Oklahoma
Country Music

Oklahoma's claim to country music is extraordinary. Garth Brooks from Tulsa is the best-selling solo country artist in American history. Toby Keith from Moore, Blake Shelton from Ada, Reba McEntire from McAlester, Carrie Underwood from Checotah, Vince Gill from Norman, Wanda Jackson from Maud: the list of Oklahoma-born country stars covers six decades of the format's commercial history. Woody Guthrie from Okemah is the foundational figure for the entire folk and protest music tradition that fed into country and Americana. Roger Miller, who wrote "King of the Road," came from Erick.

The Red Dirt country movement was born in Stillwater, centered around a venue called Eskimo Joe's and the surrounding Oklahoma State University culture in the 1990s. Artists like Cross Canadian Ragweed, Stoney LaRue, and Jason Boland built a regional scene that influenced a generation of Texas and Oklahoma country artists. Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa is one of the country's great music venues, opened in 1924, home to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and still booking shows. The western swing tradition is alive in Oklahoma in ways it isn't most other places.

Living in Oklahoma, country music is inescapable in the best sense. The radio is country. The bars are country. The state produces artists at a rate that suggests something deeper than industry; the music grew here because the culture that made it grew here. The Red Dirt scene gives Oklahoma its own regional identity within the genre, distinct from Nashville and distinct from Texas country.

Oklahoma produced more country music superstars per capita than any state except Tennessee. Garth Brooks (Tulsa), Toby Keith (Moore), Blake Shelton (Ada), Reba McEntire (McAlester), Vince Gill (Norman), and Carrie Underwood (Checotah) all came from Oklahoma. The Red Dirt country genre was born in Stillwater.

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