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The world of Old Timey Music had is heyday in the
1920's and 30's and the forerunner of modern-day country
music and bluegrass. An amalgam of blues, vintage folk songs
and mountain music we saw a revival beguine with the success
of the critically acclaimed five-time Grammy winning
soundtrack from the movie 'O Brother Where Art Thou" in
2001.
Styling their music somewhat in the Old Timey guise,
the Old Crow Medicine Show
stole the show at Cambridge Folk Festival 2004. The band
made up of Kevin Hayes - guitjo; Margan Jahnig - dog-house
bass; Ketch Secor - fiddle harmonica, and banjo; Willie
Watson - guitar and banjo and new member Gilbert Landry
- resonator guitar, acoustic guitar and banjo, with all
but Jahnig taking a turn on vocals. While touring in the
summer with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings who were booked
to play Cambridge, the band visited the site as guests and
not scheduled as part of the festival's line-up. As is the
busking way with O.C.M.S, the
band played a spontaneous set outside Mojo magazine's small
signing tent drawing a highly appreciative crowd. Amongst
that crowd was the festivals' organiser Eddie Barcan, who
was greatly impressed by the band. As one of the scheduled
acts had missed their flight and left a void in the program,
Barcan asked O.C.M.S to fill
in on the Main Stage, which drew over 7,000 people with
great approval, and Radio 2's Mark Radcliff calling them
"the highlight of the festival."
Old Crow Medicine Show returned
to Britain during the later part of July 2005 for a tour of
eight venues including two performances at Cambridge Folk
Festival 2005. This is their third time in the UK within the
past 12 months and around April 2005 they appeared on Jules
Holland's TV show. Amongst the round of media interviews the
band did during this tour, I had the opportunity to speak to
fiddle player and vocalist Ketch Secor who declared:
"We're glad to be back. We sure like the British
audience and they like us! We had a great reception for our
first show at Brighton last night (Wednesday 20 July) and a
now we have a show in London tonight." (This show was
the evening of the second wave of bomb attacks in London.
When I saw the band at Manchester the following night we
were told that the problems earlier in London had had very
little effect on the fans going out to see the band perform.
Ketch Secor announced, "the underground was closed, but
the Londoners still came out…they either walked or took
cabs!")
I had to ask the inevitable question that everyone
must be wondering…. how did they come by the name Old
Crow Medicine Show. "Just one of those things
that come about, we just pulled the name together…made it
up", came back the answer from Ketch. And what could be
more appropriate for a band that perform a style of music
that would pull in the crowds for the travelling medicine
shows some 80-100 years ago.
The music Old Crow plays
has been called retro, or revivalist, but there is more
to the Old Crow Medicine Show than just covering a range
of vintage folk songs and mountain music. Several covers
of traditional songs are found on their current album O.C.M.S
that the band have arranged to suit their own style and
Ketch Secor has included additional lyrics to the Bob Dylan
song "Wagon Wheels". Of the eleven songs found
on O.C.M.S, band members have
written five. Their Live album recorded at the Station Inn,
Nashville is also well worth  seeking
out as it gives a taste of what to expect from this lively
band on stage.
What draws a young band to this style of music? Secor
states: "We were drawn to the music of Bob Dillon and
Steve Young and Pete Seeger and then the hillbilly bands and
jug bands from the 20's-30's. There's a little bit of
bluegrass and a bit of old timey music and of course a bit
of Nashville, but we are mostly ourselves."
Kevin Hayes plays a guitjo, an instrument that I
hadn't come across before and asked Ketch to explain a
little about the instrument. "The guitjo is a
six-string banjo that was quite popular back in the 1920's.
It was played by some of the hillbilly bands…the jazz
bands such as Louis Armstrong included it in his band and it
was very popular with blues bands of the time. Over time it
was dropped in jazz for the more favourable 4 string tenor
banjo and the blues bands dropped the banjo altogether.
Kevin Hayes is possibly the only guitjo player in country
music!"
The five-band members are from four different states
and joined forces in New York. So how did they come into
contact with each other; "We came together from
different connections and formed the band before some of the
members had even met each other" comments Secor. They
travelled around busking on street corners and while playing
outside a pharmacy in North Carolina the band had the good
fortune to meet the daughter of folk-icon Doc Watson. Ketch
Secor explains how it came about; "We were busking on a
street corner outside a drugstore in the small North
Carolina town of Boon. Doc was in the drugstore café and
came out to listen to us. He liked us so much that he
invited us to perform on his festival and from there we were
invited to play the Grand Ole Opry. Just like when we were
busking outside the Mojo tent at Cambridge and ended up on
the main stage….we were busking on a street corner and
ended up on MerleFest. We've been very lucky playing on
street corners and luck is part of being a musician. The
music business is often being in the right place at the
right time…it's like fate!!!"
Relocating to Nashville from North Carolina in 2001,
Old Crow made their Grand Ole Opry debut on the Ryman
Auditorium stage that year, where they received a standing
ovation…rare for a debut performance. They made their
national television debut on CMT's Grand Ole Opry Live in
2002 and have appeared in several documentaries: PBS's
American Roots Music series; In the Valley Where Time Stands
Still, a film about the history of the Renfro Valley
Barndance; and Bluegrass Journey, a portrait of the
contemporary bluegrass scene.
Nashville offered another stoke of luck or fate that
brought the Old Crow Medicine Show
together with acclaimed American folk singer Gillian
Welch and Dave Rawlings in 2002; Ketch explains "Gillian
and Dave were at home one Friday or Saturday and when musicians
are not on the road or playing gigs, the weekend is a time
to catch-up on your laundry and they heard us on the Grand
Ole Opry." They were really taken with Old Crow and
a couple of months later Dave contacted the band and then
went on to produce their O.C.M.S.
album, in 2004. The album was recording at two of Nashville's
most famous  studios…the
legendary RCA Studio B (Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton and
Waylon Jennings all recorded there) and Woodland Sound Studios
where the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded their Grammy-perennial
'Will The Circle Be Unbroken' project from 1972. The relationship
has lasted well over the past couple of years and Old
Crow Medicine Show has toured on several occasions
with Gillian and Dave.
In April 2005 the band played Texas…not a particular
hot bed of bluegrass and Old Timey music, but the band were
readily accepted; "Texas is really into fiddle music.
Though bluegrass and old timey music isn't the most popular
music there, they do like the fiddle…western swing started
out there. The music of Eck Robertson is worth searching
for, (Eck Robertson was one of the most noteworthy fiddlers
and famous as the first person to record a commercial
country music record on June 30 and July 1,1922, for the
Victor Talking Machine Company in their New York studios).
We started our tour in Dallas, played Houston and Austin
where they like all kinds of different styles of music. The
South By South West festival draws completely eclectic
styles of music," affirms Ketch.
Over the past couple of years Old
Crow have had several videos on CMT and a short while
ago Norah Jones who's more known as a jazz singer performed
"We're In This Together' for a Tsunami fundraising
concert on NBC. Ketch remarks; "We met Nora while we
were in New York. It was great to see Nora performing our
song on such a show that was bringing a whole range of
famous artists together such as Brian Wilson (Beach Boys)
performing for a charity event that brought together people
from all over the world giving their support to people who'd
virtually lost everything. The title of the song says it all
"We're In This Together".
The Old Crow Medicine Show
gave two stunning sets at Manchester University's venue
Academy 3 (formerly The Hop & Grape). Drawing a good
crowd they soon had the whole place jumping with their
youthful enthusiasm, bags of energy and good interaction
with the audience and of course very entertaining. A
new album is in the pipeline and scheduled for release in
2006 with the band including a couple of number that will be
found there. The close came all to soon with Old
Crow Medicine Show treating the crowd with two encores
and the fans still baying for more. All they needed was a few bottles of that Old Snake Oil…they
could have sold anything!!!! Don't miss them next time they
come to town!
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