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By the time his old friend, singer-songwriter
Radney Foster, got around to telling Tim DuBois
about Cross Canadian Ragweed, DuBois had
heard it all before. At least three other times in
the previous two weeks, to be exact.
"It was just one of those weird |
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Artists:
Heath Childs
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By the time his old friend, singer-songwriter
Radney Foster, got around to telling Tim DuBois
about Cross Canadian Ragweed, DuBois had
heard it all before. At least three other times in
the previous two weeks, to be exact.
"It was just one of those weird things," laughs
DuBois. "In a really short time, their name kept
popping up. It started with one of Pat Green’s
managers. He said, ‘You’ve got to see this
band.’ And a few days later, I was asking Bill
Minick, the owner of Billy Bob’s Texas in Ft.
Worth, ‘What’s hot?’ Because he’s really got his
finger on the pulse there in Texas. And he said,
‘Cross Canadian Ragweed.’ A week later, Joe
Avezzano [special teams coach for the Dallas
Cowboys], who’s an old friend, was visiting
Nashville and he stopped by the office and said,
‘My kid dragged me out to see a band the other
night that was really cool…’ And then Radney
Foster! I just felt like God was tapping me on
the shoulder, saying ‘pay attention!’"
Of course, Cross Canadian Ragweed had no
shortage of suitors when Universal South came
calling. Both DuBois and his business partner, Tony
Brown (whose shortlist of signings includes
maverick Texas icons Steve Earle and Joe Ely), knew
Ragweed was hot property. After eight years
together, the rag-tag quartet of childhood friends
had expanded beyond its Stillwater, OK, roots to the
forefront of the "Texas music revolution," a
grassroots Americana phenomenon that has seen
more than one proud independent artist routinely
draw crowds in the thousands and amass CD sales
many major label acts only dream of. But after
releasing four albums on their own Underground
Sound label, the band felt ready to take their music
nationwide and began putting out feelers for
interested parties. With their newly recorded fifth (and best) album to
date as bait, the majors quickly began circling their wagons.
Cody Canada, frontman and lead guitarist of Cross Canadian
Ragweed, remembers the exact moment when Tony Brown won
him over. Several weeks after the band met Dubois at their
North Carolina show (and later met the rest of the Universal
South staff at their offices in Nashville), Brown invited Canada
(26), drummer Randy Ragsdale (25), rhythm guitarist Grady
Cross (27) and bassist Jeremy Plato (26) out to his place. "We
just hung out for an afternoon and played acoustic," recalls
Canada. "And Tony clinched his fist, stuck it up in the air and
said, ‘We want you guys to be our lead horse.’ That’s the thing
that got me." When Dubois further impressed upon the group
his belief in Canada’s songwriting, it was a done deal.
"They said, ‘When we come in, we don’t want to change one
thing about you,’" Canada continues, "which tickled the shit out
of us, because that’s what we wanted. We told them, ‘That’s
good, because we’re not going to change anything.’"
And sure enough, Cross Canadian Ragweed, CCR’s major label
debut, is the exact same album they wrapped up before even
signing their deal. Untouched by any hands other than those of
the band and their long-time producer, Mike McClure (from
fellow Stillwater outfit The Great Divide); unspoiled, uncut,
unadulterated Ragweed, the exact same wicked strain for far too
long only available in the most rocking honky-tonks, rowdiest
roadhouses and sold-out festivals across the Red Dirt and Lone
Star States and many others along the Southern border of the
US). Well…not exactly. This offering’s actually a helluva lot
louder. Yes, this is the same CCR that so impressed the
Nashville crowd at this summer’s Waylon Jenning’s memorial
that Rodney Crowell cornered Canada backstage to tell him their
version of "Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line" moved him the
same way the original did when he was 25 years old and
working in a Houston oilfield.
"We’re a little more rock & 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 eight years old. "I definitely let it go a little bit more this time. Mike McClure told me, ‘You
really need to do this on this record, because your guitar is the
only solo instrument.’"
"Cody’s such a good lead player, I don’t have a problem playing
rhythm," says Cross. "Man, he feels it. He doesn’t just sit up
there – he’s all over the stage, just killing it. He’ll take his guitar
and slide it across the rail on the front row. And when it’s all
four of us out there on stage, sometimes it doesn’t even feel
like the crowd’s there because we’re all so focused on each
other--what the next person’s going to do. "
No surprise, really, given that these guys have known each other
pretty much since kindergarten. "We’ve been friends since we
were kids, and that’s the one thing that keeps us going I think,"
says Canada. "That’s the soul of this band – the friendship
between us."
These friendships were born in the band’s hometown of Yukon –
a blue-collar burg they couldn’t escape from fast enough--as
pointedly revealed on the new album’s turbo-charged opener,
"Anywhere But Here": "Hometown in my rearview / This truck
ain’t got enough gas / it ain’t got enough gas to get me fast
and far away from you." It pops up again in the bittersweet lead
single, "17," whose chorus, "You’re always 17 in your
hometown," though universal, speaks volumes about Canada’s
own hardscrabble youth. "It wasn’t like I was a problem child,
but my folks split up when I was younger and I lived on my own
through most of high school," he explains, detailing years of
harassment from authority figures for skipping school.
Music offered an escape and by the time the guys were all just
out of high school (except for Ragsdale, the youngest), 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 (now deceased).
"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 the all-together more
musician friendly town of Stillwater, where acts like 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 selling
over 50,000 copies to date – coupled with an average of 200
gigs a year cinched the band’s place at the top of the
Texas/Oklahoma music totem pole.
Cross Canadian Ragweed – in the spirit of The Beatles,
nicknamed "The Purple Album" the cover’s color chosen in
memory of Ragsdale’s nine-year-old sister Mandi, who died in a
car accident after a CCR show in 2001, at once represents
everything the band has accomplished to date and all they hope
to conquer in the very near future. "This is the best we’ve
done," says Plato readily, echoing the sentiments of the rest of
the band. "We had a lot more time to work on this record than
we ever have in the past. We actually got a chance to rehearse
before doing this album to get an idea of exactly what we
wanted to do in the studio."
"Really, the only thing I can tell you is it’s our record," Canada
offers definitively. "We walked out of the studio saying, ‘there’s
not one thing we would have changed."
Bio written by: texascody747 |
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