Imperative Entertainment announces new podcast series Standoff

Imperative Entertainment is excited to announce Standoff, a new podcast series that tells the incredible true story behind one of America’s most notorious hostage crises and the man at the center of it.

The ten-episode series will premiere on March 21 on all major podcast platforms (weekly), and the full series will be available to binge at launch – all ad-free – on the Imperative Entertainment Premium Channel on Apple Podcast Subscriptions.

Standoff follows Fred Gomez Carrasco, a drug cartel kingpin and orchestrator of the 1974 Huntsville, Texas, prison siege. The siege was one of the most infamous hostage crises in American history and played out in dramatic fashion over 11 days, all in front of a terrified national audience. One hundred hours of audio containing the actual hostage negotiations and the deadly shoot-out tell the story like never before.

Standoff is created and hosted by Wes Ferguson, whose 2019 article When ‘Angels in America’ Came to East Texas, for Texas Monthly, was a finalist for a National Magazine Award in Feature Writing and is being developed as a limited series for HBO Max. Standoff is produced by Imperative Entertainment, and Jason Hoch, President of Podcasts for Imperative Entertainment, is Executive Producer.  Shaine Freeman is Sound Engineer.

The series features Grammy-award winning artists Max Baca, who created the original score for the series; Flaco Jimenez, who plays accordion; and Ray Benson, who sings the main theme, “Huntsville,” originally released by Merle Haggard and the Strangers in 1971.  Four original 1970s corridos about Fred Carrasco are featured in the series.

This is Imperative Entertainment’s second podcast series based in Texas, the first being Boomtown, created alongside Texas Monthly. Boomtown is the basis of the recently greenlit Paramount+ TV series Land Man, from Taylor Sheridan and starring Billy Bob Thornton.

Imperative Entertainment's podcast division successfully launched in the fall of 2019. Thus far, their series include The Comeback featuring Sylvester Stallone, The Agent, Bonaparte, Raven,  Fox Hunter, The World Beneath, American Coyote, The Red Note, and La Nota Roja, TRUE, In the Red Clay, The Syndicate, American Skyjacker: The Final Flight of Martin McNally, The Baron of Botox, Boomtown, and Gangster House.