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Old Crow Medicine Show is an old-time string band based in Nashville, Tennessee. Their music has been called bluegrass, Americana, and alt-country, in addition to old-time. Along with original songs, the band performs many pre-World War II blues and folk songs. They have been recording since 1998.
History EarlyKetch Secor and Chris "Critter" Fuqua first met in the seventh grade in Poolesville, Maryland in Montgomery County, Maryland, and began playing music together. They performed open mics at the Little Grill diner which was "really the first chance that . . Critter had to play on stage." Being "a bit younger" than the "college students at James Madison University who typically hung out there" Ketch "was considered a townie." As Ketch says today: "They knew that we had talent, but it was raw. I mean, I was up there beating on a jaw harp when I was 13."
It was at Little Grill Ketch first saw his "contemporary" Robert St. Ours (who later went on to found The Hackensaw Boys) singing and "he was so cool with his leather jacket and side burns. I knew that's what I wanted to do." His early influences also 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 Sterns." Secor formed the Route 11 Boys with St. Ours and his brothers and performed often at Little Grill.
Heading northAfter Secor finished his schooling at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where he learned to play the banjo, he spent a year taking short musician-hobo jaunts up to Maine and Canada from his home in Harrisonburg
. "I had just read the book, Bound for Glory, and I knew that I wanted to go hobo with music. So we went out on the road . ."
He then attended Ithaca College to be with his high-school girlfriend who attended Cornell University.["Hardcore Troubadors" text and photos by Matt Dellinger for The Oxford American March/April 2003.] Ketch brought his friend Critter up to New York State, where they joined with Willie Watson, a native, and Willie's friend, Ben Gould, who had just procured an upright bass. They assembled "a whole bunch of these players all around Ithaca, New York, where there is a very lively old-time music scene."[Pure Music interview with Ketch Secor by Frank Goodman.] They gathered in Critter's bedroom in 1998 to record an album that they could sell on the road; a cassette of ten songs, called Trans:mission.
Busking breakOne day, while busking outside a pharmacy called Boone Drug in Boone, North Carolina, the daughter of folk-country legend Doc Watson happened by and was impressed by what she heard. Doc Watson invited the band to participate in his annual MerleFest music festival in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.["Old Crow Medicine Show: Ketch Secor and company's old-timey music invokes a simpler time" by Michael Alan Goldberg, published November 15, 2007 in Denver Westword.] That break led to the act's relocation to Nashville in 2000,[ where they were "embraced and mentored" by Marty Stuart, the president of the Grand Ole Opry, Gillian Welch and Welch's longtime songwriting partner and guitarist, David Rawlings.][ Stuart helped them land some high profile gigs and Rawlings later produced their Big Iron World (2006).]
They made their Grand Ole Opry debut on the Ryman Auditorium stage in 2001 to a standing ovation.[Biography: Old Crow Medicine Show CMT.]
Wagon Wheel "Wagon Wheel" has become something of a signature song for the group, but its origins predate its formation. Says Ketch of its authorship:
quote "I heard a Dylan song that was unfinished back in high school and I finished it . . As a serious Bob Dylan fan, I was listening to anything he had put on tape, and this 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.'"
Secor and Dylan have since signed a co-writing agreement on the song. It has been covered by an increasing number of acts since its release on O.C.M.S. in 2004.
Performance The band has performed at such major music festivals as CMC (Country Music Channel) Rocks the Snowys, Bonnaroo, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and the New Orleans Jazz Festival. Their 2007 live-performance itinerary included shows in Boone, NC, Seattle, Lawrence, KS, Arcata, CA, Knoxville, TN, Nashville and Boulder, CO, as well as overseas in London and Amsterdam.[Official Site bio] The band has also toured the UK several times, including an appearance at the Cambridge Folk Festival and on the BBC show Later with Jools Holland.
They have headlined at the Grand Ole Opry,[ after earlier having performed at that institution's 75th-anniversary celebration. They opened for the Dave Matthews Band in 2009.]
Musical style The band plays a wide variety of music, seeming to pull influence from any of the many musical forms that would have been available to medicine shows of the turn of the century to the nineteen-forties, including old time, bluegrass, country, and folk blues. Country Music Television notes the band's "tunes from jug bands and traveling shows, back porches and dance halls, southern Appalachian string music and Memphis blues."[Biography: Old Crow Medicine Show CMT.]
After three years playing guitar, Kevin Haynes switched over to the guit-jo, making him perhaps "the only professional guit-jo player in America."
Ketch Secor
Awards, honors, distinctions- Their video "I Hear Them All" was nominated for two 2007 CMT Music Awards. Directed by Danny Clinch, it was a first-round finalist in the Best Group and Wide Open Country categories. The video was shot in the Mid-City area of New Orleans and features local residents each with inspirational stories regarding Hurricane Katrina.
- Their 2004 album O.C.M.S. was selected by CMT (Country Music Television) as one of the top-10 bluegrass albums of that year.
Special appearances- They performed "Tell Mother I Will Meet Her" at the induction of Emmylou Harris and Ernest V. "Pop" Stoneman into the Country Music Hall of Fame April 27, 2008.
- They perform Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee” on Song of America (2007), a 3-CD set tracing the history of the U.S. through new versions of songs by major artists. Proceeds benefit the Center for American Music, National History Day, and Folk Alliance.
- They joined Uncle Earl, Sunny Sweeney, Todd Snider, The Avett Brothers, Guy Clark, Emmylou Harris, the Hacienda Brothers, Elizabeth Cook, Amy LaVere, and Ricky Skaggs with Bruce Hornsby as performers for the Americana Honors and Awards Show held November 1, 2007 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
- They appeared on Austin City Limits after Lucinda Williams, aired December 2007 (taped September 2007).
- They make frequent guest appearances on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor.
- They appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 2003 and again in 2008.
- They have performed at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
- They performed on the soundtrack for the film Transamerica which was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005.
- They performed at the first annual BamaJam Music and Arts Festival in Enterprise, Alabama.
Personnel - Ketch Secor – vocals, fiddle, harmonica, banjo
- Willie Watson – vocals, guitar, banjo
- Kevin Hayes – guitjo, vocals
- Morgan Jahnig – bass
- Gill Landry – banjo, resonator guitar, guitar, vocals
- Critter Fuqua – banjo, guitar, resonator guitar, vocals
Since 2008, Gill Landry has been appearing live in place of Critter Fuqua.
Former members - Ben Gould – bass
- Matt Kinman – bones, mandolin
Recordings Studio albums - AOut of print.
- BO.C.M.S. was re-released under the title Old Crow Medicine Show as an import in 2006. (ASIN: B000GFLI64)
EPs - Vegas (out of print) **Cassette only
- Troubles Up and Down the Road (2001) (out of print)
- The Webcor Sessions (2002) (out of print)
- NapsterLife 09/29/2004 (2004)
- Down Home Girl (2006) Nettwerk Records — ASIN: B000FORKT0
- World Cafe Live from iTunes (2006) Broadcast on NPR's World Cafe October 25, 2006
- Caroline (2008) Nettwerk Records - Three track single featuring previously unreleased song "Back To New Orleans"
Other Broadcasts - World Café with David Dye November 4, 2008.
- NPR "Old Crow Medicine Show: Punk Americana" by David Dye World Cafe October 25, 2006.
- NPR "Old Crow Medicine Show Revives Traveling Tradition" by Melissa Block All Things Considered September 4, 2006.
- A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor February 12, 2005.
- A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor September 25, 2004.
- A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor (all shows and references).
Videos
Copyright Citations
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