Old Crow Medicine Show

Old Crow Medicine Show

Performing on A Prairie Home Companion in 2014
Background information
Origin Harrisonburg, Virginia
Genres Old-time, folk, alt-country, Americana
Years active 1998present
Labels Nettwerk
ATO Records
MapleMusic Recordings (Canada)
Associated acts Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Mumford & Sons, The Felice Brothers, Justin Townes Earle, The Hackensaw Boys, Jason White
Website Official Site
Members Ketch Secor
Critter Fuqua
Kevin Hayes
Morgan Jahnig
Chance McCoy
Cory Younts
Past members Ben Gould
Matt Kinman[n 1]
Willie Watson
Gill Landry

Old Crow Medicine Show is an Americana string band based in Nashville, Tennessee. Its music has been called old-time, folk, and alt-country. Along with original songs, the band performs many pre-World War II blues and folk songs. It has recorded since 1998. Bluegrass musician Doc Watson discovered it while its members were busking outside a pharmacy in Boone, North Carolina[i 1] in 2000.[i 2] With an old-time string sound fueled by punk rock energy,[2][3] it has influenced acts like Mumford & Sons[4][5] and contributed to a revival of banjo-picking string bands playing Americana music[5]—leading to variations on it.[3][6]

The band released five studio albums—O.C.M.S. (2004), Big Iron World (2006), Tennessee Pusher (2008), Carry Me Back (2012),[7] and Remedy (2014).[8] Their song "Wagon Wheel", written by frontman Ketch Secor through a co-authoring arrangement with Bob Dylan,[9] was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in April 2013[10] and has been covered by a number of acts, including Darius Rucker, who made the song a top 40 hit.[11]

The band was featured along with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Mumford and Sons in the music documentary Big Easy Express, which won a Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video in 2013.[w 1] They performed on the Railroad Revival Tour across the U.S. in 2011.[12] They appeared at the Stagecoach Festival 2013[13] and multiple times at other major festivals, e.g., Bonnaroo Music Festival, MerleFest,[w 2]:2000:2004:2008:2014 Telluride Bluegrass Festival,[w 3] Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival,[w 4]:2004:2009 and Newport Folk Festival.[l 1][l 2]

They make frequent guest appearances on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. The group received the 2013 Trailblazer Award from the Americana Music Association, performing at the Americana Honors & Awards Show.[14] They were formally inducted into the Grand Ole Opry at a special ceremony at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville on September 17, 2013.[15] Old Crow Medicine Show's songs are represented by Downtown Music Publishing.

History

Early

Little Grill Collective in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Ketch Secor and Critter Fuqua[7] first met in the seventh grade in Harrisonburg, Virginia and began playing music together.[5] They performed open mics at the Little Grill diner,[9] as did Robert St. Ours who went on to found The Hackensaw Boys. Secor's early influences included "driving up to Mt. Jackson, VA to the bluegrass Saturday night in the summer. And going up to Davis and Elkins College to participate in the Old Time Music week there, and meeting guys like Richie Stearns."[9] Secor formed the Route 11 Boys with St. Ours and his brothers, and performed often at Little Grill.

Willie Watson first met Ben Gould in high school in Watkins Glen, New York (Schuyler County), and began playing music together. Both Watson and Gould dropped out of school and formed the band The Funnest Game.[n 2] Their brand of electric/old-time was heavily influenced by the old-time music scene prominent in Tompkins and Schuyler County, New York, including The Horse Flies and The Highwoods Stringband.

"Wagon Wheel"

Main article: Wagon Wheel (song)

Fuqua, school friend and future bandmate, first brought home a Bob Dylan bootleg from a family trip to London containing a rough outtake called "Rock Me, Mama" (from the "Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid" soundtrack sessions) and passed it to Secor.[i 3] Not "so much a song as a sketch, crudely recorded featuring most prominently a stomping boot, the candy-coated chorus and a mumbled verse that was hard to make out",[17] the tune kept going through Secor's mind. A few months later, while attending Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, and "feeling homesick for the South," he added verses about "hitchhiking his way home full of romantic notions put in his head by the Beat poets and, most of all, Dylan." Dylan was a major influence on the young musician, as he puts it:

"I listened to Bob Dylan and nothing else. Nothin' but Bob for four years. It was like schooling. Every album and every outtake of every album and every live record I could get my hands on and every show I could go see live. I was a teenager who was really turned on to Bob."[17]

The Dylan outtake, generally titled "Rock Me Mama", came out of recording sessions for the Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid movie soundtrack (1973) in Burbank, California.[18] Secor says it ". . was an outtake of something he had mumbled out on one of those tapes. I sang it all around the country from about 17 to 26, before I ever even thought, 'oh I better look into this.'"[9]

When Secor sought copyright on the song in 2003 to release it on O.C.M.S. in (2004), he discovered Dylan credited the phrase “Rock me, mama” to bluesman Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, who likely got it from a Big Bill Broonzy recording. As Secor says: "In a way, it's taken something like 85 years to get completed."[19] Secor and Dylan signed a co-writing agreement, and share copyright[w 5] on the song; agreeing to a "50-50 split in authorship."[5]

Secor later met Dylan's son, Jakob, who said "it made sense that I was a teenager when I did that, because no one in their 30s would have the guts to try to write a Bob Dylan song."[19] The song would be an early entry in the group's catalog when it formed a few years later. Officially released twice, on an early EP and their second album ("O.C.M.S." in 2004), the song would become the group's signature song—going gold in 2011 and platinum in 2013.[10]

Upstate New York/Canada/North Carolina

After the breakup of the Route 11 Boys, Secor attended Ithaca College.[1][16]:5 He brought Fuqua up to New York State, where they met Willie Watson. Watson dissolved The Funnest Game and they assembled players all around Ithaca, New York "where there is a very lively old-time music scene",[n 3] including Kevin Hayes[16]:5 They recorded an album that they could sell on the road—a cassette of ten songs called Trans:mission. Fuqua says of the influence of that region . .

'Ithaca and that surrounding area was a big influence on us. We wouldn't be here without a lot of the people we met there, like Richie Stearns, the Red Hots and Mac Benford. All those old-time banjo players brought the music from the South back up to New York, and it was kind of a hotbed.'[21]

The group left Ithaca for their Trans:mission tour in October 1998. They busked their way west across Canada and circled back east again in the Spring of 1999 when they moved into a farmhouse on Beech Mountain, near Boone, North Carolina. They were embraced by the Appalachian community, and their repertoire of old-time songs grew as they played with local musicians."[1]

Busking break

Boone Drug (left) looking west down King Street, Boone, North Carolina; where the group had their big busking break.
Sculpture of Doc Watson at the corner King and Depot Streets in Boone, North Carolina; he would invite Old Crow to perform at MerleFest after hearing them at his "old corner".

One day the group were busking outside a pharmacy called Boone Drug—"playing on Doc's old corner" where he'd "started playing in the 1950s" on King Street in Boone, North Carolina[i 1]—when the daughter of folk-country legend Doc Watson (d. May 29, 2012[22]) heard them.[n 4] Certain her father would be impressed, she led the blind musician over for a listen. The group "struck up 'Oh My Little Darling', a well-known old-time song they thought Doc would like." When they finished, he said: "Boys, that was some of the most authentic old-time music I've heard in a long while. You almost got me crying."[1] Doc invited the band to participate in his annual MerleFest music festival[n 5] in Wilkesboro, North Carolina[i 4] (for 2000).[w 2]:2000

To Secor: "That gig changed our lives and we look to it as a pivotal turning point as Old Crow Medicine Show.[i 5] He and Fuqua have written a song "about Doc Watson. About being on the corner in Boone and him discovering us. It honors Doc and the high country blues sound."[i 6]

Busking has "always been our heart and soul," claims Secor. "Our performance comes out of all those years spent cutting our teeth on the street corner."[24] The earliest beginnings of the group involved busking in the Northeast U.S., attracting fresh talent. Guitjo player Kevin Hayes—originally from Haverhill, Massachusetts—was in Bar Harbor, Maine raking blueberries when he encountered Secor "on the street in front of a jewelry store playing the banjo."[16]:5 Bassist Morgan Jahnig joined the group[n 6] as a result of a "random" encounter with early Old Crow performing on the streets of Nashville in 2000.[i 7] Guitarist Gill Landry first met the group in 2000 while both were street performing during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, joining full-time in 2007.[i 8]

To promote Carry Me Back Home (2012), the group did a series of "guerilla" shows around Nashville, including busking in front of the Ryman Auditorium where they performed "Sewanee Mountain Catfight" for an "unsuspecting crowd of tourists."[25]

Grand Ole Opry

The big busking break led to the act's relocation to Nashville in October 2000.[1][n 7] At MerleFest, Secor explains, Sally Williams "from the Grand Ole Opry . . invited us to participate in some summer music events at the Grand Ole Opry House doing our street act, our busking, and that's why we came to Nashville . ."[i 1] Williams first booked them for "an Opryland Plaza outdoor show."[27] In Nashville they were "embraced and mentored" by Marty Stuart, the president of the Grand Ole Opry, who first spied the group at the Nashville-area Uncle Dave Macon Days festival and added them to his "Electric Barnyard old-fashioned country variety package show bus tour" with acts like Merle Haggard, Connie Smith, and BR5-49. Soon they were opening for "everyone from Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton to Ricky Skaggs and Del McCoury . ."[27]

The Ryman Auditorium on 116 5th Avenue North in Nashville, Tennessee, known as "The Mother Church of Country Music".

The group made their Grand Ole Opry debut at the Ryman Auditorium, "The Mother Church of Country Music", in January 2001. Given just four minutes on stage, they played their original "Tear It Down"—a "singing jug-band romp about punishing infidelity"[1]—and received a "rare first-time-out standing ovation, and a call for an encore."[27] In August 2013, Stuart unexpectedly appeared onstage at the Ohio Theatre in Cleveland, where the group was performing, to invite them to become official members of the Opry.[28] They were formally inducted at a special ceremony at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, September 17, 2013.[15]

Nettwerk

Shortly after their Opry debut, the group signed with Bobby Cudd at Monterey Peninsula Artists,[n 8] who also represented Robert Earl Keen, the Dave Matthews Band, Chris Isaak, Aerosmith, and Fiona Apple. They went on their "first real tour" May 2001, opening for the Del McCoury band.[1] Appearances at the 2003 South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin—a "scene" that's "all about getting behind young artists", as Secor puts it—led to the group being signed by Nettwerk,[16]:2 securing their recording future for the next several years. Their first Nettwerk offering, Old Crow Medicine Show in 2004 (popularly known as O.C.M.S.), was produced by Dave Rawlings and mixes "old blues and jug band music with originals that fit smoothly into the tradition"—including the Fuqua "Take 'em Away"[n 9] and Secor "Wagon Wheel".[n 10] More than 100,000 copies of O.C.M.S. were sold, behind a "rigorous tour schedule and a memorable live show"; what CMT regarded as "an impressive number for a new band that didn't know much about record deals and everything that goes with it."[30]

Big Iron World (2006), another Rawlings production, added a sense of urgency on new songs like "I Hear Them All". They recorded Tennessee Pusher (2008) in Hollywood with producer Don Was, "rocking harder" with "Alabama High Test" and "Methamphetamine".[7] Secor says the band "figured they'd take some leftover material from the first album, add a few traditional songs and suddenly have a new record." But, he says . .

". . it wasn't that easy. Pretty soon, after we realized that that wasn't going to work that way, the gods up above started sending down some lightning bolts of good music and we were able to collect some new material—write some and craft some—that has made the record what it is."[30]

Starting with an appearance on radio show A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor in 2004 [w 9] they've had a recurring engagement with the show, including several appearances in the show's home state of Minnesota and special live shows—including the Hollywood Bowl and a New Year's Eve show at the Ryman. They've participated in three of the show's Cinecasts, all from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, "seen on movie screens across North America."[w 10][w 11]

Justin Townes Earle and Gillian Welch appear at debut show for The Big Surprise Tour at Casino Ballroom in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire August 4, 2009.

The Big Surprise Tour featuring Old Crow, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, the Felice Brothers, and Justin Townes Earle kicked off in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire August 2009. The "nine-stop tour" included shows in Knoxville, Nashville, Boston, New York and Philadelphia—and "mark(ed) the first major showcasing of the Dave Rawlings Machine."[31]

In April 2011 the group joined Mumford and Sons and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros on The Railroad Revival Tour, a tour inspired by the Festival Express tour across Canada in 1970 that included Buddy Guy, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, and The Band.[12] Traveling exclusively in vintage rail cars, the three bands performed in six "unique outdoor locations" over the course of a week starting in Oakland, California.[w 12] They appear in the musical documentary about the tour, Big Easy Express directed by Emmett Malloy, which premiered March 2012 at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival (SXSW Film) in Austin, Texas[l 3]—winning the Headliner Audience Award.[32]

Ketch Secor on fiddle at benefit show for Our Community Place--Little Grill Collective in Harrisonburg, Virginia on January 14, 2012.

Big Easy Express won the Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video in 2013.[w 1]

Hiatus/Founder returns

In August 2011, the group announced they were on hiatus, cancelling three shows scheduled for the following month, with "little word from the band on whether there would continue to be a band."[r 1] Original member Willie Watson[1] left in Fall of 2011, a couple months before Fuqua returned.[i 9]

Recording of their next album had been largely done before the break.

Chris 'Critter' Fuqua performs with group on acoustic guitar at 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. on August 2, 2012.

Founding member Fuqua rejoined the group in January 2012, after leaving in 2004 "initially leaving to go to rehab for his drinking, then staying out to attend college."[33][i 10] Cory Younts, who left Old Crow a few months into 2012 to perform in Jack White's backup band Los Buzzardos[34] (or The Buzzards) on world tour to support White's album Blunderbuss,[35] returned to the group in 2013.[36][n 11]

Chance McCoy performing at What's Cookin' at The Birkbeck Tavern in Leyton, London.

Carry Me Back (2012)

Carry Me Back was released July 17, 2012 on According to Our Records (or ATO Records). Founded by Dave Matthews and his business manager Coran Capshaw in 2000 as a division of RCA Records. Recorded at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville, the album was produced by Ted Hutt who had worked with Gaslight Anthem, Dropkick Murphys, and Flogging Molly.[w 13] The name derives from "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny”, former official state song of Virginia.[37]

The song "Levi" is "about a soldier who grew up in the wild hillbilly woods of Virginia."[r 2] First Lieutenant Leevi Barnard—from Ararat, Virginia—on his first tour of duty overseas with the National Guard, was "killed by a suicide bomber"[r 2] in Baghdad’s Dora Market in 2009.[i 11] Near the end of the NPR broadcast, where Secor first heard the story in 2009, several of the late lieutenant's friends,[37] part of the funeral congregation,[i 5] "broke into Barnard's favorite song" . . "Wagon Wheel".[37] "Genevieve" by Landry is "an evocative eulogy of a Creole queen who steals a young man's heart."[r 2]

The album "sold over 17,000 copies in its debut week, landing at #22 on the Billboard Albums Chart, leading to both the band's best ever sales week and their highest ever charting position. It was #1 on both the Bluegrass and Folk charts and is the #4 Country album in the nation"[w 13] (as of July 31, 2012). To promote the album, the group played five unannounced shows at historical locations around Nashville (including one surprise show in front of Ryman Auditorium)[25] and toured July/August 2012 with The Lumineers, The Milk Carton Kids, and Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three visiting such cities as: Louisville, Cincinnati, Nashville, Richmond, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Atlanta.[w 13]

American Songwriter, and London-based The Independent and The Financial Times, each gave the album 4 out of 5 stars.[r 3][r 4][r 5] To Secor the album "is as close as that original inspiration to be in a band as when we first got started. It's very much the root of our sound."[38]

"Carry Me Back exploits a kaleidoscopic galaxy of joyous old-timey string sounds updated for the 21st century."[r 2]
Dave Dawson, Nu Country
Kevin Hayes plays guitjo with Old Crow Medicine Show at Tivoli Theatre in Chattanooga, Tennessee on May 5, 2010, adding a unique sound.

Chance McCoy—who grew up in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, but was born in Washington, D.C.[39]—joined just prior to the Carry Me Back promotional tour in 2012. As a teacher of old-time music at Augusta Heritage Center of Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia he'd attracted the attention of the group who "wanted to get Old Crow back together and on the road again."[i 12] "He got the gig" because Secor "knew that anyone who worked at Augusta knew all about old-time music."[36]

Remedy (2014)

Remedy was released in July 2014 by ATO Records and produced by Ted Hutt—who produced their previous studio record. The album features a collaboration with Bob Dylan, “Sweet Amarillo”, and ballads “Dearly Departed Friend” and “Firewater”, the latter written by Fuqua.[40]

Musical style

"The sound is invigorating on their recordings, but at a live show the fiddle, banjo, and harmonica are practically on fire, creating a crazy, addictive mix of some of the best traditional music America has to offer with the intensity of a modern-day rock show."[6]

Elizabeth Pandolfi, Charleston City Paper

Variously described as old-time, Americana, bluegrass, alt-country, and "Folk-Country", the group started out infusing old Appalachian sounds with new punk energy. Country Music Television notes their "tunes from jug bands and traveling shows, back porches and dance halls, southern Appalachian string music and Memphis blues."[w 14] Gabrielle Gray, executive director of the International Bluegrass Music Museum—who sponsors ROMP: Bluegrass Roots & Branches Festival, which Old Crow headlined one night in 2012—holds the group "is in the direction of progressive bluegrass."[l 4] Their live touring show has been described as a "folk-bluegrass-alt-country blend."[r 6]

"We just knew we wanted to combine the technical side of the old sound with the energy of a Nirvana," states Fuqua.[i 13] Starting from old-time music in the Appalachian hills, the group found themselves "making a foray into electric instruments and 'really knocking up the rock 'n' roll tree' on their 2008 release 'Tennessee Pusher'." On the documentary "Big Easy Express" about the Railroad Revival Tour with Mumford & Sons and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros they "practice(d) a complementary variation of folk" bringing "a pleasingly smoky amalgam of country, bluegrass, and blues."[r 7] With "Carry Me Back" (2012) they've "circled back to the original sound that so excited (Secor) and Fuqua as kids . . full of old-timey string sounds updated for the 21st century — sing-a-longs that lift the soul, ballads that rend the heart and a few moments of pure exhilaration."[38]

Songwriting

"It takes a lot to figure out how to keep one foot in old time and one foot in all time. It's a bit of a dance to be rooted and modern at the same time. I think we've figured out how to write those songs that sound like they were sung by some campfire 85 years ago, but sound good blasted from the stereo of a Ford Ranchero in a Burger King parking lot somewhere outside of Enid."[24]

Ketch Secor

Early on the group didn't perform songs they'd written, instead drawing on a storehouse of pre-war jug band, string band, minstrel show, blues and folk fare. As with other young groups in the genre, driven by all that punk music energy, they played this old material "fast and hard".[41] When they started writing original material they distinguished themselves "from the crowded field of New Wave string bands as genuine stars. And both groups have done it by writing new songs more ambitious than mere rewrites of old hillbilly and blues numbers."[41] Songs they write often have a socially conscious theme, such as "I Hear Them All", "Ways Of Man", "Ain't It Enough", and "Levi".

Secor admits to developing "the habit of writing what he calls 'stolen melody songs'"—in much the same way he'd created "Wagon Wheel", carrying on in the folk tradition—"like when he penned fresh, war tax-themed lyrics to a tune that had already passed through other wholesale re-writes during its descent from old-time Scots-Irish balladry."[33] Dave Rawlings states: "I've always thought that a really important thing that the Old Crow Medicine Show brought to the table was new songs—some reinterpreted old ones, some really nicely written and brand new—with the old flavor, but also with that vitality."[31]

Influences

An early Secor influence was John Hartford who performed for his first grade class in Missouri, making him want "to play the banjo after that;"[i 1] and the first song he ever learned to play was Tom Paxton's "Ramblin' Boy".[16]:6 Guns N' Roses was Fuqua's "first influence": when they released Appetite for Destruction (1987), while he was in seventh grade, he knew he wanted to be a musician. He also claims AC/DC and Nirvana as influences "and then into blues and then into more obscure fiddlers. Some Conjunto from down in San Antonio."[i 14] "Take 'Em Away", written when he was 17, is "loosely based on Mance Lipscomb, a blues singer and sharecropper from Navasota County" who he says "was a big influence on me."[i 14]

Gill Landry plays resonator guitar with Old Crow Medicine Show at 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. on August 2, 2012.

Naming his major influences, Secor states: "Certainly, Bob Dylan . . Bob Dylan . . Bob Dylan. More than anything else. More than any book or song or story or play. The work and the recorded work of Bob Dylan. It's the most profound influence on me. And then the other people that really influenced me tend to be the same people who influenced Bob Dylan."[i 1] Fuqua concurs on Dylan's influence:

"He's a link to Woody Guthrie, who's a link to an even earlier form of American music history. He's . . a great doorway for all sorts of artists because he's not just folk, or just rock. . . I think bands like us, Mumford and Sons, and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are sort of doing what he has done before, in that we take our own experiences and observations and put them into songs made of traditional, American roots form. That form is still a great vehicle for songs, whether the song is about love, the Iraq War or anything else."[i 14]

The Dylan doorway led to the first recordings of the New Lost City Ramblers, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Canned Heat, The Lovin' Spoonful, Dylan and The Band in the basement, and the Grateful Dead.[27]

Impact

"While it would be going a bit far to say Old Crow sparked a full-blown folk revival, these guys have contributed mightily to a major shift in youthful attitudes toward ownership, authenticity and what it means to feel included in a musical experience: lyrics don't have to be strict autobiography to connect; songs don't have to be entirely original to showcase originality; and younger generations need not turn up their noses at music that doesn't treat them like they're at the center of the universe."[33]

Jewly Hight, American Songwriter

When Secor, Fuqua, and company first got together "old-timey pickers their age were few and far between. Modern rock was still a force to be reckoned with. Now hard-driving string bands are where it's at."[42] Fuqua recalls:

"When we started the band in '98, you didn't see anybody our age playing banjos or upright basses or fiddles, or playing this music. I mean, you did if you went to the fiddle festivals at Mt. Airy or in Galax, Virginia. But . . now you throw a stone in any direction . . you'll hit someone in a band who's . . playing banjo or playing these old-time tunes."[42]

To Americana Music Association (AMA) President Jed Hilly, the historic path of Americana music passes through the group: "The baton is passed from Emmylou Harris to Gillian Welch and David Rawlings to Old Crow Medicine Show to the Avett Brothers."[42] Emmylou Harris was, in fact . .

". . among the gateway artists who helped Mumford and bandmates Ben Lovett, Ted Dwane and Winston Marshall discover their love for American roots music. It started with the 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' soundtrack . . That eventually led them to the Old Crow Medicine Show and then deep immersion in old-timey sounds from America's long-neglected past."[4]

"You can't swing a cat these days without hitting a hipster with a banjo in his hands. At least part of the credit for this phenomenon goes to Old Crow Medicine Show."[5]

Chrissie Dickinson, Chicago Tribune

Marcus Mumford, front man of Mumford & Sons, recognizes the group's influence: "I first heard Old Crow's music when I was, like, 16, 17, and that really got me into, like, folk music, bluegrass. I mean, I'd listened to a lot of Dylan, but I hadn't really ventured into the country world so much. So Old Crow were the band that made me fall in love with country music."[33] Mumford acknowledges in "Big Easy Express", Emmett Malloy's "moving documentary" about the vintage train tour they'd invited Old Crow to join them on, that "the band inspired them to pick up the banjo and start their now famous country nights in London."

Old Crow received the 2013 Trailblazer Award from the Americana Music Association.[14]

Awards, honors, distinctions

Commemorations

Festivals

Ketch Secor on harmonica with Morgan Jahnig of Old Crow Medicine Show perform onstage at the Golden Plains Festival in Meredith, Australia on March 8, 2009.

Broadcast

Film

Members

Current members of the band are:[w 25]

Former members of the band are:

Discography

Studio albums

Year Album Peak chart positions Label ASIN
US Grass US Country US US
Heat
US
Indie
US
Folk
1998 Trans:mission (cassette)A
2000 Greetings from WawaA Blood Donor
2001 Eutaw 6 Blood Donor
2003 Live
2004 O.C.M.S.B 1 68 Nettwerk B00019JQHI
2006 Big Iron WorldC 1 27 125 2 B000FNO1DE
2008 Tennessee PusherD 1 7 50 B001DXF9MM
2012 Carry Me Back 1 4 22 5 1 ATO Records B0082LUEJQ
2014 Remedy 4 15 2 1

EPs

Contributions

Solo

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Old Crow Medicine Show.

Notes

  1. A "thirty-year-old friend who had actually grown up playing old-time music, lived in an unheated room off the kitchen" at Dickerson Pike, where the group first lived in Nashville, and "occasionally played with the band" including their Opry debut.[1]
  2. A "young folksy kind of jam element acoustic band that was really popular in the southern tier region of New York State. ." as Secor describes it. Watson "was playing shows statewide by the time he was sixteen" with "this group that had some congas and some clawhammer banjo . ."[16]:7
  3. "Ithaca is known far and wide as a hotbed of what's called old-time music," says Pete "Dr. Banjo" Wernick. Adds Mac Benford: "Ithaca for 40 years has been a center of old time music, nationally."[20]
  4. Secor recounts: "In the year 2000, his daughter heard us play outside of his favorite restaurant, the Boone Drug. Doc had something he liked on the menu at the Drug, so he was often there."[i 2]
  5. Founded in 1988 in memory of Doc's son Eddy Merle Watson, who died in a farm tractor accident in 1985, as a fundraiser for Wilkes Community College and to celebrate "traditional plus" music.[w 6][23]
  6. when Ben Gould "had a baby, and couldn't swing it down south", according to Secor.[16]:7
  7. They first "occupied an inexpensive two-story house on a dead-end peninsula squeezed on three sides by highways, where the drone of passing cars was constant" on Dickerson Pike in E. Nashville "a thoroughfare best known for its whoring, drugging ways."[1][26]
  8. They would soon sign with Norm Parenteau, a Nashville agent who worked with Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss.[1]
  9. According to Fuqua, who wrote the song at 18: "The song is loosely based off Mance Lipscomb, a blues singer and sharecropper from Navasota County, and the rivers I remember as a child living in East Texas. He was a big influence on me."[i 6][w 7]
  10. Written when Secor was 17, adding verses to a Bob Dylan chorus, the song appeared earlier on the self-produced Troubles Up and Down the Road (2001).[w 7][29][w 8]
  11. Secor reflects: "You can't always stay the same forever . . As much as it changed us to go through the break up with Will, it was tempered by the rejoining of Critter and now Corey Younts."[36]
  12. Left to pursue a solo career.[38]

References

Articles, etc.

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Dellinger, Matt (March–April 2003). "Hardcore Troubadours: This ain't your daddy's country music. It's your grandaddy's". THE OXFORD AMERICAN. Archived from the original on October 15, 2013. Retrieved 28 September 2012.
  2. Perusse, Bernard (October 15, 2012). "Wintergreen Concert Series: Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra marries the old and new". The Gazette. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
  3. 1 2 Ferris, Jedd (October 17, 2012). "Whiskey Shivers rocks up the 'trash grass'". Citizen-Times: Asheville Scene. Retrieved 18 October 2012.
  4. 1 2 Talbott, Chris (September 26, 2012). "Emmylou, Mumford & Sons team for 'CMT Crossroads'". Huffington Post. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Dickinson, Chrissie (October 22, 2012). "It took an Old Crow to make the banjo cool". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 24 October 2012.
  6. 1 2 Pandolfi, Elizabeth (15 May 2013). "Old Crow Medicine Show is a bluegrass-powered locomotive: Ketch Them If You Can". Charleston City Paper. Retrieved 16 May 2013.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Berkowitz, Kenny (January 2013). "Old Crow Medicine Show OCMS returns with a vibrant new album, Carry Me Back". Acoustic Guitar. Retrieved 10 November 2012.
  8. Pfeifle, Sam (24 July 2014). "Seven-man army Old Crow Medicine Show arrive with the Remedy". The Portland Phoenix. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Tutwiler, Greg (May–June 2009). "American Roots from the Soul". Americana Rhythm Music Magazine.
  10. 1 2 3 "American single certifications – Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel". Recording Industry Association of America. If necessary, click Advanced, then click Format, then select Single, then click SEARCH
  11. Mansfield, Brian (October 30, 2012). "Darius Rucker previews 'True Believers' in Nashville: Rucker covers Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel"". USA Today. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  12. 1 2 Garvanin, Sinead (2012-02-27). "Mumford's railroad revival: The band boarded the Big Easy Express for a US tour with a difference". BBC Radio: 6 Music News.
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  19. 1 2 Cooper, Peter (December 8, 2011). "'Wagon Wheel' goes gold, one campfire at a time". The Tennessean.
  20. Greenfield, Josh (1 November 2012). "New York Banjo Summit moseys on down to Ithaca". The Ithacan. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  21. Catalano, Jim (17 May 2013). "Old Crow Medicine Show comes to Cooperstown on May 26: String band to play at Brewery Ommegang". stargazette.com. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  22. Grimes, William (29 May 2012). "Doc Watson, Blind Guitar Wizard Who Influenced Generations, Dies at 89". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 November 2012.
  23. Hinton, John (23 November 2012). "Rosa Lee Watson, widow of Doc Watson, has died". Winston-Salem Journal. Retrieved 24 November 2012.
  24. 1 2 Boydston, Joshua (28 November 2012). "Crow about it: Riding the current folk wave is Old Crow Medicine Show, which has whipped up a prescription to string success along". Oklahoma Gazette. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
  25. 1 2 Hollerith, David (July 11, 2012). "Old Crow Medicine Show Busk In Front Of Ryman". American Songwriter. Retrieved 28 September 2012.
  26. Ulrich, Elizabeth (20 March 2007). "Taking the 'Dick' Outta Dickerson Pike". Nashville Scene. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
  27. 1 2 3 4 Mazor, Barry (Jan–Feb 2004). "Old Crow Medicine Show Making the ghosts walk faster". No Depression (49). Retrieved 24 November 2012.
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  29. Padgett, Ray (August 18, 2010). "Song of the Day: Pat Buzzard, "Wagon Wheel" (Old Crow Medicine Show cover)". Cover Me. Retrieved 29 September 2012.
  30. 1 2 Shelburne, Craig (8 October 2006). "The Revival of Old Crow Medicine Show Young Band Finds Its Way in Big Iron World". CMT News. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
  31. 1 2 Mazor, Barry (4 August 2009). "Renegades on the Road". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 22 November 2012.
  32. 1 2 Fernandez, Jay (19 March 2012). "SXSW 2012: 'Big Easy Express' Wins Headliner Audience Award: Emmett Malloy's film follows folk rock bands on the road". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  33. 1 2 3 4 Hight, Jewly (30 August 2012). "Old Crow Medicine Show: The Wheel Of Life". American Songwriter. Retrieved 5 September 2012.
  34. Pink, Dominic (April 30, 2012). "JACK WHITE on THE COLBERT REPORT + Full AMEX UNSTAGED show". A Fistful of Culture. Retrieved 20 July 2012.
  35. "Jack White "Sixteen Saltines" and "Freedom at 21"". Rolling Stone. April 20, 2012. Retrieved 20 July 2012.
  36. 1 2 3 Kersey, Lori (22 May 2013). "Old Crow Medicine Show gets lots of mileage out of 'Wagon Wheel'". The Charleston Gazette. Retrieved 23 May 2013.
  37. 1 2 3 Himes, Geoffrey (2012). "Troubling Traditions". Paste Magazine (52). Archived from the original on August 15, 2012.
  38. 1 2 3 Talbott, Chris (August 8, 2012). "Old Crow Medicine Show starts new chapter with 'Carry Me Back'". The Tennessean. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  39. Lynch, Bill (October 27, 2012). "Old Crow Medicine Show takes a Chance Harpers Ferry's Chance McCoy invited to join alt-country ensemble". Saturday Gazette-Mail. Retrieved 29 October 2012.
  40. "Old Crow Medicine Show Announce New Album "Remedy"". ATO Records. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
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  43. "Grammy Awards 2015: The Complete Winners List". Rolling Stone. February 8, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2015.
  44. LaBate, Steve (1 February 2004). "Old Crow Medicine Show Does Turkey Day in Style". Paste Magazine. Scrapbook (8). Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  45. Shelburne, Craig (3 January 2005). "Top 10 Bluegrass Albums of 2004 Krauss, Skaggs, Lewis & Rozum Released Exceptional Albums This Year". CMT News. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
  46. Lawless, John (6 February 2008). "Old Crows nominated for two CMT Awards". Bluegrass Today.
  47. Nikolai, Michelle (24 July 2000). "OpryFest Bluegrass Jamboree Has Cross-Generational Appeal". CMT News.
  48. Vinson, Christina (6 November 2013). "Darius Rucker Closes Out 2013 CMA Awards With 'Wagon Wheel'". Taste of Country. Retrieved 25 November 2013.
  49. "Marty Stuart To Celebrate 20 Years As Grand Ole Opry Member". All Access Music Group. 28 November 2012. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
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  51. Scott, Craig (23 July 2015). "Interview: Gill Landry. I’m Putting My Own Boots On And Taking A Walk.". Rock Shot. Retrieved 25 August 2015.
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  53. "New Marley's Ghost Album Features Emmylou Harris, John Prine, Old Crow Medicine Show, Larry Campbell and More" posted 2012/03/29 at jambands.com.
  54. Oksenhorn, Stewart (November 5, 2012). "Stars line up for John Denver tribute album". The Aspen Times. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
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Interviews

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Premo, Cole (November 12, 2012). "Curiocity Interview: Ketch Secor Of 'Old Crow Medicine Show'". CBS Minnesota. Retrieved 13 November 2012.
  2. 1 2 Cole, Jennifer V. (30 November 2012). "Exclusive: Old Crow Medicine Show Performs at the Lyric Theatre". The Daily South. Retrieved 2 December 2012.
  3. NPR STAFF (July 8, 2012). "Old Crow Medicine Show: Something Borrowed". NPR Music. Retrieved 29 September 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 Goldberg, Michael Alan (15 November 2007). "Old Crow Medicine Show: Ketch Secor and company's old-timey music invokes a simpler time". Denver Westword.
  5. 1 2 Hoffman, Hannah (October 23, 2012). "Q & A with Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show". The DePaulia. Retrieved 25 October 2012.
  6. 1 2 Milner, Dixon (27 November 2012). "Old Crow Medicine Show talks new tour, a return to roots and Guns N' Roses". CultureMap Austin. Retrieved 28 November 2012.
  7. "Morgan Jahnig '97: A Place in the Spotlight--Old Crow Medicine Show". Baylor Magazine. Summer 2010. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
  8. Mateer, Chris (13 December 2011). "Gill Landry Reflects On His Work With The Kitchen Syncopators & Old Crow Medicine Show, While Delivering His Own 'Piety & Desire'". Uprooted Music Revue. Retrieved 5 September 2012.
  9. Comaratta, Len (July 26, 2012). "Interview: Critter Fuqua (of Old Crow Medicine Show)". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved 25 September 2012.
  10. 1 2 Mateer, Chris (16 July 2012). "Interview: Ketch, Critter, & Morgan of Old Crow Medicine Show Discuss "Carry Me Back"". No Depression. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
  11. Jones, Jessica. "Slain N.C. National Guardsman Remembered". North Carolina Public Radio Transcript: July 06, 2009. National Public Radio. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  12. Léger, Dejah & Devon. "INTERVIEW WITH CHANCE MCCOY OF OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW". Hearth Music. Retrieved 4 September 2012.
  13. Beal Jr., Jim (28 November 2012). "In concert: Old Crow strings music along". San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  14. 1 2 3 Dearmore, Kelly (29 November 2012). "Old Crow Medicine Show's Christopher "Critter" Fuqua On Getting Sober, Bob Dylan As a Gateway Drug". Dallas Observer. Retrieved 30 November 2012.
  15. Old Crow Medicine Show: Something Borrowed" NPR webpage.

Listings

  1. 1 2 "Newport Folk Festival 2005". WFUV 90.7 FM Public Radio from Fordham University. Retrieved 25 November 2012.
  2. 1 2 "Avett Brothers, Feist, Old Crow Medicine Show, Amanda Palmer, Justin Townes Earle Added to Newport Folk". jambands.com. 5 April 2013. Retrieved 5 April 2013.
  3. 1 2 Smith, Nigel (1 February 2012). "SXSW Film Announces 2012 Features Lineup; 'Big Easy Express' to Close Festival". IndieWire. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 Lawrence, Keith (March 17, 2012). "Old Crow Medicine Show added as headliner". Bluegrass Notes. Retrieved 16 September 2012.
  5. "Old Crow Added to Americana Honors Show". CMT News. 26 September 2007. Retrieved 24 November 2012.
  6. "Old Crow Medicine Show with special guest Chuck Mead Presented by Ryman Auditorium at Ryman Auditorium". NowPlayingNashville.com. 31 December 2009. Retrieved 28 October 2013.
  7. Dauphin, Chuck (10 September 2013). "CMA Awards 2013: Full Nominees List". Billboard. Retrieved 25 October 2013.
  8. Harrington, Jim (10 February 2012). "Warren Hellman tribute concert slated for Feb. 19". Oakland Tribune. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  9. Chancellor, Jennifer (1 March 2012). "Jackson Browne joins lineup for Guthrie tribute concert". Tulsa World. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  10. "This Land is Your Land ~ A Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration Concert". The Kennedy Center. Retrieved 30 August 2012.
  11. Cuthbert, Matt (29 May 2008). "BamaJam draws a big lineup in its first year: Performers include Hank Williams Jr., Little Big Town, ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd". Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  12. Kasten, Fred (15 April 2010). "Hot Young String Band Old Crow Medicine Show Plays Jazz Fest May 1st". WWNO 89.9. Retrieved 30 October 2013.
  13. Whitman, Marc (15 December 2009). "New Orleans Jazz Fest 2010 Lineup Announced". Live Music Blog. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  14. Whitman, Marc (1 April 2010). "The All Good Music Festival has announced yet another round of additions to its 2010 lineup, including: Old Crow Medicine Show, Tea Leaf Green, The Bridge, Donna Jean Godchaux Band w/Jeff Mattson, The Heavy Pets and The Pimps of Joytime". Live Music Blog. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  15. "CMC Rocks the Snowys Thredbo Village Nsw, Australia". Concert Tickets and Schedule. Bandsintown. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  16. "Complete LineUp and Playing Times". Meredith Music Festival. Retrieved 2 December 2012.
  17. Piscitelli, Casey (9 May 2012). "Bluegrass Museum's 3-Day ROMP Fest Attracts National Talent". SurfKY. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  18. Romero, Angel (October 27, 2012). "Celtic Connections Festival Announces 20th Anniversary Line-Up". World Music Central.org. Retrieved 29 October 2012.
  19. WMC_NEWS_DEPT. (November 6, 2012). "International Stars at Celtic Connections 2013". Retrieved 6 November 2012.
  20. Robinson, Amelia (22 August 2013). "Mumford and Sons’ Gentlemen of the Road Stopover festival schedule released". Dayton Daily News. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
  21. "WOODY GUTHRIE AT 100! LIVE AT THE KENNEDY CENTER to Premiere on PBS in June". BWWTVWorld. 2 May 2013. Retrieved 4 May 2013.

Reviews

  1. Lee, Raymond E. (September 12, 2012). "Old Crow Medicine Show: Carry Me Back". Surviving.the.Golden.Age. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Dawson, Dave (August 14, 2012). "OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW CD REVIEW: OLD CROWS FLY BACK TO VIRGINIA". Dave's Diary. Retrieved 26 September 2012.
  3. Coleman, Nick (25 November 2012). "IoS album review: Old Crow Medicine Show, Carry Me Back (ATO/Decca)". The Independent. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  4. Honigmann, David (December 14, 2012). "Banjos, fiddles and yee-haws conceal a contemporary lyrical punch". The Financial Times. Retrieved 15 December 2012.
  5. "Old Crow Medicine Show: Carry Me Back". American Songwriter. Retrieved 18 July 2012.
  6. Hopson, Steve (5 December 2012). "Old Crow Medicine Show at ACL Live [Show Photos]". austinist. Retrieved 5 December 2012.
  7. Morris, Wesley (October 23, 2012). "MOVIE REVIEW: 'Big Easy Express' on track when musicians are on stage". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 24 October 2012.
  8. Danielsen, Aarik. "Gill Landry: The Ballad of Lawless Soirez". PopMatters. Retrieved 4 April 2011.
  9. Ritter, Mitch. "Gill Landry, Piety & Desire". Feature Review (18 October 2011). Driftwood. Retrieved 20 October 2013.

Websites

  1. 1 2 3 "55th Annual GRAMMY Awards Winners". Grammy.org. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Past Lineups". MerleFest. Wilkes Community College. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Past Festival Performers". Telluride Bluegrass. Planet Bluegrass. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Previous Years". Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  5. "MerleFest Mission". MerleFest Official Website. Wilkes Community College Endowment Corporation. Retrieved 23 November 2012.
  6. 1 2 "KETCH & CRITTER" (PDF). Artist bios. Spoleto Festival USA. Retrieved 30 November 2012.
  7. "Troubles Up and Down the Road - Liner Notes". Liner Notes. www.oldcrowfans.com. Retrieved 30 November 2012.
  8. "A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor". June 5, 2004. American Public Media. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  9. 1 2 "SHH! THE MOVIE'S STARTING". OCTOBER 23, 2010 // SHOW #1263. American Public Media. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
  10. "Old Crow Medicine Show". Tour Archive. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  11. The Railroad Revival Tour tour info.
  12. 1 2 3 "Congratulations To Old Crow Medicine Show On Their Career High Chart Debut!". News: July 31, 2012. Nettwerk Music Group. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  13. 1 2 3 "Old Crow Medicine Show - Biography". CMT. Country Music Television. Retrieved 26 November 2012.
  14. "OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW RETURN TO THE RYMAN STAGE FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE 2010" Ryman Auditorium press release; October 18, 2010.
  15. "Opry Members and Guest Artists". Grand Ole Opry. Retrieved 11 October 2013.
  16. "EMMYLOU HARRIS, ERNEST V. "POP" STONEMAN ENTER COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME". The Newsroom: 4/29/2008. Country Music Hall of Fame. Retrieved 31 October 2013.
  17. "This Land is Your Land Concerts". Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration Website. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
  18. "Late Night with Conan O'Brien > Season 11 > Episode 109". 1channel.ch. Retrieved 24 November 2012.
  19. "Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Season 16, Episode 65 Dustin Hoffman/Greg Giraldo/Old Crow Medicine Show (23 Dec. 2008)". IMDb. Amazon.com. Retrieved 24 November 2012.
  20. "LUCINDA WILLIAMS/OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW". Austin City Limits. KLRU-TV. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
  21. "October 27, 2012 5:45 p.m. ET West Lafayette, IN". Prairie Home Companion. American Public Media. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
  22. 1 2 "Transamerica (2005): Soundtracks". IMDb.com. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  23. ""Bluegrass Journey": Artists". "Bluegrass Journey". Retrieved 3 September 2012.
  24. 1 2 "Old Crow Medicine Show". Official Website. Old Crow Medicine Show. Retrieved 27 October 2013.
  25. 1 2 Old Crow Medicine Show Chart History, Billboard.com.
  26. Our Christmas Present at CDBaby.
  27. "Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine". About. Oh Boy Records. Retrieved 27 October 2013.

External links

Awards
Preceded by
Bob Harris
AMA Americana Trailblazer Award
2013
Succeeded by
(not yet awarded)
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