The Tractors
Encyclopedia
The Tractors is an American
country rock
band composed of a loosely associated group of musicians, headed by guitarist Steve Ripley
. Under the band's original lineup, The Tractors was signed to Arista Records
in 1994, releasing their self-titled debut album that year; the album went on to become the highest-selling country album of 1994, even though it only produced one Top 40 hit on the Billboard country charts. To date, the band has followed up with five more albums.
Since their foundation, most of the band's original members have moved on to separate projects, although they often collaborate with frontman Ripley on The Tractors' more recent recordings. Ripley is the only official member of the group; he has stated that The Tractors is more of a "state of mind", and the band contains a largely undefined cast of unofficial contributors.
, 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 Eric Clapton
, Bonnie Raitt
, Linda Ronstadt
, and Leonard Cohen
. Oldaker had also worked with Bob Seger
and Eric Clapton
.
By 1990, the group was signed to Arista Records
, a newly-formed record label based in Nashville, Tennessee
. In 1994, the group 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; it also became the top-selling country music album of 1994. That album was soon followed by a Christmas album called Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas
.
The group's true follow-up, Farmers in a Changing World, was released in 1998. The band's members, except for Ripley, soon departed for other projects, although they and Ripley remained close friends, and made cameo appearances on subsequent albums. Ripley, along with several other musicians, released the next Tractors album, Fast Girl, on Audium Entertainment in 2001. After Fast Girl, the Tractors left Audium as well, and soon formed its own label, Boy Rocking Records. In 2009 "Trade Union" was released on E1.
^ Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas was re-released in 2002 as Tractors Christmas
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
country rock
Country rock
Country rock is sub-genre of popular music, formed from the fusion of rock with country. The term is generally used to refer to the wave of rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, beginning with Bob Dylan and The Byrds; reaching its greatest...
band composed of a loosely associated group of musicians, headed by guitarist Steve Ripley
Steve Ripley
Steve Ripley is a recording artist, songwriter, studio engineer, guitarist, and inventor. He has been active in the music business since 1977...
. Under the band's original lineup, The Tractors was signed to Arista Records
Arista Records
Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...
in 1994, releasing their self-titled debut album that year; the album went on to become the highest-selling country album of 1994, even though it only produced one Top 40 hit on the Billboard country charts. To date, the band has followed up with five more albums.
Since their foundation, most of the band's original members have moved on to separate projects, although they often collaborate with frontman Ripley on The Tractors' more recent recordings. Ripley is the only official member of the group; he has stated that The Tractors is more of a "state of mind", and the band contains a largely undefined cast of unofficial contributors.
Biography
The Tractors were formed in 1988, with the original lineup comprising Ron Getman (electric guitarElectric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
, slide guitar
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
), Jamie Oldaker
Jamie Oldaker
James Oldaker is an American rock music, blues rock and country music drummer and percussionist. He was born September 5, 1951 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is an exponent of the shuffle style....
(drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
), Walt Richmond (bass vocals, keyboards
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
), Steve Ripley
Steve Ripley
Steve Ripley is a recording artist, songwriter, studio engineer, guitarist, and inventor. He has been active in the music business since 1977...
(guitar, lead vocals
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
), and Casey van Beek (bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
vocals). All five members had previously been backing musicians for other notable artists, including Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
, Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
, and Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...
. Oldaker had also worked with Bob Seger
Bob Seger
Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...
and Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
.
By 1990, the group was signed to Arista Records
Arista Records
Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...
, a newly-formed record label based in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
. In 1994, the group 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; it also became the top-selling country music album of 1994. That album was soon followed by a Christmas album called Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas
Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas
-Chart performance:...
.
The group's true follow-up, Farmers in a Changing World, was released in 1998. The band's members, except for Ripley, soon departed for other projects, although they and Ripley remained close friends, and made cameo appearances on subsequent albums. Ripley, along with several other musicians, released the next Tractors album, Fast Girl, on Audium Entertainment in 2001. After Fast Girl, the Tractors left Audium as well, and soon formed its own label, Boy Rocking Records. In 2009 "Trade Union" was released on E1.
Sound
The Tractors achieved their distinctive sound in several ways, most notably from the use of only one microphone, or recording a song in only one take. Ripley often constructs guitars and cords for use in the band.Albums
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | Certifications Music recording sales certification Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,... (sales thresholds) |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Country |
US Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
CAN Country RPM (magazine) RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,... |
CAN RPM (magazine) RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,... |
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| The Tractors The Tractors (album) The Tractors is the eponymous debut album of American country music band The Tractors. Released in August 1994 on Arista Records, it set a record for becoming the fastest-selling debut album by a group to achieve Recording Industry Association of America platinum certification in the United States;... |
|
2 | 19 | 1 | 36 |
Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States... : 2× Platinum Canadian Recording Industry Association Music Canada is a Toronto-based, non-profit trade organization that was founded 9 April 1963 to represent the interests of companies that record, artists, manufacture, production, promotion and distribution of music in Canada... : 2× Platinum |
| Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas -Chart performance:... [A] |
|
12 | 68 | — | — | |
| Farmers in a Changing World |
|
39 | — | 17 | — | |
| Fast Girl |
|
65 | — | — | — | |
| Big Night |
|
— | — | — | — | |
| The Kids Record |
|
— | — | — | — | |
| Trade Union |
|
— | — | — | — | |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||||||
^ Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas was re-released in 2002 as Tractors Christmas
Singles
| Year | Single | Peak chart positions |
Album | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Country Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales... |
CAN Country RPM (magazine) RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,... |
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| 1994 | "Baby Likes to Rock It Baby Likes to Rock It "Baby Likes to Rock It" is the title of a song written and recorded by American country music group The Tractors. It was released in August 1994 as the first single from the album The Tractors. The song reached number 11 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart and peaked at number 8 on... " |
11 | 8 | The Tractors |
| 1995 | "Tryin' to Get to New Orleans" | 50 | 28 | |
| "Badly Bent" | — | 80 | ||
| 1998 | "Shortenin' Bread" | 57 | 61 | Farmers in a Changing World |
| "I Wouldn't Tell You No Lie" | 72 | — | ||
| 2001 | "Can't Get Nowhere" | — | — | Fast Girl |
| "The Big Night" | — | — | ||
| "Fast Girl" | — | — | ||
| 2002 | "Ready to Cry" | — | — | |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||||
Other charted songs
| Year | Single | Peak chart positions |
Album | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Country Hot Country Songs Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales... |
US Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday... |
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| 1995 | "The Santa Claus Boogie" | 41 | 91 | Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas |
| "Santa Claus Is Comin' (In a Boogie Woogie Choo-Choo Train)" |
43 | — | ||
| 1996 | "The Santa Claus Boogie" (re-entry) | 63 | — | |
| 1997 | "The Last Time The Last Time (song) In 1967, after the imprisonment of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, on drugs charges, The Who recorded covers of "The Last Time" and "Under My Thumb" as a single. The intention was to help Jagger and Richards make bail, but by the time the single was made available, they had been released. The... " |
75 | — | Stone Country: Country Artists Perform the Songs of the Rolling Stones |
| 1998 | "Santa Claus Is Comin' (In a Boogie Woogie Choo-Choo Train)" (re-entry) |
65 | — | Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||||
Music videos
| Year | Video | Director |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | "Baby Likes to Rock It" | Michael Salomon Michael Salomon Michael Salomon is a music video/film director, who has directed many music videos, including many of Toby Keith's music videos... |
| "The Santa Claus Boogie" | Michael McNamara | |
| 1995 | "Tryin' to Get to New Orleans" | Michael Oblowitz |
| "Badly Bent" | ||
| "Santa Claus Is Comin' (In a Boogie Woogie Choo-Choo Train)" |
||
| 1997 | "The Last Time" | |
| 1998 | "Shortenin' Bread" | Michael Oblowitz |
| 2001 | "Can't Get Nowhere" |