All-American Turnpike Troubadours stop in LR
Oklahoma’s Turnpike Troubadours make this stuff look effortless.
For more than a decade, the band has cranked out blue-collar songs about smalltown life that sound neither cloying nor cliche and that deftly mix country with a bar-band vibe in a way that doesn’t water down either sound or come across as cheesy parody.
Slightly twangier than kindred spirits Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson and fellow Okie John Moreland, it’s music for the snap-button, plaid shirt crowd and beyond.
The hard-touring band — singer-guitarist Evan Felker, bassist R.C. Edwards, guitarist Ryan Engleman, drummer Gabe Pearson, fiddle player Kyle Nix and new member Hank Early on steel guitar and accordion — will perform Saturday at Robinson Center Performance Hall in Little Rock.
New to the Troubadours? Their latest LP, 2017’s A Long Way From Your Heart, with songs of resiliency and survival, is a fine place to dig in.
Singer and main songwriter Felker’s attention to detail — referencing the clicking of dominoes at the start of a game, legs “checkered from a folding chair,” a baby wrapped in a Carhartt coat — is like that of a good short story writer.
American Songwriter called the record “arguably their most accomplished set to date.”
Did the Troubadours know they had something special on their hands when they were recording it?
“You never really know how people are going to receive a record, but we were damn proud of it,” says Edwards, 38, while at home in Tahlequah, Okla., on a short break. “I always think the latest record we’ve made is the best one and I hope I always feel like that.”
The album, the band’s fourth, was released on the Troubadours’ own Bossier City label with help from Nashville, Tenn.-based Thirty Tigers.
Ryan Hewitt, the Grammy winner who has produced the Avett Brothers, Flogging Molly and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, was called in to work the board.
“He brought a new set of ideas to the table for this record. It turned out to be really great and we’re hoping to get to work with him again.”
Edwards says that fans can expect the band to hit most every phase of its career, from favorites like “Good Lord Lorrie” — that “dark-haired daughter of southwest Arkansas” — to plenty of songs from the new album.
“There’s stuff off of every record and a good dose of the new one. It’s interesting making a set list now. You have to whittle down more and more songs, but we do a good job of mixing it up.”
Edwards and Felker were among the original members of the group when it was founded.
“I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember,” Edwards says. “I finally talked my folks into getting me a guitar when I was in high school and I taught myself how to play.”
He picked through his father’s albums — Hank Williams Jr., Alabama — but was also into grunge and punk rock, and he may be one of the few country bassists to cite Rancid bass player Matt Freeman as a musical hero.
“He’s a genius. He’s still one of my favorite bass players.”