Charley Crockett and Turnpike Troubadours frontman Evan Felker played to an over-capacity crowd of more than 1,700 fans at Cain's Ballroom in downtown Tulsa on Wednesday night, trading songs for nearly two hours in a set that doubled as an outlet for Crockett's grief.
Before the show, Crockett asked Felker to play two of his ballads, "On the Red River" and "Pay No Rent." Crockett had lost his brother, Joshua, two days earlier, and Dolly Parton had died the day before the concert — a loss he had addressed in an emotional social media post that morning.
From the stage, Felker joked about the request: "We were backstage a minute ago, and he was trying to con me into playing only slow songs." Crockett laughed, then turned serious: "I asked him to play 'em because I need to hear 'em."
When Felker performed "On the Red River," a track off Turnpike's 2025 album The Price of Admission that he called "The saddest song I ever wrote," Crockett sang along quietly to its chorus line, "Death doesn't leave with the best part of you."
The Tulsa stop came amid a turbulent stretch for Crockett, who released his Clovis album in July after parting ways with Island Records and landing at Atlantic Outpost. He followed the release with sold-out shows across Colorado, Texas and New Mexico, then dropped Twin Temple as an opener, sparking social media disputes with, among others, Jack White. Crockett is set to resume his headlining tour behind Clovis through September.
Felker, who has spent much of the past year marking musical losses — including Turnpike's cover of Todd Snider's "Just Like Old Times" after Snider's death in 2025 — closed the Cain's show with a tribute to Parton, performing Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind," made famous by Parton and Porter Wagoner in 1967.
Throughout the night, Crockett played originals from Clovis and his 2025 "Sagebrush Trilogy," while Felker ran through Turnpike staples. Crockett called Felker "the greatest songwriter of our time," adding, "even if he can't take the compliment," and sang along when Felker performed "Good Lord, Lorrie." Felker returned the praise, telling Crockett, "That's a real good song, man," after he played "Image of a Woman" from Clovis.
The show ended with Felker bringing bandmate John Fullbright on stage to play guitar so Felker could play harmonica on the Turnpike closer "Long, Hot Summer Day," with Crockett singing the final chorus. Venue co-owner Chad Rodgers, referencing the Turnpike song "Easton and Main," which shares an address with Cain's Ballroom, called it "a special night," adding that "both artists have a deep history at Easton and Main."
As the crowd filed out, one fan was overheard saying, "I came here to see Charley Crockett, but that other guy is pretty good, too." Felker headed home to Oklahoma, an hour's drive from the venue, while Crockett departed for his next tour stop. Before leaving, Crockett reflected on the venue itself: "If you were born west of the Mississippi, you don't care as much about the Opry as you do about the Cain's."
Photo: Bobby Cochran, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
