How Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa Became the Home of Red Dirt Music

By any measure, Cain’s Ballroom should be too small for Charley Crockett.

But on a sweltering August night — when the Oklahoma heat and humidity gave the air conditioning system of Tulsa’s timeless honky-tonk a battle for the ages — Crockett didn’t get caught up with the size of the venue. He looked back at the sold-out dance hall, with all its history, and let himself get caught in the moment.

“Cain’s Ballroom, the home of Bob Wills!” Crockett cheered from center stage. “I kind of got lost there, looking back at them blinking neon lights. Thought I saw my granddad back there, but he already went on up to glory.”

Crockett’s sentiment has been a universal one at Cain’s throughout 2024. The ballroom was built in 1924 (though it was years before it regularly hosted concerts) and is celebrating its centennial this year with a run of high-profile shows. Crockett’s came early in his $10 Cowboy Tour, showcasing the album of the same name. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit played back-to-back nights in early May. Corey Kent did the same in June. Elle King and Muscadine Bloodline headlined in late summer. Those are all artists who routinely play to crowds much larger than the 1,700 capacity at Cain’s. As an example, Isbell and Crockett played sold-out shows at the 9,500-seat Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado within a month of their Cain’s dates.

John Cooper qualifies as a Cain’s expert. As a co-founder of the Red Dirt Rangers, a long-time Oklahoma folk-rock outfit and one of the bands credited with the rise of the state’s Red Dirt music scene, Cooper has been on the hardwood stage at Cain’s hundreds of times. He says the reason major touring acts cannot get enough of the honky-tonk just north of downtown Tulsa lies in that stage, along with the walls and the photographs of Wills, Hank Williams, Cindy Walker, and their contemporaries that surround the dance floor.

“Cain’s thrives because of the history,” Cooper tells Rolling Stone. “It thrives because of the feeling that the artists have about the building. People want to play there. You name it, man — Wilco, Elvis Costello, Willie — the history is littered with people who want to play a place like Cain’s Ballroom. It’s important that those kinds of venues tie it all together. They tie Bob Wills to Wyatt Flores. That’s the bridge that a venue like that brings to music.”

Flores is part of a frantic end to 2024 that co-owners and brothers Chad and Hunter Rodgers have planned for Cain’s. This weekend, the club will feature Tech N9ne on Friday and Ray Wylie Hubbard on Saturday. Wilco is set to play two nights in December. Tulsa-based Hanson — the one-time boy band turned rock outfit — has three nights on the books before Christmas. Silverada, Joshua Ray Walker, and Vandoliers will play in late December. Flores — whose headlining debut at Cain’s in February was overshadowed by his realization that day that he needed to take an extended mental health break — will close out the dance hall’s centennial with back-to-back shows on Dec. 30 and 31. Both are sold out.

“It seems like all our shows are selling out,” says Chad Rodgers. “There’s so much more momentum right now.”

Cain’s has been in the Rodgers family since 2002, when James Rodgers — a local neurosurgeon — bought the venue. It was in near-disrepair at the time, and things like that air conditioning system needed a full overhaul, but it still had its history. Chad and Hunter are Rodgers’ sons, and they handled most of the day-to-day operations of Cain’s from the outset. Chad recalls of their initial inspection: “There were buckets catching water on the floor. There was dust all over everything. It smelled awful.”

Their goal was to fashion Cain’s into a venue that would command respect on name alone. More than two decades later — and a year and a half since James Rodgers passed in May 2023  — that is exactly where the brothers have Cain’s.

“It’s a destination, for sure,” Hunter Rodgers says. “It’s becoming more of one, and that’s an honor for us. I always looked at, like the 9:30 Club in D.C., and hoping to be like that, where every show they book is a sellout.”

The 9:30 Club is a rock room that occasionally hosts country acts. The inverse is true at Cain’s. It has a long history of hosting rock, metal, and hip hop (Jack White will play a pop-up show there Tuesday night), but it’s the current surge in popularity of Americana and independent country music that has entrenched Cain’s as a must-play venue for artists like Isbell — who keeps a black Cain’s logo shirt as a mainstay in his wardrobe. When Crockett played in August, he pointed out that one of Cain’s biggest champions originally brought him to the club.

“The first time I ever played here, it was compliments of them Oklahoma boys, the Turnpike Troubadours,” Crockett said onstage. “Evan Felker picked me up off a street corner in central Texas and brought me here, and I’m forever grateful.”

Turnpike famously returned from a three-year hiatus in 2022 with back-to-back shows at Cain’s and have rarely played a venue that small since. When they returned to Tulsa in 2023, Turnpike played to more than 19,000 fans over two nights at the BOK Center, the arena a few blocks from the front door of Cain’s. It was a milestone night for the Red Dirt scene, and especially for Turnpike — who immortalized Cain’s down to its address in the song “Easton and Main.”

Cain’s and Red Dirt have a history dating back more than two decades. Cross Canadian Ragweed played annual sold-out shows there in the mid-2000s, and recorded their Back to Tulsa: Live and Loud at Cain’s Ballroom album in 2006. More recently, Turnpike’s comeback, along with Flores capping off the ballroom’s 100th year with two shows, has cemented the venue as the home of Red Dirt.

“It has just blown up so much,” Chad Rodgers says. “Oklahoma being the Red Dirt state, we are the capital. What better place for it to be than here, and for us to be doing as much as we’re doing with it, and all the artists wanting to come play here, it’s awesome.”

The Rodgers brothers are not easing up when the calendar changes. They have Zach Top booked for two nights in February. Shane Smith and the Saints — whose last Tulsa show was in early 2023 and sold-out at the much larger Hard Rock Live, a casino theater with a capacity of 2,700 — play on Valentine’s Day. Treaty Oak Revival and 49 Winchester are also on the ballroom’s 2025 schedule.

“I don’t want to say we’ve reached the gold at the end of the rainbow, but we’re feeling pretty close,” Chad Rodgers says. “We’re always going to strive to make it bigger and better, because I want Cain’s to be known as the flagship live music venue in the state of Oklahoma. I’d like it to be that for all of North America, too. We can always strive for that.”

Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose third book, Red Dirt Unplugged, is set for release on December 13, 2024, via Back Lounge Publishing, and available for pre-order.