Turnpike Troubadours Edge Tyler Childers in Epic Quarantine Tournament
Oh, so all you bastards thought it was sand bagging when four records from the Turnpike Troubadours ended up in in the Albums of the Decade list? Sure, perhaps absence makes the heart grow fonder, and the indefinite hiatus of the boys from Oklahoma has us all foggy-eyed in recollection. But according to one industrious Twitter user’s social experiment in the midst of the Coronavirus quarantine, the Turnpike Troubadours rule the roost.
Pitting a total of 64 country acts against each other bracket style from a pretty well-curated field of both mainstream and independent performers, the Turnpike Troubadours came all the way from an 11th seed to defeat Tyler Childers in the final round to emerge victorious in a close decision of 52% to 48%. And this was not just in a field of lightweights. The elite eight also included Chris Stapleton, Luke Combs, Eric Church, Thomas Rhett, Morgan Wallen, and Brooks & Dunn.
Performers were placed into four regions: Outlaw Country, Pop Country, Modern Country, and Band/Group Country. Nearly 40,000 votes were cast just in the first round of this extremely unscientific but nonetheless riveting scrimmage for the aggressively bored. But hopefully there are no losers here, well, aside from folks like Luke Bryan and Kane Brown that both got bounced in the first round.
Hopefully the exercise wasn’t just about turning music into competition, but helped spread the word about some cool artists whose names don’t always appear beside mainstream acts and legends, and went on to prove they have large and loyal fan bases, at least on Twitter.
“Thank you to everyone who participated and shared this everyday,” said John Miller, a teacher and coach from Kentucky who conducted the tournament. “I hope y’all enjoyed it and that it was something you looked forward to everyday. God Bless.”
To see the start of the tournament, CLICK HERE.
March 30, 2020 @ 10:13 am
Jason Isbell vs Zach Bryan is a hell of a first round
March 30, 2020 @ 4:31 pm
Poor Zach – Jason was wildly underseeded, haha!
March 31, 2020 @ 10:02 am
Not really it was a close competition between the 2 of them.
March 31, 2020 @ 3:43 pm
Oh, I mean that he would have gotten quite a bit further, if he’d gone up against a “normal” 11th seed, rather than Isbell.
March 30, 2020 @ 10:32 am
Pretty interesting. The final wasn’t all that surprising though. When left to a wide popular vote, music with strong rock elements will always win out over music that 95% of the time sticks to pure country / singer-songwriter / appalachian roots.
March 30, 2020 @ 1:05 pm
Even though Childers blew out Eric Church in the Final Four? Not sure that argument holds much water. Plus considering the tourney was ran by someone from KY, you would expect more Childers bias out of his follower-base.
March 30, 2020 @ 5:43 pm
I think it’s pretty safe to assume that out of 40,000 votes over a national platform like Twitter, a significant number were not from Kentucky.
March 30, 2020 @ 8:23 pm
40,000 votes in the first round, where you vote once per matchup, is 1250 unique people. The Twitter account wasn’t a massive online figure, but a teacher in KY. While I’m sure a host of votes were not from Kentuckians, it’s a very safe assumption that a large portion of his followers are Kentucky-based or more inclined to support a Kentucky artist relative to a national sample.
March 30, 2020 @ 10:46 am
Even though I’m from Kentucky, I agree with the result. Hope Evan has found peace.
March 30, 2020 @ 12:07 pm
>putting any stock in single Elim brackets
March 30, 2020 @ 12:28 pm
Sweet! Looks like the guy who done this went to Eastern Kentucky University, my alma mater. Pretty cool to see.
As far as the result, not surprised in the least. Childers is the man, but Turnpike is the best act in country music when everything’s clicking. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen that in a good long while but maybe they will return someday. One can hope.
March 30, 2020 @ 12:52 pm
Wow not much love for Bingham
March 30, 2020 @ 4:46 pm
Yeah, I’m a huge Bingham fan, but he’ll have a difficult time living down that last album.
March 30, 2020 @ 12:56 pm
I know yall are gonna call me a fanboy but WHY DID THEY LEAVE OUT MIRANDA hahaha
March 30, 2020 @ 12:57 pm
I don’t know half the fucking artists in this tournament, so it’s irrelevant. What’s a Hardy?
March 30, 2020 @ 1:20 pm
A Hardy of course is a Country music hemorrhoid. Still makes me laugh to this day Trig….lol
April 1, 2020 @ 8:32 pm
How did my wood furnace get in the tournament?
March 30, 2020 @ 12:58 pm
Off Topic – Like a lot of other people stuck at home, I watched that bizarre Tiger King doc on Netflix, after which I stumbled on BJ Barham’s recent cover of Here Kitty Kitty by Joe Exotic on YouTube. Pretty awesome and worth checking out if you watched that documentary.
March 31, 2020 @ 6:07 am
No not of topic actually sounds very intriguing and gotta check this out thanks…..Very left field but not off topic
March 30, 2020 @ 12:58 pm
No Crockett?
March 30, 2020 @ 1:52 pm
No whitey Morgan
March 30, 2020 @ 1:54 pm
No Mike and the moonpies that list isn’t all that great to many artist left out and some on the list that shouldn’t even be considered
March 30, 2020 @ 5:12 pm
Miranda.
March 30, 2020 @ 5:32 pm
Turnpike who?
March 30, 2020 @ 7:33 pm
They won’t show up for the award ceremony.
March 30, 2020 @ 8:32 pm
Cody Who over Sturgill and Jamey Johnson over Isbell lol
March 31, 2020 @ 12:40 am
Jamey over Isbell makes me happy
March 31, 2020 @ 1:28 am
Where is Chris LeDoux?
March 31, 2020 @ 2:59 am
The proportion of women included might even be lower than on the actual industry charts!
March 31, 2020 @ 6:20 am
Scrapple77,
Thank you for interjecting an irrelevant comment solely for the purpose of stoking the fire. You should feel proud of your self.
March 31, 2020 @ 6:40 am
please explain how noticing the lack of women in this “tournament” is irrelevant as it is an article about the tournament. irrelevant to you, sure. to everyone else, probably not.
March 31, 2020 @ 11:37 am
Dang it. For a second there, you had me thinking that the Troubadours actually did something.
March 31, 2020 @ 1:43 pm
Who tf voted Chris Stapleton or Jamey Johnson?
Awesome tournament, nonetheless.
March 31, 2020 @ 11:32 pm
For accurate results there must be a double elimination bracket. Please re-accomplish. Cody Jinks going out in the second round? No no no.