BAND SPOTLIGHT | Jason Boland & The Stragglers

These guys hail from Stillwater, Okla., and play what has become known as “Red Dirt” country music. The name comes from the color of earth you find in Oklahoma, and the band’s style lives in old-school country with a slight rock edge and excellent lyrical sensibility. With Jason on guitar, vocals and songwriting, the band, including Cody Angel (lead guitar, pedal steel, Dobro), Brad Rice (drums), Grant Tracy (bass) and Nick Worley (fiddle), brings the instrumentation of classic country with enough boot in it to make this thing work in ways that are putting the group in the stage spotlight. For now they are supporting a new record, Dark and Dirty Mile, with a swing through the Midwest before heading home to the famed Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa for a night after Thanksgiving show. Often you’ll catch them hanging out with fellow Red Dirt guy Cody Canada, but be sure Jason is on the long and steady climb of keeping the music real, the song stories ready and the audience in it all the time.