If you are looking for a remedy to ail your music needs, Old Crow Medicine Show is the answer. The quintet (Critter Fuqua, Keven Hayes, Morgan Jahnig, Ketch Secor, and Willie Watson), all from different states, formed in New York fifteen years ago. After busking on the streets of New York and Canada, they found their way to Boone, North Carolina in front of a pharmacy of all places, catching the attention of folk icon Doc Watson, and launching their music career. In their short career, the band has toured all over the world performing at Bonnaroo, Coachella, and was part of the historic Railroad Revival Tour with Mumford and Sons, and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (Big Easy Express, a Grammy winning documentary), sold more than 800,000 albums, received RIAA’s platinum certification for selling over one million copies of their single Wagon Wheel, and most recently, became members of the Grand Ole Opry.
With influences of Nirvana and Bob Dylan, this prewar string band combined rock and bluegrass, writing songs that intertwined two centuries of country blues and modern rock and roll, into one sound and style of music. They gained this success through their released four studio albums. The first in 2004, O.C.M.S., included old blues and jug band hits like “Take ‘Em Away” and the energetic “Tell It To Me”. Two years later, Big Iron World was released with “I Hear Them All”, and the soulful “Tennessee Pusher” after another two years and contained more edgy outlaw rock with hits like “Methanphetamine” and “Alabama High Test”. Old Crow’s last released record followed in 2012, Carry Me Back, was based on the Virginia state song, contained a dose of classic American roots music and added new direction of a rambling new age string band. The album included a depressant, Levi, based on a soldier who grew up in Virginia, countered with the prescribed high energy of “Mississippi Saturday Night”.
Old Crow’s next dose of music, their fifth studio album, Remedy, is on the market July 1, containing thirteen new, tantalizing tracks, complete with quirky lyrics and catchy melodies. The band continues to enchant us with their old timey folk and fiery rock roots with the album opener “Brushy Mountain Conjugal Trailer”, the bands’ own rendition of the classic prison, "Doing hard time just got a little hotter.” The album is a far cry for disappointment with Old Crow classic medicine for the soul like my favorite, “Doc’s Day”, painting a picture of the band’s foundation and the collaborative efforts of Bob Dylan with “Sweet Amarillo”, an Old Crow classic, highlighting a prideful cowboy in search of his cowgirl, “I’m gunning the throttle for Ilano Estacado on a wild Appaloosa. I’m blowing your way.” Even though Old Crow is known for their fast and furious tempos, this album includes heart wrenching ballads that will feed your addiction such as “Dearly Departed Friend”, as a friend reminisces of memories to his friend, a deceased soldier, “Georgia lost to Tennessee. You would have liked that I know,” and “Firewater”, about a troubled man whose “hopes and dream have all burned down” cures himself with “the firewater” because it “is the one thing to put out the flame.” Old Crow completes the album, ending in “The Warden”, another prison story pondering the thoughts of the warden, “Does he toss and turn does his conscience burn. Is he a prisoner too?” If you are looking for an extra dose of Old Crow, then you will be intoxicated with those ever familiar deep roots that has made this band a vital, diverse ensemble with a diverse fan base, complete with the same energetic performance and traditional music. Get your music remedy of Old Crow Medicine Show at Buckle Up!
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Old Crow Medicine Show
Buckle Up Music Festival
Saturday July 19th
River Stage
9:00 – 10:00
