Brandon Jenkins performed in the Texas and Oklahoma regions, although he had extensively toured in Europe on several times. He often played 150 shows per year and shared the stage with Sunny Sweeney, Zane Williams, Cory Morrow, Deana Carter, Pat Green, Willie Nelson, The Mavericks and Kevin Welch.
One of Jenkins' notable songs, "Refinery Blues," was a biographical ballad about growing up near the Sand Springs Line, an area where oil refineries abound near the Arkansas River tributary of the Mississippi River.
Jenkins was also a philanthropist as a supporter of the Red Dirt Relief Fund, a non-profit organization that supports musicians from the Red Dirt family of artists who face financial hardship.
Jenkins was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to parents Wilma Jenkins (née Linthicum) and Dean Jenkins, a popular Tulsa radio disc jockey on stations KELi (where he was known as Dean Kelly) and KMOD-FM.
In 1987, Jenkins graduated from Central High School in Tulsa, where he was in the jazz band, sang in the choir, and taught himself guitar. In the 1980s, He attended Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. During his time at OSU, Jenkins made life-long friends with many of his long-term musical collaborators in the Red Dirt Music community, including Cody Canada, Mike McClure, Stoney LaRue, and Bleu Edmondson.
Jenkins' uncle was the Grammy Award-winning bass player, sound engineer, and producer, Gordon Shryock, who was known for his work with J. J. Cale and Leon Russell, as well as Andrae Crouch, Elvis Presley, Natalie Cole, and Dwight Yoakam.
In the early 1990s, Jenkins got his start recording for the Alabama-based record label, Rainy Records.
In 2003, Jenkins moved from Oklahoma to Austin, Texas, where he lived until 2015.
In 2005, Jenkins released Down In Flames and got a 3-year record deal for his Western Soul Records imprint to have his work distributed by Sony/RED. The record came out on the Thirty Tigers label.
In 2008, Jenkins released Faster Than a Stone, which featured Travis Fite and Stoney LaRue.
Jenkins' 2009 album Brothers of the Dirt was a collaboration with many Red Dirt and Texas country scene artists: Cody Canada (Cross Canadian Ragweed), Stoney LaRue, Jason Boland and Randy Rogers. The record was his first release on the independent label E1 Entertainment/Red Dirt Music Co. The song, "Out of Babylon," sung by Jenkins and Canada, was a tribute to 9/11, while the song, "Innocent Man," is a LaRue and Rogers contribution inspired by the John Grisham novel about Ron Williamson, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town. The song, "Blood for Oil,” was a protest song that focuses on George W. Bush's involvement with Iraq War.
In 2011, Jenkins released a record he called Project Eleven, which was a digital only 11-track record released on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, with a single released on September 11, 2011.
In 2015, Jenkins released the record, Blue Bandana, which was recorded over a period of two days in David Percefull's Yellow Dog Studios with a full band capturing a live sound in one day and the engineering and mastering done over the next day. The record was released in a digital only format, with a limited number of physical versions available.
Also in 2015, Jenkins released Brandon Jenkins @ Radio Recorders, which he recorded for Pride Hutchison and Dale Lawton's Tulsa-based label, Explosive Records. The record was made in 2006 in the Southern California record studio called Radio Recorders.[20] Since Jenkins' music was firmly in the Texas country genre, this record was held onto for release, some nine years later.
Jenkins recorded The Flag, in 2016 which again with long-time collaborator, Dave Percefull. This was recorded in Wimberley, Texas, in the Texas Hill Country, and features Dony Wynn, Bukka Allen (son of Terry Allen) on accordion, and Kim Deschamps on lap steel and dobro.
In 2016, Jenkins moved from Austin to Nashville, Tennessee where his career would be based from until his death in 2018.
Jenkins' song "My Feet Don't Touch The Ground" was featured on Pete Anderson's 2003 A Country West of Nashville album. The song garnered him an Emerging Artists in Music Award. The song was placed 8th on the list of "The 50 Best Red Dirt Texas Country Songs" of the Dallas Observer, and helped his career significantly.
Fellow Red Dirt artists Bleu Edmondson (“Finger On The Trigger”) and Stoney LaRue ("Feet Don't Touch The Ground") recorded and performed songs written by Jenkins. The song, "Feet Don’t Touch The Ground," was praised by KKCN as being one of the top 5 recorded songs by Stoney LaRue, and features on his album Live at Billy Bob's Texas. His song "Down in Flames," co-written by Stoney LaRue, appeared on The Red Dirt Album.
One of Jenkins' notable songs, "Refinery Blues," was a biographical ballad about growing up near the Sand Springs Line, an area where oil refineries about the Arkansas River tributary of the Mississippi River. The song describes the devastating effect the refineries and their pollutants had on generations of families in the area.
In addition to writing hits for several of his fellow "brothers of the dirt," Jenkins had songs at the top of the Texas Music Radio Charts.
Jenkins cited the influence of the "Tulsa Sound" of J. J. Cale and Leon Russell on his songs and said that the songwriting gives him the most satisfaction.
Jenkins also cited the life and music of Woody Guthrie as being an important part of his approach to music and focusing on people and their lives in the Oklahoma region.
Jenkins went by the Red Dirt Legend. He was married to Michele Angelique Jenkins until his death in 2018.
Jenkins was a supporter of the Red Dirt Relief Fund, a non-profit organization that supports musicians from the Red Dirt family of artists who face financial hardship.
On February 21, 2018, Jenkins was hospitalized in Nashville and underwent surgery to replace his aorta and aortic valve. After the procedure, he experienced surgical complications and remained hospitalized until his death on March 2, 2018 at the age of 48.
Discography
Albums
Title Album details Reference
Faded
Release date: April 13, 1996
Label: Red Dirt Legend Recordings
The Ghost Of Jesse James
Release date: August 8, 1999
Label: Red Dirt Legend Recordings
Live at the Blue Door
Release date: 2000
Label: Red Dirt Legend Recordings
Unmended
Release date: 2002
Label: Red Dirt Legend Recordings
Down In Flames
Release date: April 5, 2005
Label: Thirty Tigers
VII
Release date: 2006
Label: Smith Entertainment
Faster Than A Stone
Release date: 2008
Label: Smith Entertainment
Tough Times Don't Last
Release date: July 2008
(originally released in February 1994)
Label: Smith Entertainment
Brothers Of The Dirt
Release date: 2009
Label: E1 Music
Under The Sun
Release date: 2011
Label: Smith Entertainment
I Stand Alone
Release date: May, 2014
Label: Red River Entertainment
Blue Bandana
Release date: February 16, 2015
Label: Red Dirt Legend Recordings
Brandon Jenkins @ Radio Recorders
Release date: June 22, 2015
Label: Explosive Records
Glass House Sessions
Release date: August 12, 2015
Label: Red Dirt Legend Recordings
The Flag
Release date: April 5, 2016
Label: Red Dirt Legend Recordings
Contributions
2003: Various Artists, A Country West Of Nashville (Little Dog) – "My Feet Don't Touch the Ground"
2006: Various Artists, Red Dirt Sampler: Volume II. Songs in the Spirit of Woody Guthrie (CD Baby) – "Refinery Blues," also Producer
2006: Route 66: Songs of the Mother Road (CD Baby) – "Headin' Down That Mother Road"
Taken from the Brandon Jenkins website bio:
“I’ve always thought Red Dirt was less about a sound, and more about a brotherhood of musicians with a common goal; not only to make music, but music with a message,” says Jenkins. “Bob Childers, Jimmy LaFave, Tom Skinner, The Great Divide and so many others have helped to shape and form this rapidly growing genre, bringing in the convictions of Woody Guthrie, and the swank and swagger of the Outlaw Country and Southern Rock movements”.
Jenkins new album Brothers Of The Dirt definitely carries on in that tradition with a wide variety of style and influence, bringing in artists at the forefront of the new charge — Stoney LaRue, Jason Boland, Cody Canada, Mike McClure, and mixing them in with others that helped to influence the genre —Steve Pryor, Ron Morgan, Pat Savage, Brad Absher just to name just a few. As with previous releases, Jenkins shows on Brothers of the Dirt, his ninth, why he is the premier songwriter of the Red Dirt movement, writing all 12 songs on the disc, including co-writes with Randy Rogers, Brady Black, Scott Hutchison, and Bob Wiles.
With a voice as big as Texas and guitar chops (and beard) that would make Billy Gibbons proud, Jenkins takes his rightful place as one of the shining stars of not only Red Dirt, but American music. Jenkins is the flagship artist for Red Dirt / E1 Music, a label which has been created by E1 Entertainment specifically geared to cultivate red dirt music to a broader audience.
Since moving to Austin, Texas in 2003 Jenkins has had a phenomenal run of success with 8 hit singles on the Texas Music Chart including “Feet Don’t Touch The Ground“, “Finger On The Trigger“, “Down In Flames“ “The Whole World’s Gone Crazy”, “Why Did We Ever Say Goodbye” and “Call Of The Road.” His album Faster Than A Stone spent 13 weeks on the national AMA Chart, and Jenkins’ songs have been cut by LaRue, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Bleu Edmondson, and Lester Chambers, among others
Refinery Blues
Brandon Jenkins Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Churnin out black smoke
Where I can't breathe
One of these days
I'm gonna leave
And move away from this refinery
My grandpa broke his back
Back before the old smoke stack
Would turn the skies from blue to black
My backyard's a refinery
Churnin out black smoke
Where I can't breathe
One of these days
I'm gonna leave
And move away from this refinery
Poppa told me son
Things are gonna get better
Just as soon as we get enough money to leave
Yeah...
My backyard's a refinery
My daddy passed away
And left the place to me
Nobody lives past 53
Livin' next door to this refinery
Try to tell my son
Things are gonna get better
Just as soon as we get enough money to leave
Yeah...
My backyard's a refinery
Churnin out black smoke
Where I can't breathe
Too sick to work
Too poor to leave
I guess I'm gonna die
By this refinery
I guess I'm gonna die
By this refinery
God don't let me die
By this refinery
The lyrics to Brandon Jenkins's song "Refinery Blues" paint a bleak, yet all too common, picture of the reality for many individuals living adjacent to oil refineries. The song tells the story of three generations of a family working hard, but never really prospering, due to their proximity to a refinery. The first verse describes the singer's own backyard as a refinery, emitting black smoke and inhibiting his ability to breathe. He dreams of leaving this life behind, hoping to abandon this refinery and all of the burdens it has placed upon him.
The second verse explains the story of the singer's grandfather, who worked for 20 years for a minuscule three-room shack. This was in the days before the smokestack turned the skies black, when the skies were still a pristine blue. The point of this story is to illustrate just how long his family has been tied to this industry, and how little they have to show for it.
The third verse describes the singer's father who has passed away and left the refinery in the hands of his son. Sadly, the singer realizes that nobody ever lives past 53 when living next door to this refinery, implying that nobody ever really thrives in this environment. The final verse explains that the singer is too sick to work and too poor to leave; he has resolved himself to die by this refinery. However, he still pleads with God to not let him perish in this way.
Overall, "Refinery Blues" serves as a powerful reminder of the environmental and health impacts of oil refineries on individuals and communities. The song paints a bleak picture of the cyclical poverty and illness that can result from living adjacent to these industrial behemoths.
Line by Line Meaning
My backyard's a refinery
The singer's living situation is characterized by a refinery in his backyard.
Churnin out black smoke
The refinery produces a lot of pollution and releases it into the air.
Where I can't breathe
The pollution in the air is making it difficult for the singer to breathe.
One of these days
At some point in the future.
I'm gonna leave
The artist plans on moving away from this living situation because of the pollution.
And move away from this refinery
The singer plans on leaving the area near the refinery to improve his quality of life.
My grandpa broke his back
The singer's grandfather became severely injured.
Twenty long years for a three room shack
It took 20 years of hard work for the artist's grandpa to afford a small home.
Back before the old smoke stack
This happened before the refinery was built and began producing pollution.
Would turn the skies from blue to black
The refinery creates so much pollution that it transforms the sky's color from blue to black.
Poppa told me son
The singer's father gives him advice.
Things are gonna get better
The father thinks the family's situation will improve in the future.
Just as soon as we get enough money to leave
The family needs to save up enough money to move somewhere else before things will get better.
My daddy passed away
The singer's father died.
And left the place to me
The singer inherited the family home after his father passed away.
Nobody lives past 53
Living in close proximity to the refinery drastically lowers the average lifespan of people in the area.
Livin' next door to this refinery
The artist lives near the refinery.
Try to tell my son
The singer wants to explain something to his child.
Too sick to work
The singer is too ill to work regularly.
Too poor to leave
The artist cannot afford to move away from the refinery.
I guess I'm gonna die
The artist believes that his life will end soon, possibly from the pollution caused by the refinery.
God don't let me die
The artist pleads with God to allow him to live longer and not be a victim of the refinery's pollution.
By this refinery
The singer wants to clarify that he is specifically worried about dying from the effects of living next to the refinery in his backyard.
Contributed by Emma N. Suggest a correction in the comments below.