Red Dirt Unplugged: Cain's Ballroom Legacy Edition
This is a pre-order that will be delayed into 2025 to account for the entire year of Cain's Ballroom centennial celebrations. It will be unique and well worth your wait.
This is the ultimate book for the Red Dirt fan who wants to commemorate Cain's Ballroom's 100th year. This edition is the only outlier of all the specials we're releasing this cycle. It will tack 20 extra pages on to the original version of Red Dirt Unplugged and be dedicated solely to Cain's. This will contain multiple concert reviews from 2024 at the House that Bob Built — including shows by The Great Divide, Wyatt Flores, and a few surprises, plus the 2025 Hangover Ball on New Year's Day. It will also include insight from Cain's ownership as well as artists who have played it over the years, plus even more photos from the venerable venue at Easton and Main.
About the book
Singers, Songs and Stories Shining a Spotlight on Heartland Roots Music
Red Dirt Unplugged is the view from the wings as the Red Dirt music scene reaches heights never-before thought possible. At the crossroads of country, roots rock, and Americana, artists in the scene are enjoying sustained worldwide attention at a large scale for the first time in history. Wyatt Flores, Kaitlin Butts, Southall, Josh Meloy and more are walking through the doors opened by The Turnpike Troubadours and all the artists before them who first put the cracks in those same doors. As Red Dirt became less of an Oklahoma-centric scene and more of a catchall term for original, from-the-heart songwriting, harmonies and melodies, artists like Dylan Gossett, Vincent Neil Emerson, Courtney Patton, Bri Bagwell, Them Dirty Roses, and Vandoliers have been made welcome into the same fold, and find themselves thriving. Meanwhile, Red Dirt's oldest guard — The Great Divide — is in the midst of the finest moment of its three-decade career. Over time, John Moreland and John Calvin Abney only found a stronger grip on heartstrings. Even Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, themselves torchbearers for Arizona's roots rock scene, have made themselves inseparable from the musicians who claim Red Dirt. Venues like Tulsa's Mercury Lounge and Cain's Ballroom have combined history and swagger to become must-visit showrooms for artists and fans alike.
Red Dirt Unplugged gets into all of this. Structured around The Great Divide's 2023 homecoming concert at the Tumbleweed Dancehall in Stillwater, Oklahoma, it seamlessly connects the young artists in the midst of "blowups" like never before to the tradition, history, and confident arrogance that built Red Dirt. Author and journalist Josh Crutchmer had a front row seat to it all, and shares his perspective through an endless stream of artist interviews, side-stage musings, and thoughtful, old-fashioned concert reviews.
The natural sequel to Crutchmer's 2020 debut book, Red Dirt, this one is a can't miss for diehard fans and casual observers of this red-hot music scene.
The final page count will be noted in August 2024, but the book will be roughly 250 pages, including 20 pages of photography featuring the artists showcased in Red Dirt Unplugged.
Early E-book Access: You will get access to the complete e-book version of Red Dirt Unplugged on November 13, 2024, one month before the book hits stores. (Epub and PDF formats).
We'll throw in both Red Dirt Unplugged stickers as well.
With this edition, you have the option to add a $10 donation to the Red Dirt Relief Fund, the nonprofit which provides assistance to Oklahoma musicians in need, to any order. You'll get a special commemorative sticker for your donation if you do.
This book will ship via USPS Priority Mail or the equivalent.