I’m gonna reveal my age here in a minute, but when Koe Wetzel dropped his 2019 Harold Saul High album, and one song that initially struck me was “Ragweed.”
I recall loving the song as soon as I heard it, but remember asking myself:
“What in the damn hell does he mean by ‘she misses ragweed like I do?'”
Was he talking about a type of grass? A drug? Huh?
Then I did a little digging, and it led me to a band that I’d never heard of, along with a whole new world that I never knew existed…
We’re talking Cross Canadian Ragweed, one of the cornerstone acts of the Red Dirt in Oklahoma.
Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know I was late to the game but I’m only 24… I was 12 when Cross Canadian Ragweed broke up. They were before my time… BUT, now they’re one of my all-time favorite bands.
Anyways, consisting of Cody Canada, Grady Cross, Jeremy Plato, and Randy Ragsdale (not hard to tell where they get the band name from) based out of Yukon, Oklahoma, the group set the Texas-Oklahoma music scene ablaze from the mid ’90s to 2010.
When you think about modern day country rockers like Koe Wetzel, Pecos & the Rooftops, Kolby Cooper and plenty more, it’s not hard to hear how acts like CCR laid the foundation for that sound.
With that being said, I remember the first song I ever heard from the group, and it was one of their biggest hits, “Alabama,” from their 2001 album Highway 377. It was later rereleased on their 2004 Soul Gravy record.
Of course, the band broke up nearly a decade before I got acclimated to the Texas country rock scene, but in their music video for “Alabama,” it really puts into perspective just how massive this group was during their prime.
And to this day, it’s still THE country rock anthem in the Red Dirt world.
You wanna know what song we don’t skip around here?
Look no further…
