The Tractors have left in their wake some of the finest high-energy country music you’ll ever hear.
Formed in 1988, with the original lineup comprising Ron Getman (electric guitar, slide guitar), Jamie Oldaker (drums), Walt Richmond (bass vocals, keyboards),Steve Ripley (guitar, lead vocals), and Casey van Beek (bass guitar, baritone vocals). All five members had previously been backing musicians for other notable artists, including Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, and Leonard Cohen. Oldaker had also worked with Bob Seger and Eric Clapton.
By 1990, the group signed to Arista Records and released its self-titled debut album. The album, which produced the single Baby Likes to Rock It, soon became the fastest-selling debut album from a country group to go platinum which eventually became certified double platinum, and the highest-selling country album of 1994.
The group´s true follow-up, Farmers in a Changing World, was released in 1998. They once again served up an intelligent, supercharged hybrid of country, boogie, and roadhouse blues the swing tunes tight and bouncy and the instrumentation varied and imaginative. Recalling their roots in 1950s rock’n’roll, they enlisted Elvis Presley sidemen Scotty Moore, James Burton and D.J. Fontana to play on the song The Elvis Thing to honour them.
Several of the tracks recalled the band’s super-cool Baby Likes To Rock It hit single, including Poor Boy Shuffle and Linda Lou (both with Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar) and Foot Stomp Stompin’ (with Leon Russell). A raw, loose-limbed collection of songs custom-made for g
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