Before country star Charley Crockett hit the road on his 2025 tour, he made a stop in the small Texas town of Ransom Canyon. The singer appears as himself — and performs two of his hits, “Spade” and “I Need Your Love” — in the new romantic Western, which debuted April 17.
Star Minka Kelly was so enthralled during Crockett’s performance at the dance hall owned by her character, Quinn, that she had to remind herself that she was not actually at a concert. “Charley Crockett was so cool,” she tells Tudum. “Shooting that scene, I was like, ‘You’re working, stop watching the show.’ ”
Crockett can also count Kelly’s costar Josh Duhamel as a new listener. “I became a huge fan of Charley Crockett,” Duhamel says. “There really is something magical about when you find the right piece of music with the right visual and they just go together so beautifully. It’s unbelievable what music can do and how much it can really lift the viewing experience.”
The mind behind the needle drops in Ransom Canyon is Madonna Wade-Reed, who’s been working with showrunner April Blair since her first series. Wade-Reed’s fingerprints are all over Jane by Design, Reign, All American, and now Ransom Canyon. “She brings something different to every show,” Blair explains. “For needle drops, we tried to not lean too hard into full country. We were trying to do some sort of blend. But with anything that was in the dance hall, or the live performances, we tried to go full Texas dance hall music.”
Kelly’s character, Quinn, is a former concert pianist who lived in New York City for many years before heading back to her small Texas hometown. While that background means her taste might be a little more eclectic, this is still Texas. Blair tells Tudum that Wade-Reed accounted for that difference in her song selection. “She really locked in on how we could use country music, but take into account that Quinn is a musician and her taste would be a little different. We always tried to find the indie country stuff, and that was a lot of fun.”
In addition to the Ransom Canyon needle drops, there’s also an evocative score by composer Jeff Cardoni using a “purely acoustic sound palette,” he told Netflix, that includes “electric guitars, pianos, rubber bridge guitars, bowed and e-bowed strings, and some other location-recorded ambient sounds.” Cardoni also composed the piano pieces that Quinn performs. And while Kelly isn’t a musician herself — “piano is my dream instrument to know how to play,” she says — she did learn some of Cardoni’s compositions by memory. “I have a few of them now in my arsenal, which I feel really cool about. [I can play them] maybe not so great and a little badly, but I can impress my friends now when they come over.”
Listen to Cardoni’s Ransom Canyon score below, and read on for a list of needle drops in Season 1 followed by a playlist of the biggest tracks. Ransom Canyon is now streaming on Netflix.
Episode 101
Brophy, Josh Johnson “I Got You”
Gavin DeGraw “Greatest of All Time”
Ryan Oakes “Espresso”
Graffiti Royale “Radio”
Yam Haus “Color You In”
Modern Aquatic “Blondie”
Tumbleweed Wanderers “Bad Blood”
Episode 102
Hootie & the Blowfish “Only Wanna Be With You”
Mehro “Who Are You”
Episode 103
Khruangbin & Leon Bridges “Texas Sun”
O.N.E The Duo “Feels Good”
Chris Stapleton “Second One To Know”
Savvy & Mandy “Wildfire”
Ethan Tucker “High Time”
Livingmore “Dreams on Fire”
Charley Crockett “Spade”
Charley Crockett “I Need Your Love”
Bombay Beach Revival “Your Daddy Gave Me a Motorcycle”
Episode 104
King Green “One Million Dollars”
Delilah Montagu “Orange”
Sir Augie “Hola”
Sierra Ferrell “Fox Hunt”
Cedric Burnside “We Made It”
Josh Logan “Here We Go”
The Red Clay Strays “Devil in My Ear”
Episode 105
The Secret Sisters “All the Ways (feat. Ray Lamontagne)”
Larkin Poe “Bleach Blonde Bottle Blues”
Kari Kimmel “Bad Bad Man”
Sherilyn “I’m Back”
Black River Delta “Rodeo”
Grand Am “Keep Burning”
Mississippi Twilight “Coming on Strong”
Aron Wright “Home”
Beacon Light x Club Danger “Show Me What You Got”
Katie Sevigny “With Fire”
Episode 106
D&RG “Who’s Gonna Save You Now”
Brother Thunder “Betting It All On You”
Lew Apollo “Queen of Spades”
José González “Teardrop”
Episode 107
Gin Soaked Boy “Satisfies My Soul”
Little Fevers “Big House”
Smashing Pumpkins “Tonight, Tonight”
Episode 108
Black Water Gospel “Lost for the Weekend”
Brother Thunder “Hard Times”
The Regulators “Got My Eye on You”
Charles Wesley Godwin “West of Lonesome”
EJ Sarà “Boomerang”
Cat Power “Stay”
Episode 109
Patrick Martin “Lean In”
Beck “Thinking About You”
Half Moon Run “Crawl Back In”
Amanda Stone “Tom-Tom”
Mazzy Star “Into Dust”
Episode 110
Katie Garfield “Faith in Me”
The Hanseroth Twins “Remember Me”
Walker Hayes “Fancy Like”
Zach Top “The Kinda Woman I Like”
Jason & The Haymakers “White Trash Weekend”
Moontricks “Wood for the Trees”
Humbear “Fall In”
