McCurtain Daily Gazette

ÿþTurnpike Troubadours to perform at Lumberjax Festival 10-5-2008 <table width="110" border="0"align="left"cellpadding="2"cellspacing="0"><tr> <td align="left"valign="top"><table width="100" border= "0"cellspacing= "0"cellpadding="0" ><tr><td><a href=pic1.shtml target= "_blank"><img src="../newspics/troubadours.jpg" width="100"border="0"></a></td></tr><tr><td>The Turnpike Troubadours will be performing on Oct. 11 at the Wright City Lum-berjax festival. Pictured are (from left) Kyle Nix, RC Edwards, Evan Felker, Casey Sliger, and Chad Masters. </td></tr></table> </td></tr></table> The Wright City Lumberjax fes-tival will feature music from the Turnpike Troubadours, an appro-priate choice for the event as the band’s singer is a Wright City na-tive. “It’s going to be really fun play-ing there, and seeing everyone,” says Evan Felker, the Troubadour’s lead vocalist. “I really don’t get to go home that much, so I’m very excited.” The Troubadours are a regional touring group. Members include Kyle Nix (fiddle, harmonica), RC Edwards (bass), Chad Masters (drums), Casey Sliger (guitar, vo-cals), and Felker (who also play’s guitar). Based out of Stillwater, the group performs music they describe as a mix between dance hall coun-try, folk, bluegrass, and Credence-style rock. “Our musical style…I’d sort of describe it as being somewhere between John Fogerty and Bill Munro,” explains Felker. “Most of us grew up around some really great music, Steve Earle, Bob Dy-lan, people like that, and I think we get a lot of inspiration from the stuff we heard growing up.” The group also cites their rural upbringing as an influence on their work. Their songs are often based on real-life experiences or scenar-ios. The Troubadours released their first independently produced al-bum, ‘Bossier City’, in late 2007. They’ve been spending time in the studio, working on their second release, but also spend a good deal of their time playing live shows throughout the region. “We stay busy. We’re usually booked up four or five months in advance,” says Felker. “Right now, we’re booked till January.” The group takes its name from the Indian Nation turnpike. When attending school in Okmulgee, fu-ture Troubadours became very fa-miliar with the roadway. “We spent a lot of time on that road,” says Felker. “And Trouba-dour is something they’d call folk singers a lot…we decided we liked how [the words] sounded together, and it also said something about us.” During the Lumberjax festival on Oct. 11, the band will begin its per-formance at 4 p.m. Other bands will also be performing during the event, in addition to many other scheduled activities.