Rob:  Red Dirt is not just a musical genre; it’s also the name of a band, The Red Dirt Rangers.  Our Lacie Stockstill takes a closer look at this homegrown band that’s earned a national reputation.
Lacie:  After 18 years of playing, singing, and entertaining, the members of the Red Dirt Rangers still haven’t defined red dirt.
John Cooper:  That’s the 64 thousand dollar question.
Bradley Piccolo:  You know, they call it red dirt music, and it’s just easier to say than folky-bluegrass-country-rock-blues-etc.
Ben Han:  You name it.  It’s all in there.  The ingredients are there, I’d say.
Lacie:  One thing John Cooper and his fellow band members do agree upon is where their unique sound was born.
Cooper:  Red dirt music in particular is from Stillwater, Oklahoma.  Stillwater is a college town, of course, and one of the last bastions of, I can still do anything I want.
Lacie:  This can-do attitude is what brought Cooper and fellow band member Brad Piccolo together in 1979.  And the pair is still telling their story through song.
Piccolo:  A lot of them have to do with the way we were raised, here in Oklahoma, kind of our connection to the land, and to the people.
Lacie:  And they’ve even gotten some international perspective.  Ben Han is originally from Malaysia, but his take on things isn’t any different from the rest of the band.
Han:  If you like the rhythm, that doesn’t mean a thing; because rhythm comes from anywhere in the world you can make one.  But if you tell a story, that makes the difference.
Lacie:  And the camaraderie among red dirt musicians is as unique as their music.  
Cooper:  Our scene spawned a lot of bands.  I think that’s central to the red dirt music scene is the cohesiveness that the bands have inside themselves, and that we have with the other bands in our scene. 
Lacie:  All who share a common goal of being different.
Cooper:  The Red Dirt Rangers, we didn’t want to be just a country band, or a bluegrass band, or a rock band.  We wanted to be all of those.
Lacie:  And with five CDs under their belts, and a full tour schedule, the Red Dirt Rangers are keeping toes tapping and hands clapping, all across the nation.