Friday, August 6, 2010

Randy Wells Red Dirt Festival @ Joe's

If you are a fan of Red Dirt music and baseball then maybe you have heard of Randy Wells, the Chicago Cubs pitcher who has become an advocate for spreading the word around about all the musicians he likes in the Texas and Oklahoma music scene. Randy has helped get a few voices out there that many people up this way might never have heard of through word of mouth and even through having a few artists sing the National Anthem in Wrigley field like Stoney LaRue has done and just this past Tuesday Randy Rogers did.
Randy is also very active organizing charity events through his foundation dedicated to helping those with childhood illness and Joe's bar in Chicago was the scene for combining the two. Musicians Brandon Jenkins, Randy Rogers with fiddle player Brady Black and Stoney LaRue with his band the Arsenals provided the music while a silent auction was held up front and special events like a dinner date with Randy were auctioned off on stage between sets.
Brandon Jenkins took the stage first playing his brand of authentic Red Dirt music ingrained in him from his days around the Stillwater Oklahoma music scene with guys like Bob Childers, Mike McClure and Jimmy LaFave and even though he calls Austin home now his music still carry's that influence in songs like "The Whole World's Gone Crazy" and "Faster Than a Stone" and a few from his latest release "Brothers of the Dirt" like "Blood for Oil" and he ended the set with one of the many songs that have been covered by other fellow musicians "Finger on the Trigger" which was also done by Bleu Edmondson.Randy Rogers was on next with his acoustic guitar and accompaniment by fiddle player and harmony vocalist Brady Black. The Randy Rogers band is gearing up for the release of its next CD "Burning the Day" out on August 24th and its sure to be a huge hit with songs like "Interstate" and "Too Late for Goodbye" showing up in their set list more than six months ago all worked out and sounding great. Look for the video for "Interstate" and come see them as a band again at Joe's on October first with Roger Creager.


Stoney LaRue and the Arsenals were on next, Stoney is also a musician with roots in Oklahoma with a penchant for jamming classic grooves by the Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd during his set of original songs like "One Chord Song" and "Solid Gone" too the funky "Oklahoma Breakdown" written by Mike Hosty. Stoney and Brandon often write with each other and collaborate musically as well.
Randy Wells even came out on stage to join Stoney to sing and even though Randy does write and plays some guitar its probably better for him to stick with Baseball. Everyone got together on stage to jam during the last song and All in all its was a successful fun filled night for a great cause benefiting the Childrens Memorial Hospital and probably also showed quite a few people what the Brotherhood of the Dirt is all about.

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