Turnpike Troubadours’ “Diamonds & Gasoline” Gets Limited Edition
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. But Diamonds & Gasoline has been the ever-present fuel and gem to this 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.
Released in 2010 and produced by Red Dirt legend Mike McClure, it wasn’t Turnpike’s first record (that was 2007’s Bossier City), but it was the first with the nucleus of the band with 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 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, even though it’s the ending cover of a John Hartford song “Long Hot Summer” day that has become Turnpike’s most streamed song in history. No matter what happens with the Turnpike Troubadours moving forward, their place in history is cemented thanks to the efforts captured on Diamonds and Gasoline, and it came in at #2 on Saving Country Music’s “Greatest Albums of the Last Decade (2010-2019).”
Though Turnpike Troubadours fans would probably prefer a album of new music (which is reportedly on the way), to tide fans over, a special limited-edition metallic gold version of Diamonds & Gasoline is being released by Vinyl Me Please. Limited to 1,500 copies, the double gatefold LP will be foil stamped and numbered. It is currently on sale to Vinyl Me Please members, and will go on sale to the general population on Friday. Copies are set to ship in September.
Does this potentially signal that at some point in the not to distant future, Diamonds & Gasoline will be Certified Gold by the RIAA? The numbers are good enough that it’s definitely a possibility, if not a probability in the future. Tyler Childers and Cody Jinks both released Gold versions of their respective albums Purgatory and The Adobe Sessions right before they were officially Certified Gold. So we’ll see.
July 6, 2022 @ 8:35 pm
Great review, but just one minor quibble point: Gabe Pearson didn’t play on “Diamonds and Gasoline.” Nooch was still the drummer back then.
They sold so many copies of this in its CD pressing (and, even as a USB flash-drive) at shows back in the day, I’m sure it’s already sold in excess of 500K copies that Billboard hasn’t a clue about.
July 7, 2022 @ 5:59 am
damn – more vinyl i’m going to have to buy lol
UNRELATED NOTE: is anyone else having trouble with the site loading? it wont load on my phone at all.. and the past couple days, the home page will load but clicking on an article, i get a message saying it couldnt load. sometimes i can read an article of the morning just fine, go back to it later in the day and wont be able to.
July 7, 2022 @ 6:26 am
Are you using Chrome? Delete your cache and cookies, and it should solve the problem. It’s an ongoing issue we’re looking into.
July 7, 2022 @ 9:55 am
chrome on desktop and safari on my phone – i’ll go do that now
July 7, 2022 @ 6:26 am
That happened when I tried to read the Kristofferson Garth article on my desktop the other day.
July 7, 2022 @ 5:24 pm
Glad somebody else mentioned this.
My screen was jumping around last week, & since had a tumor removed from my head on 6/22, & about 2 weeks of visual thingy’s happening, thought hmmm, maybe i should take a nap, & it will get better …
: D Glad it was the site
July 7, 2022 @ 7:08 pm
Di! A tumor removed? My God. I hope you’re feeling better. Prayers going up for you and yours.
July 8, 2022 @ 1:42 am
: D Thank you, Jimmy, really appreciate it.
i pray for Kyle & his family, and all of us. The SCM readership.
July 8, 2022 @ 7:11 am
This site hasn’t worked on my phone in months. I guess I’ll try what Trig suggested.
July 8, 2022 @ 7:42 am
Folks, if you’re experiencing technical issues with the site, PLEASE reach out and let me know so I can address it. Even better, send me a screenshot of the error message you’re seeing, the browser you’re using, the time it’s happening to trigger at saving country music dot com, so I can look into it.
I apologize to everyone having these issues. We’re actively looking into it.
July 8, 2022 @ 9:49 am
I haven’t tried accessing this site for a few weeks since I had at least a couple months of it not loading; however, I went on my phone after posting this and of course it loaded fine this time.
Regarding the article, I snagged myself a copy of the vinyl. Non-members could do a pre-order 45 minutes ago (10am MT). Seems like a fun collector’s item. I’m not even much of a Turnpike fan, but I did get this album on cd many years ago due to the coverage on SCM, so that’s how I justified this purchase 🙂
Of the hundreds of records I have, this may be the first one I just set aside as more of a collector’s item. I tend to make fun of people who do that, as records are meant for listening and rolling cannabis cigarettes on (I think the kids call them joints or doobies), but whatever, we’ll see…
July 7, 2022 @ 12:33 pm
Why do they bother with a 2 LP set when it fits on one? I looked at the link and it doesn’t appear to have any extra tracks.
July 7, 2022 @ 1:15 pm
It’s a reissue and previous releases have been 2 LPs
The album is just over 50 mins. Spacing it out on 2 LPs vs putting all on 1 will result in better audio quality, especially for those with high end sound setups.
July 7, 2022 @ 12:46 pm
Just an FYI, if VMP doesn’t list mastering information than 9 times out of 10 the LP is just a CD on vinyl. I realize this website has basically become a Turnpike Troubadours fan page, so really it’s just about the merch, but I wanted to mention it just in case there are a few people that care about how it’s going to sound.
July 7, 2022 @ 1:06 pm
“Diamonds and Gasoline” has been available on vinyl for years, and it would be my guess that it was specifically mastered for vinyl during its original vinyl release, and those masters were utilized for this release. I agree that if it had been remastered, that information would be included, and it’s not. But I don’t think it’s fair to assume this is “just a CD on vinyl.” As a vinyl club, Vinyl Me Please is probably especially concerned with making sure they’re not releasing inferior recordings to the format.
“this website has basically become a Turnpike Troubadours fan page”
Just as Saving Country Music was accused of kicking Turnpike when it was down when they were canceling shows left and right, and Evan Felker was drunk and throwing shows. When Cody Jinks and Tyler Childers released gold editions of their most iconic albums, I reported on that as well. I always take advantage of opportunities to re-highlight iconic albums from important artists. If it facilitates commerce and helps support the independent country music scene, even better.
July 7, 2022 @ 5:53 pm
First of all, it’s really obvious you don’t know how Vinyl Me Please works. As of right now they don’t press their own records, plate their own records and in the case of mastering they only oversee their monthly subscription records. Especially in the case of their non-monthly subscription records, they rely completely on other companies to provide everything for them and typically they provide a color variant from mainstream releases. This record seems to be the exact same pressing as the clear 2LP version that came out in 2009 that was panned for pressing defects. Now Gotta Groove Records has the plates it’s possible they do a better job (I actually think they do a pretty good job most of the time), but more than likely it’s not going to be a remaster because as I said before VMP goes out of their way to give out that information.
I have said this in the past and still wish it to be the case – there needs to be more accountability by reviewers like you regarding how country records sound. When these musicians release a record using simply 44/16 file and recorded in their living room that should be pointed out the same way Zephania Ohara’s AAA venture should be highlighted.
Lastly, I only mentioned the fan club bit because it seems like this band gets a weekly or biweekly post – which is a lot for a band that hasn’t released a record in a half decade.
July 7, 2022 @ 6:46 pm
Clearly you’re a bigger vinyl nut than me, and clearly you’re a bigger audiofile than me, and I respect that. If the quality of the audio is significantly inferior or superior than average, then I usually do remark on it. But I also never want to get too technical or esoteric in my reviews. Specific to vinyl, it’s become almost impossible to do reviews off of vinyl these days due to the vinyl shortage. Labels have just stopped sending out vinyl copies, and a lot of them are not even manufacturing vinyl, or it’s coming out six months after an initial release.
Again, I don’t have any specifics on the mastering of this release. I agree it’s likely not being remastered. But that doesn’t mean the album wasn’t mastered for vinyl at some point. Black vinyl of this title is currently available.
And yes, there have been a lot of Turnpike posts lately. That’s because they just returned from an extended hiatus, and there has been a lot of new about them. For years people said SCM was a Sturgill Simpson fan club. I haven’t posted anything about Sturgill in eight months. That’s the news cycle.