Review - Lance Roark: Live From Tulsa
On the north end of Main Street in downtown Tulsa, where the Crosstown Expressway crosses Easton Street, you’ll find one of the world’s top performance venues. Cain’s Ballroom was built in 1924, and originally served as an automobile garage before becoming a dance academy which morphed into a ballroom for public dances. Bob Wills called Cain’s home from 1935 to 1942 and helped popularize the room nationwide with his radio broadcasts. Ownership in the ‘70s booked many rising acts which led to Tulsa witnessing some incredible rock shows that a city of its size would not normally catch. When Leon Russell moved back to Tulsa and opened his Church Studio, that brought more music power to the city and the visiting rock stars often made their way to Cain’s. All of this is to say that, as a venue of its size in a city its size, Cain’s punches way above its weight in importance as a place for an artist to record a show for release.
Lance Roark calls Tahlequah, Oklahoma home. So does R.C. Edwards of the Turnpike Troubadours. While that band was on hiatus, Edwards cranked up his side project RC & the Ambers featuring Roark on guitar and backing vocals. The two shared writing credits on the song “Chipping Mill” featured on Turnpike’s Cat in the Rain release. Gigs with that band helped Lance hone his skills and gain confidence as a solo performer. In 2023, he released the 8-song EP Better Man featuring originals and co-writes with Edwards and Hank Early, also of the Turnpike Troubadours. This new EP, Live from Tulsa, recorded in December 2023 at Cain’s Ballroom and just recently released on April 19, showcases the four best songs from that collection with a beefed-up band and an encouraging audience cheering them on. With this performance, Lance Roark stakes his claim joining the vanguard of this next generation of Red Dirt artists.
Listen to enough Red Dirt music and you’re going to hear references to Oklahoma places and landmarks. Roark provides several of those including, “Like the Illinois River in the month of May…” and “Money’s low and my hopes are few / and this Kum & Go gas station #2 / Whiskey Bent and Hellbound prodigy” in the song “Rain Shine or Overtime” or this jewel in “Searchin:” “Backroads, just in time, right off that Cherokee-Sequoyah line / I picked you up from your 9 to 5 now we’re headed up to Stilly for a calf fry.” The tune’s funky drive and Roark’s infectious delivery bring the party in the song from Stilwell to downtown Tulsa. “Smooth as a red-tailed fox / Hotter than the Oklahoma Blacktop” is how one woman is described in another song with a slinky bass line and some exceptional organ work from Andrew Bair who also produced the record. He sports impressive credentials having spent the past few years as part of Jason Boland’s band, The Stragglers, and also working with Chris Blevins among others. I would love to hear Boland cover “Hard Road to Hold.” The rocker sounds like one he could dig into and the addition of fiddle in this live version along with Bair’s rollicking piano make it easy to imagine. Lance sets the pace here with a rocking acoustic guitar before the band joins and the thing takes off.
Live From Tulsa is an excellent re-introduction to Lance Roark. The artist is in the best possible local room surrounded by friends and family in the crowd with a rocking band on stage. If the songs are already familiar, that’s a bonus.
Find out more about Lance at the links below:
