Woodyfest 2018: Turnpike Troubabdours

Third Time’s the Charm

Mark­ing Marking their [Sidenote: Number eleven in our Woodyfest 2018 cov­er­age brings you the chart-top­ping Turnpike Troubadours.] third appear­ance at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, the Turnpike Troubadours closed out open­ing night 2018 on the Pastures of Plenty stage. The first time they were meant to do that, our ornery Oklahoma weather dumped rain all over Okemah, mak­ing it one in a series of Muddyfests the fes­ti­val has endured since its incep­tion. They wound up play­ing the Crystal Theatre to a smaller audi­ence lim­ited by the avail­able seating.

This year the weather coöper­ated, and by the time the Troubadours were onstage the audi­ence were enjoy­ing a cool­ing breeze and a beau­ti­ful, starry sky.

This reporter wasn’t assigned to their set, but did take some snap­shots from back­stage. You can see those in the gallery.

Formed by Evan Felker and R. C. Edwards in 2005, the Troubadours went into the stu­dio a month later and cut Bossier City because the band needed some­thing to sell at the shows. [Sidenote: Wofford, Jerry, “Evan Felker of Turnpike Troubadours talks on the band’s suc­cess ahead of its Cain’s show,” Tulsa World, (26 December 2015).]

Born of singer and con­tribut­ing song­writer Felker’s desire to emu­late his musi­cian uncle’s foot­steps, [Sidenote: While in high school, Felker used to watch his uncle play rock ’n’ roll at the leg­endary Cain’s Ballroom.] the band has since seen their epony­mous fourth full-length album climb to the num­ber three spot in the Billboard Top Country Albums charts. [Sidenote: Billboard assigned Turnpike Troubadours the posi­tion in their 18 September 2018 chart.] Pretty good for a band started by a guy who didn’t even get into coun­try music a lit­tle [until] later on, into [his] 20s. [Sidenote: ibid.]

Gallery