Jason Boland & The Stragglers at the Mystic

Born and raised in Oklahoma, Boland grew up listening to a mix of country and rock and roll before eventually finding himself at the epicenter of the Red Dirt scene in Stillwater, where he put together the Stragglers while attending OSU. Beginning with 1999’s Pearl Snaps, the hard-touring band would release a series of critically acclaimed independent albums that would rack up more than half a million sales, lead to collaborations with the likes of Shooter Jennings and Robert Earl Keen, and land performances everywhere from The Ryman Auditorium to the Grand Ole Opry. The New York Times called Boland “one of the country scene’s most multidimensional songwriters,” while American Songwriter praised him as “a troubadour for the ages,” and Rolling Stone hailed him as a “steady, reliable source of smart, gritty songwriting.”