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July 14 Cross Canadian Ragweed
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The members of Cross Canadian Ragweed -- Grady Cross, Cody Canada, Randy Ragsdale and Jeremy Plato -- have known each other pretty much since kindergarten in the band's hometown of Yukon, Okla. They all wanted to get out, and music seemed like a good escape. When they all had graduated (except for Ragsdale, the youngest member), they started jamming at a party, and Cross Canadian Ragweed was born. Yukon as a rule wasn't a very musician-friendly town, but they had one notable local squarely in their corner: Ragsdale's father Johnny.
"My dad was a guitar player. He played with Bob
Wills and a little bit with Reba McEntire when she
was first starting out," says Ragsdale. "He really
didn't want me to be a drummer but I insisted. I
found a set of drums in a neighbor's trash one day
and hauled them into the cellar. He kind of figured
out after about a year that I was serious and
finally got me a new drum set. And when he met Cody,
he realized his talent and how seriously we wanted
to take music, and he really pushed us. He
completely drove us up the wall, but later down the
road, we realized he did it for a good reason."
Once the band got its
chops they moved to Stillwater, Okla., where acts
like Mike McClure's Great Divide and
singer-songwriter Jimmy LaFave had established
enough of a local scene to earn Stillwater the
nickname "North Austin" (or, depending on your
perspective, "West Nashville"). Inspired by
McClure's self-penned Great Divide songs (and more
than a little by early Steve Earle), the band
quickly grew out of its Merle Haggard and classic
rock covers and began focusing on Canada's
uncommonly honest and straight-forward originals. A
potent foursome of albums -- 1998's Carney, 1999's
Live at the Wormy Dog, 2001's Highway 377 and 2002's
Live at Billy Bob's Texas -- collectively sold more
70,000 copies to date. Combined with the band's
average of 200 gigs a year, Cross Canadian Ragweed
cinched a place at the top of the Texas-Oklahoma
music totem pole.
"We're a little more rock 'n' roll than other people [from the Oklahoma/Texas scene], and that's not a bad thing," laughs Canada, whose Southern-fried lead guitar licks betray his love of heroes like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Pete Anderson (of Dwight Yoakam fame) and Eddie Van Halen -- not to mention the fact that he's been playing since he was 8 years old.
After building a huge concert following in Texas and
Oklahoma, the band decided to look into signing a
record deal. In 2003, fledgling label Universal
South released a self-titled album (produced by
McClure) that the band recorded prior to signing
their record deal. They released Soul Gravy in 2004,
Garage in 2005 and Back to Tulsa: Live and Loud at
Cain's Ballroom in 2006.
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