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Never Say Never: Cross Canadian Ragweed, The Boys From Oklahoma, and a Red Dirt Comeback Story for the Ages
Cross Canadian Ragweed is back, and the Red Dirt Music scene has its defining moment. Nearly 15 years after taking a break nearly everybody - band included - thought to be permanent, the Oklahoma four-piece is back under the biggest spotlight in Red Dirt history.
Ragweed's 2025 reunion at The Boys From Oklahoma concerts in Stillwater, Oklahoma, along with co-headliners The Turnpike Troubadours, The Great Divide, Jason Boland and The Stragglers, and Stoney LaRue started as a one-off event before ballooning into a four-night festival on the campus of Oklahoma State University in front of more than 180,000 fans.
Red Dirt journalist and author Josh Crutchmer takes you behind the scenes for the entire event and tell the story of the Ragweed comeback from the perspective of band members Cody Canada, Grady Cross, Randy Ragsdale and Jeremy Plato.
In addition, Crutchmer catches up with The Turnpike Troubadours, The Great Divide, Jason Boland and Stoney LaRue to share in their memories of days playing in dive bars across the Red Dirt landscape.
Finally, Crutchmer breaks down how this concert came together through interviews with the people who made it happen. Crutchmer ends his fourth book - and the follow-up to 2020's Red Dirt and 2024's Red Dirt Unplugged - with four chapters taking in a view from the wings of all four nights as The Boys From Oklahoma concerts unfold.
A pair of red-hot artists from the Red Dirt scene - Wyatt Flores and Kaitlin Butts, contribute the book's foreword and last word and drive home the scale of the genre's moment in the sun.
Ragweed's 2025 reunion at The Boys From Oklahoma concerts in Stillwater, Oklahoma, along with co-headliners The Turnpike Troubadours, The Great Divide, Jason Boland and The Stragglers, and Stoney LaRue started as a one-off event before ballooning into a four-night festival on the campus of Oklahoma State University in front of more than 180,000 fans.
Red Dirt journalist and author Josh Crutchmer takes you behind the scenes for the entire event and tell the story of the Ragweed comeback from the perspective of band members Cody Canada, Grady Cross, Randy Ragsdale and Jeremy Plato.
In addition, Crutchmer catches up with The Turnpike Troubadours, The Great Divide, Jason Boland and Stoney LaRue to share in their memories of days playing in dive bars across the Red Dirt landscape.
Finally, Crutchmer breaks down how this concert came together through interviews with the people who made it happen. Crutchmer ends his fourth book - and the follow-up to 2020's Red Dirt and 2024's Red Dirt Unplugged - with four chapters taking in a view from the wings of all four nights as The Boys From Oklahoma concerts unfold.
A pair of red-hot artists from the Red Dirt scene - Wyatt Flores and Kaitlin Butts, contribute the book's foreword and last word and drive home the scale of the genre's moment in the sun.
152 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 22, 2025
About the author
Josh Crutchmer
13 books10 followersJosh Crutchmer is an author and journalist covering American roots music. He covered the rise to prominence of Cross Canadian Ragweed for The Oklahoman and the band’s final show in 2010 for an entertainment arm of The Chicago Tribune. During the process of writing Red Dirt Unplugged, Crutchmer also chronicled Wyatt Flores’s 2024 rise and struggles in a New York Times profile, and later stumbled upon the news of The Boys From Oklahoma concerts and 2025 Cross Canadian Ragweed reunion — breaking that with an exclusive interview in Rolling Stone and turning the tale into Never Say Never in 2025.
He is best known for his 2020 book, Red Dirt, but his career predates Red Dirt by 20 years. He was tapped to write obituaries for Merle Haggard and George Jones for The Plain Dealer and Nashville City Paper, respectively. Today, he is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone.
Today, Crutchmer is the planning editor at The New York Times, responsible for the organization of the newspaper as well as the look and content of the Times’ front page — and he gets the occasional byline. Prior to joining the Times, he was the assistant managing editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland where he oversaw production of the coverage from the annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductions. Previously, he worked at The Chicago Tribune, The Buffalo News, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Omaha World-Herald, The Arizona Republic, and The Oklahoman.
A native Oklahoman and graduate of Oklahoma State University, Mr. Crutchmer has had a close relationship to the state’s Red Dirt Music scene since 2000. His experience in Red Dirt extends not just to the artists but to the crew members, sound engineers, bar owners and tour managers behind the scenes whose efforts embody what it means to live and work with a love of music.
He is best known for his 2020 book, Red Dirt, but his career predates Red Dirt by 20 years. He was tapped to write obituaries for Merle Haggard and George Jones for The Plain Dealer and Nashville City Paper, respectively. Today, he is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone.
Today, Crutchmer is the planning editor at The New York Times, responsible for the organization of the newspaper as well as the look and content of the Times’ front page — and he gets the occasional byline. Prior to joining the Times, he was the assistant managing editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland where he oversaw production of the coverage from the annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductions. Previously, he worked at The Chicago Tribune, The Buffalo News, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Omaha World-Herald, The Arizona Republic, and The Oklahoman.
A native Oklahoman and graduate of Oklahoma State University, Mr. Crutchmer has had a close relationship to the state’s Red Dirt Music scene since 2000. His experience in Red Dirt extends not just to the artists but to the crew members, sound engineers, bar owners and tour managers behind the scenes whose efforts embody what it means to live and work with a love of music.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 1, 2025
Josh captures the essence of the reunion shows in Stillwater! It was like being there all over again. The end of the book choked me up when Cody and Josh were on the patio at the Stables, the same patio I was sitting on before the show on Thursday. “What’s wrong with making everybody happy all the time?”
June 1, 2026
Great account of what had to be a magical weekend.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews