Evan Duane Felker (born March 24, 1984) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist from
Okemah, Oklahoma
Okemah ( or ) is the largest city in and the county seat of Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, United States. It is the birthplace of folk music legend Woody Guthrie. Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, a federally recognized Muscogee Indian tribe, is headquartere ...
. He is best known as the lead singer of the band
Turnpike Troubadours
The Turnpike Troubadours are an American country music band from Tahlequah, Oklahoma, founded in 2005. They started their own imprint, Bossier City Records, in 2007 and have released six studio albums. Their self-titled 2015 album peaked at num ...
.
Early life
Felker was born in
Okemah and raised in
Wright City, a small town in rural southeast Oklahoma. His mother, Tane, worked in the healthcare industry and his father, Van, was a cowboy.
He has one younger sister, Cheyenne.
He was part of "an outdoorsy family that did a lot of hunting and fishing".
Growing up, Felker enjoyed short stories and wrote poems and creative prose.
He started playing guitar at the age of fifteen, learning from books and from high school friends. He initially began writing rock songs since he considered country music to be uncool. Felker's uncle was a songwriter and rock musician, and Felker travelled to
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa ( ) is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, second-most-populous city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the List of United States cities by population, 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The po ...
as a teenager to watch him perform.
Felker attended tech school to train as an electrician and later worked in paper mills, food plants, and Mercury Marine in
Stillwater, Oklahoma
Stillwater is the tenth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, and the county seat of Payne County, Oklahoma, Payne County. It is located in north-central Oklahoma at the intersection of U.S. Route 177#Oklahoma, U.S. Route 177 and Oklahoma S ...
.
Career
When Felker moved to
Stillwater, Oklahoma
Stillwater is the tenth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, and the county seat of Payne County, Oklahoma, Payne County. It is located in north-central Oklahoma at the intersection of U.S. Route 177#Oklahoma, U.S. Route 177 and Oklahoma S ...
in his twenties, he became interested in country music; his "heroes" were
Cross Canadian Ragweed
Cross Canadian Ragweed is an American country and rock band formed in Yukon, Oklahoma in 1994. The original members of the band is how the name was formed. Cross- Grady Cross, Canadian- Cody Canada, Rag- Randy Ragsdale, Weed- Matt Wiedemann. The ...
and
Jason Boland. He and guitarist Ryan Engleman began playing as a two-man acoustic act and were joined by bass player R.C. Edwards two months later. Eventually, drummer Giovanni “Nooch” Carnuccio III and fiddler Kyle Nix joined, and formed the
Turnpike Troubadours
The Turnpike Troubadours are an American country music band from Tahlequah, Oklahoma, founded in 2005. They started their own imprint, Bossier City Records, in 2007 and have released six studio albums. Their self-titled 2015 album peaked at num ...
. The band later relocated to
Tahlequah, Oklahoma
Tahlequah ( ; , ) is a city in Cherokee County, Oklahoma located at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It is part of the Green Country region of Oklahoma and was established as a capital of the 19th-century Cherokee Nation in 1839, as p ...
.
The Turnpike Troubadours announced they were taking a hiatus in May 2019, saying they would not perform "until a time we feel that everyone is of strong mind, body and spirit".
In November 2021, the band announced its reunion. The band opened their return at Cain's Ballroom in Oklahoma, the start of a series of sold out shows throughout 2022.
Personal life
Felker is a keen hunter, crediting his Oklahoma upbringing to bringing him into the culture.
He is friends with country singer-songwriter
Corb Lund
Corb Lund (born January 29, 1969) is a Canadian country and western singer-songwriter from Taber, Alberta, Canada. He has released twelve albums, three of which are certified gold. Lund tours regularly in Canada, the United States and Australia, ...
, and the two have hunted together.
Felker married accountant Staci Nelson in November 2016, in
Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a pop ...
. They split in February 2018 and were divorced that August.
Before the Turnpike Troubadours went on hiatus, there were multiple reports of Felker appearing intoxicated during his performances, along with the band cancelling over a dozen shows.
In an August 2020 interview with ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
'', Felker said he had found sobriety and was working on a ranch in Texas. He reconciled with Nelson, who revealed on her
Instagram
Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
page that they had remarried in June 2020. They welcomed their first child, Evangelina Hartford Felker, in January 2021 and their second child, Everett Augustus Felker, in September 2022.
See also
*
Turnpike Troubadours
The Turnpike Troubadours are an American country music band from Tahlequah, Oklahoma, founded in 2005. They started their own imprint, Bossier City Records, in 2007 and have released six studio albums. Their self-titled 2015 album peaked at num ...
References
External links
TurnpikeTroubadours.com(official site)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Felker, Evan
Living people
1984 births