The band signed to Nettwerk America in 2003, began crafting their own compositions among the jug band standards and reels that had become the backbone of the group, and went into the studio to make a record with Gillian Welch's other half, guitarist David Rawlings, at the helm. Old Crow Medicine Show then relocated to Nashville, where they found themselves gracing the stage at the Grand Ole Opry, opening for the likes of Dolly Parton and the Del McCoury Band. From that point onward, Old Crow Medicine Show grew creatively restless, offering such ambitious albums as the Dave Cobb-produced Volunteer in 2017, the socially conscious Paint This Town in 2022, and 2023's celebratory Jubilee.Ĭritter Fuqua (vocals/banjo/resonator guitar), Kevin Hayes (guitjo), Morgan Jahnig (upright bass), Ketch Secor (vocals/fiddle/harmonica/banjo), and Willie Watson (vocals/guitar/banjo) - who are all from different states - met in New York, hit the road, played before an impressed Doc Watson in front of a North Carolina pharmacy, and were promptly scheduled to play the folk icon's Merlefest. Once Darius Rucker turned 'Wagon Wheel' into a smash hit in 2013, Old Crow Medicine Show turned into roots music superstars, winning a Grammy for Best Folk Album for 2014's Remedy. 'Wagon Wheel,' the band's signature song, existed at this chronological crossroads: chief Crow Ketch Secor - the only bandmember who has remained throughout the group's many incarnations since its inception in 1998 - built the tune around a chorus Bob Dylan discarded in 1973. Old Crow's spirited revivals helped shape the Americana movement of the 2000s in sound and spirit, ushering the past into the present with their enthusiastic rambles and hollers. This isn't a one-trick pony band, and so far at least, Old Crow Medicine Show haven't painted themselves into a creative corner, managing somehow to sound both old and refreshingly new at once.Old Crow Medicine Show revitalized old-timey string bands for the 21st century, playing hillbilly tunes, bluegrass, blues, and folk with a rock & roll verve. Thought and care are in these songs, and they all fall together in a nice flow. 'We Don't Grow Tobacco,' which flies on its own fast rails, is a well-written saga that starts off detailing the woes of working in the tobacco fields and ends bemoaning the loss of jobs in those same fields in the 21st century, while 'Ain't It Enough' is a beautiful, poetic, and melodic love song, so Old Crow Medicine Show aren't just about rapid-fire speed shuffles.

The old string bands were dance ensembles, but it's difficult to imagine dancers keeping up very long to tracks like 'Carry Me Back to Virginia,' 'Mississippi Saturday Night,' and 'Sewanee Mountain Catfight,' all of which are unhinged speed shuffles that roar by faster than a NASCAR race. It isn't easy straddling two different centuries with one's sound and style, but Old Crow Medicine Show pull it off once again on their fourth studio album, the Ted Hutt-produced Carry Me Back, a ragged, breakneck romp that crackles with more energy than a thrash band on Red Bull. They also write most of their material, so while the group's songs sound old and traditional, they are more facsimiles than anything else, with an attention to narrative and lyrical detail that the old string band tunes, which were often made up of lightly linked floating verses drawn from old country blues and fiddle reels, seldom had.

Old Crow Medicine Show sound like a prewar string band filtered through Uncle Tupelo via Nirvana, and if they aren't bluegrass by any stretch of the imagination, they are every bit as energetic as a breakneck bluegrass combo.

Old froq medicine show