedure, there’s so much out of pocket that it can be devastating to somebody like a musician who relies on each gig to make bills.”

The Rangers — Piccolo, guitarist/singer Ben Han and mandolin player/singer John Cooper — know from experience how potentially ruinous health problems can be. In 2004, the bandmates were seriously injured in a helicopter crash near Cushing. They were the beneficiaries of several charity shows.

"One thing that’s unique to this musical scene is everybody tries to help each other out when there’s a crisis,” Piccolo said. "The people that are on the receiving end get more than just money, they get a good vibe, just a healing encouragement and love from their fellow human beings.”

Good vibes are in the foundation of the red dirt scene the Rangers have helped build. He and other members of the band that became the Red Dirt Rangers actually played their first gig, a talent show at Oklahoma State University, back in the early ’80s.

Along with their mentor, the late Bob Childers, who is considered the godfather of red dirt music, the Rangers and many fellow musicians gravitated to the Farm, an old farmhouse outside the Stillwater city limits.

"It was kind of a free-for-all, musically and otherwise,” Piccolo said. "It was like a crash pad for every musician that came down the pike. ... And that was kind of a vortex sort of for the sound that developed, ’cause everybody would hang out there and jam together on the porch ’til all hours of the morning.”

The like-minded artists wrote their own songs or covered each other’s tunes. The encouraging atmosphere fostered cross-genre experimentation.

"What he (Childers) always said was that it’s really all just one big band. And he’s so right ... and that’s kind of our philosophy. And this show is really going to showcase that. We’re all just one big band,” Piccolo said, adding former members of the Rangers are expected to play with the group at the event.

Piccolo hopes the band’s legacy is positive music that makes people feel good.

"We’ve gotten to see and do things through our music that we might not have ever gotten to do otherwise. We’ve traveled coast to coast playing music, and we’ve even gone to Europe,” he said. "How many people get to hang out with their buddies and drive around and fly around the world doing what they love to do? I feel blessed.”

Cody Canada of Cross Canadian Ragweed said the red dirt scene is blessed to have bands such as the Rangers.

"A lot of people ask what the red dirt and the Texas (music) scene’s all about, and that’s what I always answer. We help each other,” Canada said in a recent phone interview. "Willie Nelson helped us out a bunch ... and the Red Dirt Rangers and Mike McClure, you know, everybody’s done something for us. ... And that’s what it’s all about.”