Old Crow Medicine Show
Old Crow Medicine Show is an Americana string band based in Nashville, Tennessee, that has been recording since 1998. They were inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on September 17, 2013.[1] Their ninth album, Remedy, released in 2014, won the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album.[2] The group's music has been called old-time, folk, and alternative country. Along with original songs, the band performs many pre-World War II blues and folk songs.
Old Crow Medicine Show
1998–present
Columbia Nashville, Nettwerk, ATO, MapleMusic (Canada)
PJ George
Mike Harris
Morgan Jahnig
Dante Pope
Ketch Secor
Mason Via
Cory Younts
Joe Andrews
Critter Fuqua
Ben Gould
Kevin Hayes
Matt Kinman
Gill Landry
Chance McCoy
Jerry Pentecost
Robert Price
Willie Watson
Charlie Worsham
Bluegrass musician Doc Watson discovered the band 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,[3][4] it has influenced acts like Mumford & Sons[5][6] and contributed to a revival of banjo-picking string bands playing Americana music[6]—leading to variations on it.[4][7]
The group released their sixth studio album, Volunteer, through Columbia Nashville on April 20, 2018—coinciding with their 20th anniversary as a group. They released 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde on April 28, 2017 (their first album on Columbia Nashville).[8] Previous studio albums were Eutaw (2002), O.C.M.S. (2004), Big Iron World (2006), Tennessee Pusher (2008), Carry Me Back (2012),[9] Remedy (2014), and Volunteer (2017).[10] Their song "Wagon Wheel", a more or less traditional song written by Ketch Secor through a co-authoring arrangement with Bob Dylan,[11] was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in April 2013[12] and has been covered by a number of acts, including Darius Rucker, who made the song a top 40 hit.[13]
The band was featured along with Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Mumford & 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.[14] They appeared at the Stagecoach Festival 2013[15] 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 have made 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.[16]
Albums[edit]
Carry Me Back (2012)[edit]
Carry Me Back was released July 17, 2012, on ATO Records. Recorded at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville, produced by Ted Hutt,[w 7] the name derives from "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny", former official state song of Virginia.[34]
"Levi" is "about a soldier who grew up in the wild hillbilly woods of Virginia,"[r 1] First Lieutenant Leevi Barnard from Ararat, Virginia who was "killed by a suicide bomber"[r 1] in Baghdad's Dora Market in 2009.[i 7] In the NPR broadcast where Secor heard the story, the late lieutenant's friends[34] "broke into Barnard's favorite song" . . "Wagon Wheel"[34] at his funeral.[i 5]