This week's program brings together three different musical traditions – classical guitar, folk, and music inspired flat landscapes of the Texas panhandle. Hayden Pedigo grew up in Amarillo, and lives in Lubbock, nowadays – sadly, as he jokes. But Lubbock has produced some of our best Texas musicians, including Buddy Holly, Joe Ely, Terry Allen, and Natalie Maines. "The joke is, the reason why Lubbock had better music than Amarillo was it was so boring, that people had to find things to do, and a reason to get out of there," Pedigo told TPR's Rob Martinez during an on-stage interview at the Lonesome Lounge, where he played a set of solo acoustic and electric guitar pieces in February, 2022.
Pedigo's music beautifully evokes the wide open spaces of the Panhandle plains, even using one instrument.
"To be honest, I struggle with guitar," Pedigo explained. "I'm not a natural. Every time I play, I struggle and I just kind of wanted to battle this thing. I'd always had these issues of not feeling confident [in] my guitar playing... and I wanted to wrangle an album of guitar playing. It's like wrangling this wild horse!"
Beyond music, Hayden also toys around online, and a fake campaign video he once posted led to an actual run for Amarillo's city council. He didn't win, but found the process inspiring nonetheless.
"I tried not to get too caught up on the idea of winning, because you miss out on the other victories that can come with just running," he said. "It's setting example for younger people to attempt it. And the the craziest thing is, you can run for public office in Amarillo... if you're 17 years old, as long as you're 18 on the day you're sworn in. So it's like a literal like high school student could run for mayor, or city council. And I think that's important for kids to see that they can do it. You're not you might not win, but still, it's a big statement just to run."
Find Hayden Pedigo on his Bandcamp page here.
