15 Years Ago: Turnpike Troubadours Release “Diamonds & Gasoline”

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The Turnpike Troubadours have released many great songs and albums over the years on their way to being regarded as the premier band in the Red Dirt and Texas music scene, while also presenting the greatest opportunity to assuage your mainstream country buddies towards the independent side of music.

Turnpike’s latest album, 2025’s The Price of Admission is no different. It’s being praised as an Album of the Year contender, while songs “Heaven Passing Through” and “On The Red River” being regaled as some of the greatest songs of the year so far.

But Diamonds & Gasoline has been the ever-present fuel and gem to the Turnpike Troubadours phenomenon that never tires, never gets old, will never fall out of style, and will continue to be relevant and resonant for generations to come. That’s certainly the case for the album here on the 15th Anniversary of its release.

Released on August 31st, 2010 and produced by Red Dirt legend Mike McClure, it wasn’t Turnpike’s first record (that officially was 2007’s Bossier City), but it was the first with the most legendary nucleus of the band including frontman Evan Felker, fiddler Kyle Nix, guitarist Ryan Engleman, and bassist/songwriter RC Edwards. Drummer Gabriel Pearson would join shortly thereafter, and multi-instrumentalist Hammerin’ Hank Early would join some years later.

Though the entirety of Diamonds & Gasoline deserves praise, the combination of the two opening songs, “Every Girl” and “7 & 7” is arguably one of the greatest opening volleys from a country band in history. It immediately set the high standard for songs that are superbly-written, immediately infectious, and curiously resonant from this band, even after recurring spins. It also set up Evan Felker as a premier songwriter, with an assistance by John Fullbright on “Every Girl.”


But as great as the start of Diamonds & Gasoline is, the ending was just as strong. The Turnpike Troubadours were able to take a rather obscure song from John Hartford in “Long Hot Summer Day,” and make it into an independent country hit. In fact, despite all of the stellar songs this band has released over the years, it’s “Long Hot Summer Day” that’s their most streamed, aided in its popularity by the propensity of baseball players to feature it as their walk up music.

The title track and “Whole Damn Town” have also revealed themselves as fan favorites over the last 15 years, along with “1968,” which many overlook when praising country songs with a progressive vision. Early on, Evan Felker was evidencing his elevated mastery of perspective and poetic disposition.

But it wasn’t any individual song that set the album off. It was the totality of the effort behind Diamonds & Gasoline. If some are being honest with themselves, the album might have taken a little warming up to. It was country, but with a folk approach to the songwriting inspired by local hero Woody Guthrie, and more of a rock edge in the sound from the Red Dirt influence. Though all the parts were familiar, we hadn’t exactly heard them intertwined in this particular manner.

The reason Diamonds & Gasoline has risen to become so legendary is because it broke ground, forged a new sound and approach, and pushed country and Red Dirt in directions it had never gone before. That’s why it also landed on Saving Country Music’s “Greatest Albums of the Last Decade (2010-2019)” at a rather impressive #2.

15 years from now, and 50 years from now, people will still be listening to this record, and hearing its influence in the artists coming out of Oklahoma and beyond. Time is the greatest judge and arbiter of music. Time has been very favorable to Diamonds & Gasoline.

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