What: Turnpike Troubadours and Red Shahan
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Memorial Auditorium, 1300 7th St.
Admission: $25 to $55
Information: wfmpec.com
R.C. Edwards formed the Turnpike Troubadours in 2007 with singer and songwriter Evan Felker. “And, it took a while to get it all together,” according to Edwards, “to get all the right players and the right band. And, hopefully we are still getting better at it.”
Following the success of the group’s fourth CD, “The Turnpike Troubadours” (2015), which charted number 17 on Billboard 200, the Oklahoma based sextet grew from playing clubs to now mostly playing theaters and auditoriums.
Area music fans will remember the Turnpike Troubadours playing the Iron Horse Pub, and this time around the group will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at Memorial Auditorium. Red Shahan will open.
The difference between playing a club and an auditorium, he said, is that “It’s still the same show and the same sound, I just think we have fine tuned it a little bit. You get bigger stages, a little more room on the bus or the van and you can start adding a musician or two
The group recently added Hank Early on steel guitar/accordion to its tours. “It’s nice to have him all the time on the road,” Edwards said. “Hank played on our earlier records and he adds a lot musically to the band.”
The group had recorded its first album “Bossier City” right out of the gate in 2007 to get their foot the door. “You have to have something for people to listen to before they’ll book you really.”
For the past 10 years, they slowed down that recording process significantly, releasing four CD’s. “We don’t like rushing it, for sure. Once we do have the songs, we work really hard to arrange them and do the best version we can do.”
As strong and as the band is musically, the Turnpike Troubadours are just as interesting lyrically. “I hope they hear the lyrics,” he said with a laugh. “We put a lot of work into them. I think they do.
“You have different bands,” he explained. “Some are more into the music, some are more into the lyrics – some are into both. Hopefully, people take away what they want from it.”
The group is frequently called red dirt, but the sound is a lot more what most people would describe as roots or Americana.
“To me, the red dirt thing was always a more like a community that we were lucky enough to kind of have here in Oklahoma and kind of lay the foundation. It’s not really a sound. You have everything from like the traditional country swing bands to the garage rock bands and everything in between.
“It’s a good community of making good roots music, whether it leans towards country or rock. Something that’s real that’s from Oklahoma.”
The band’s charted on the country, folk, rock and indie charts to date, so the members feel it’s more about the music than a genre or label.
The six musicians are on the road quite a bit and are continuing to write new songs. “I like to think we are getting better at it and growing,” he said, “without really changing our sound that much.”