Bob Childers

With his weathered, rootsy songcraft, Bob Childers is considered the godfather of Red Dirt Music, a hard-to-define "I-know-it-when-I-hear-it" blend of country, rock, and folk that Oklahoma claims as its own. Childers was born in West Virginia, but relocated to Oklahoma at an early age. As a young man, he roamed the States, briefly living in places such as California before returning to settle in Stillwater, OK. In the late '70s, he became friends with singer/songwriter Jimmy LaFave, who helped Childers record his debut LP. Childers followed that effort with 1982's Singing Trees, Dancing Waters. In 1986, he made the move to Nashville, releasing the albums Four Horsemen and King David's Lament (an instrumental work). Tiring of Music City, Childers relocated to Austin, TX, where old friend LaFave was living. LaFave helped Childers out on his next album, Circles Toward the Sun. 1997 saw the release of Nothin' More Natural, which featured an ode to fellow Oklahoma native Woody Guthrie entitled "Woody's Road." Hat Trick came out in 1999 and featured a co-write with Garth Brooks. In 2000, Childers released La Vita e Bella, a collection of outtakes and demos from the '80s.