Tag: Old Crow Medicine Show

Hangin’ & Sangin’: Chance McCoy

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From the Bluegrass Situation and WMOT Roots Radio, it’s Hangin’ & Sangin’ with your host, BGS editor Kelly McCartney. Every week Hangin’ & Sangin’ offers up casual conversation and acoustic performances by some of your favorite roots artists. From bluegrass to folk, country, blues, and Americana, we stand at the intersection of modern roots music and old time traditions bringing you roots culture — redefined.

With me today at Hillbilly Central, Chance McCoy! So Chance McCoy, part of Old Crow Medicine Show, and more!

And more! So much more.

So let’s do a little Chance McCoy 101, background thing because you don’t have a website for people to go and find out about you so I think we need to teach the people.

Yes, I’m the 21st century George Harrison of Old Crow.

Alright, let’s go with that.

The Quiet Crow. [Laughs]

Yeah, okay, I’ll believe that. [Laughs] So you grew up in West Virginia, playing in punk and rock bands, yeah, a little bit?

Yeah, a little bit.

In your youth.

A little bit. The first band that I was in was called the Speakeasy Boys, and that was more just an excuse to get drunk and run a speakeasy than it was to be a band. But I did learn some music in there.

Right. And they were sort of old-time without knowing they were old-time? Kind of like the punk version of old-time?

Yeah, we didn’t know what old-time music was, actually. We didn’t know what bluegrass was, and we had heard the term “old-time.” And we were playing some old-time music. We had a washtub bass player. We were playing “Soldier’s Joy” and things like that. But it took me, like, a year of being in that band for somebody to finally tell me what old-time music was. [Laughs] We kept asking around, “What is old-time music?” and nobody could tell me!

So yeah, it was amazing! We basically ran a bar out of a basement of a friend’s house and, every Sunday, a friend of ours would go down to the Potomac River and fish out a bunch of catfish and we’d fry them on a barrel, and about 200-300 kids from the local college would show up and we’d play music. It was a ball.

That’s awesome!

So that was my experience learning folk music and bluegrass and old-time, and then I started performing in folk clubs and I was like, “Why is everybody sitting down and listening? This isn’t what you do, here’s a beer! Go ahead and dance, just start dancing!”

What do you think it was about that kind of music, or maybe it was how you guys were doing it, or maybe it was the beer and catfish, but what was the appeal to those college kids?

Um, I think the appeal was that we created a scene. Our bumper sticker read, “We’re not a band. We’re a party.” [Laughs] That was the appeal!

Your life motto ever since!

Yeah, I think that works for a lot of acts. Sometimes it’s not about the music; it’s about the event — creating a party. So that was very much what the draw was in that band.

And then once you got into the more “proper” old-time and folk scene, it was a whole other vibe.

It was a whole other vibe, yeah. It was great because, growing up in West Virginia, I’d actually never heard folk music, because it was pretty rare. I mean, it still is. I didn’t know where to look. I didn’t have any connections to it. So, when I finally discovered folk music in West Virginia, I was in my early 20s, and I realized that there was incredible depth, this well of music that went so much deeper than just the surface level “Soldier’s Joy” and all that kind of stuff — “Pig in a Pen.” And that’s where I really started to fall in love with old-time music, especially. And I was lucky enough to study and apprentice with master musicians form West Virginia, so that’s where it started to change for me. And then I took all that and went out and tried to perform it and that’s when I realized … [Laughs]

That’s when you ran into all the folks who were … the “that ain’t bluegrass” folks.

Like, “Well, actually …” [Laughs]

…

So you were just living out in a cabin and teaching fiddle at Augusta Heritage Center when you got the “Hey, come try out for our little string band, Old Crow Medicine Show” call.

Yeah, I got a cold call! Yeah the little string band that you know, we have the song “Wagon Wheel.” Nobody’s heard it.

Nope! What was it like stepping into that band with them having been a band for so long, even though they took a few years off, sort of regrouping?

It was really hard because I had to figure out how to join this band, like you said, that had already been a huge band that had been really successful, and I had to figure out how to enter the band and not make it seem like I was trying to replace Willie Watson or what he did. And that was always something that was really a sensitive issue where we all wanted to integrate me into the band in a new way where it didn’t feel like, “Oh, Old Crow’s back, but now this guy’s replaced this other guy.”

So there was this intentional shift in the band, and I tried to take sort of a back seat role and a more supportive role in that band, and not try to, you know, try to get myself out there and play a leading role in the band. And, in doing that, I was able to really support them to go in directions that they hadn’t gone before, and I was integral to the creative process and helping write the songs and record the records and doing all that, but I was sort of the behind-the-scenes guy, where I was just kind of trying to make Old Crow great again, and lift them off.

Because, when I met them and they went on that tour that I joined them on, when they reunited, they had kind of come out of a broken place with having lost Willie, and then being like, “Is anyone gonna like the band anymore? Are we gonna be able to do it? Is it gonna be any good?” So it was a real fragile situation that I came into, so I really tried to come in and just support them as musicians and help them realize their vision for what the band was gonna be moving forward.

And clearly that worked, or it was just a coincidence that you joined the band to play on Remedy and oh, it wins a Grammy, the first Grammy for a record.

[Laughs] I like to say I have the Midas touch. Any project I join wins a Grammy.

If anybody needs a fiddle player/banjo player/guitarist/carpenter …

I can build it. I can play it.

And you can win a Grammy.

[Laughs] Yeah, it was an amazing rise to success, especially coming from where I had been before I got the call. I had kind of sunk into poverty in Appalachia and it was rough times, for sure. I was just scraping by, barely, when Ketch [Secor] called me. So that was a good call to get.

…

You recently did some solo shows here in Nashville. So is that still a lingering ambition in your mind, are there projects coming?

It is! Yes, there is a project coming. I’m gonna be going into the studio in a couple weeks here, after I finish building it. [Laughs] And laying down my next record, which is gonna be called The Electric Crow. It’s kind of the next creative project where I wanna use all the different elements, all the different kinds of music that I play, and kind of bring that through my own creative focus and hone in something completely new. So, yes, that is on the way!

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Eschewing Authenticity: A Conversation with Willie Watson

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When Willie Watson steps out alone on stage in Allston, Massachusetts, he looks every bit as though he’s wandered out of another time. His wide-brimmed hat, plain button-down shirt, and twangy banter all pin him to a different era. Beginning to play the banjo, Watson overlays his preferred clawhammer style with warbling vibrato, all of which add to the picture — as if he’d been among the musicians who traipsed to Bristol, Tennessee, to participate in Ralph Peer’s recording sessions in 1927. Comments about authenticity have long dogged him, but Watson prefers to avoid such talk. He’s not attempting to recreate so much as create, and he just so happens to be using the past for inspiration.

The former Old Crow Medicine Show member is touring behind his sophomore solo album, Folksinger Vol. 2, which culls an array of folk songs — for example “Gallows Pole,” “The Cuckoo Bird,” and “John Henry.” To gain his footing, Watson looked to Lead Belly, Reverend Gary Davis, and more as models. For him, they’re players who created such magic through their respective voices and instruments that he jealously sought ways to participate in that feeling many decades later. He recorded Folksinger Vol. 2 with David Rawlings on analog tape, nodding to a sepia-colored sound. But for those who consider what he does in purist terms, Watson eschews such notions. This isn’t about a musician chasing the past or attempting to preserve it; the latest batch of songs on his new album are his attempt to get closer to a style of music he loves and hopes others might happen to enjoy.

Do you ever get the feeling you should’ve been born in a different time period?

No, not at all. I think there’s a time and place for all this kind of music. If it were a different time, then I wouldn’t have all these other influences that inform what I do and the way that I do it. I think I’m in just the right time. Sometimes this modern world can wear me down a little bit, but for the most part, it’s all good.

Your catalogue seems like a tip of the hat to the array of music Harry Smith once collected for the Anthology of American Folk Music. Why was it important for you to draw on so many different styles?

I didn’t really think of it as important; it’s just the stuff that I love. I don’t know that any of this is important. A lot of people seem to focus on that, like, “Oh, this is so historic and it’s preserving history.” The songs that I put on there, they’re just because I love all this old music and I want to do it all. I listen to a Neil Young record with Crazy Horse and I’m thinking, “These guys are having a really, really good time.” That sounds like something I wanna do. I really don’t wanna go out and play football with the neighbors, and I really don’t wanna go to track practice, and I certainly don’t want to study math, but I really want to be on that stage with Neil Young. It’s the same with this old music. You listen to Lead Belly singing with the Golden Gate Quartet and you think, “That’s some fun stuff.” It changes over the years, as you grow and you mature; your influences and things change. But I don’t know if it’s important. If it’s important to somebody else, then great. It’s important to me … hey, I don’t even know why it’s important to me.

Well something clicks. It’s a spark.

Yeah.

You’ve mentioned that you’re not trying to be a purist. To some extent, that mindset has run through and still runs through bluegrass and other folk traditions. Why is it important for you to avoid that restriction?

Just because it is a restriction, and I don’t like any of those restrictions. I can only do things in the way I know how. I never really liked bluegrass music; I never listened to bluegrass. It was okay, but it’s certainly not what captured my attention. What got my attention was old-time string band music and people like Lead Belly. Bluegrass, to me, seemed uptight. It seemed like those guys were wearing suits, and they all sounded exactly the same. It’s this very formal and very standardized thing that never attracted me at all. I couldn’t have cared less about banjo until I discovered what clawhammer banjo was, and what old-time string music sounded like. Since then, I’ve learned to appreciate bluegrass, and I’ve learned to love bluegrass, and I’ve learned the differences between certain people and certain players, but that came over time.

Interesting that you mention the formality of bluegrass because I know, in the ‘60s, listeners saw a more commercialized version of folk with the Kingston Trio and others.

Yeah, again that ‘60s scene, too, is sort of the same story as bluegrass.

It wasn’t what you were looking for.

No, definitely not. I was listening to some radio show, and this guy played something on the station … this guy was singing a song about all that, about how Lead Belly could kick the Kingston Trio’s ass, and how they were not the real thing. I’m going to recognize if something’s not the real thing pretty quick. I look for it. You’re not going to fool me. Kingston Trio, again, I was never into those guys. It was white bread and way too stale. Those guys didn’t have any soul.

“Authentic” can be such a loaded term, when you’re talking about preserving past traditions. What does it mean to you?

Just being honest. I mean authenticity isn’t necessarily … I don’t consider it being historically accurate. You take a mountain man, and he’s lived on the mountain his whole life — his parents did and he’s barely ever left — and he’s an authentic mountain man. That’s one side of it. I come from central New York state, but I’m honest. I love what I do and I love this music and I don’t have to live that life or live that culture just to play the music. No, I’m not a mountain man, and I didn’t grow up in North Carolina, but that’s not necessary to be able to feel it and genuinely be able to … I don’t want to say “interpret,” but yeah interpret it in your own way.

It is, right? Because these songs have been passed down and reimagined, they almost belong more to the interpreters than the originators.

Well, my versions belong to me, so far as I don’t feel I have ownership or possess them, but they’re my versions. I sing “Samson and Delilah” enough, and I sing “Keep It Clean” out on the road, and I put my sound on it. I feel like that’s my song. I don’t consider myself among the ranks of Reverend Gary Davis or anything, but I’m definitely one of the guys.

When I was watching your show last week, it reminded me of a tent revival, which was interesting to see in 2017 in Boston, that you’re able to reproduce that kind of community in a big metropolis.

That seems to be a big part of each night. It’s not like I set out in the beginning to do that. When I set out to do the solo stuff, I just set out to go back to work, really. I used to play in Old Crow and, all of a sudden, I didn’t, and I found myself with my hands up in the air saying, “What the fuck do I do now?” I can’t just sit around, I’ve gotta get out there and keep my name out there, and at least let people know that I’m here. Little did I know that nobody really knew who the fuck I was anyway.

Really?

The hardcore Old Crow fans and the earlier fans [did]. It just happened that my music seemed to really be affecting some people. I think the song choices we put on the first record — which were good choices and they really spoke to people — they reached people the same way that they do me and so, all of a sudden, I find that every night, just about every night, me and the audience have this real connection. That’s a real powerful thing.

It is. I had a ball doing the call and response for “Stewball” during your show. Speaking of that song, it has a similar strumming pattern to “Cuckoo Bird.” Really, so much of the old-time music was more rhythmic than melodic, so how are you trying to distinguish that for modern day audiences?

So many songs are the same song. The list is endless.

Right, and the variations on those songs.

“Cuckoo” and “Stewball” are definitely related. They’re practically the same tune. “Cuckoo” has a modal banjo tuning, so it makes it sound darker and mean sounding. “Stewball” is a major scale. “Cuckoo” has these few little notes that make it in the minor world, as opposed to major. I just do these songs in the way that I can. I’m not the guitar player that Reverend Gary Davis is, so I’ve gotta figure out my own way. It’s really just as simple as that.

Sometimes I’ll think I really want to do this Blind Willie Johnson song, but he’s playing some complicated slide guitar parts and, if I want to do that, I’m going to have to sit and get really good at playing slide guitar and that’s going to take me years. So how do I do it? Well, maybe I can play a Blind Willie Johnson song on the banjo … that’s no different than Bob Dylan taking a song he wrote 30 years ago and completely changing the tempo and putting a band behind it, and changing the song around completely. There’s nothing really new in that. It’s just basically the definition of interpretation.

Photo credit: Meredith Munn

MIXTAPE: Dustbowl Revival’s Myriad Musical Influences

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We’ve always liked stirring the pot in the Dustbowl Revival — bringing a lot of genres into our own out-of-left-field soul-roots sound. With our unconventional eight-piece instrumentation (a string section with a brass section) and two lead singers (and a lot of cooks in the kitchen), deciding what songs would make it when we were going into the studio in January was quite a challenge. 

Luckily, we reached out to Ted Hutt, a lovely British producer now living in our hometown of L.A. and he jumped in to steer the ship. As one of the founders of Flogging Molly and a Grammy-winner for producing bands we love — like Old Crow Medicine Show and the Dropkick Murphys — Ted was like having a really pleasant pirate calling us on our bullshit and bringing forth the bluesiest, funkiest, and most emotional tunes we’ve ever laid down. While there is a soul flavor to a lot of these songs, we think it was more about finding the raw root of each story and getting after it. Here are some tunes that I was inspired by when I wrote much of the album. — Zach Lupetin

Old Crow Medicine Show — “Brushy Mountain Conjugal Trailer”

This song is kind of how we found Ted to produce the record. He did several of Old Crow’s albums, and I love the fatness to the sound on this — the bass is just thumping so sweetly and the mean groove contrasts with the winking humor in the lyric. We pretty much asked him, “Can get some of THAT on our record, too?”

Al Green — “Love and Happiness”

It’s a tune I can never get enough of, honestly. As the soul theme started to permeate the songs we were linking together on the record, I kept thinking I wanted something like this Al Green classic. “The Story” definitely comes from this. 

Shovels & Rope — Tiny Desk Concert

Liz and I aren’t married like these guys, but I always try and match the deep connection that can happen between male and female vocals totally in sync. Every time I see them, I get goosebumps.

The Meters — “Fire on the Bayou”

Josh, our drummer, always encourages us to listen to these classics, and I always love the repeating groove here. “Call My Name” which opens our album was a straight 12-bar blues until we twisted it around and funkafied it. Ted loved the “row your boat” repeating refrain as a call to arms … and we rolled with it.

Creedence Clearwater Revival — “Born on the Bayou”

Also one of my all-time favorite tunes, it’s hypnotic and mean and catchy as hell. CCR seemed to always merge spooky folk and blues elements into their own sweet stew, and our tunes like “Leaving Time” and “Don’t Wait Up” definitely spring from this. If I could have one voice, it would be Fogerty’s. 

Wilco — “How to Fight Loneliness”

Being from Chicago, I was lucky to have Wilco as one of my favorite groups from like age 16 on. Jeff Tweedy’s imperfect voice always sounds equally sly and vulnerable to me — and this tune always hits me hard. The way Wilco incorporates electronic and ethereal elements into folk songs always inspired me. 

Amy Winehouse — “You Know I’m No Good”

As I started writing tunes for Liz to wail on, I kept thinking how awesome and complex the compositions were for Winehouse, mixing vintage soul with her own vulnerable approach. The way the horns sneak in and out on this track is so cool. 

Mary J. Blige — “Family Affair”

I probably had this song in my head for like five straight years. When we were brainstorming on a groove for “If You Could See Me Now,” we went out of the box a bit and thought of this groove. So nasty good.

The Cavaliers — “Oh Where Can My Baby Be”  

There is definitely a morbid fascination in old country and rock songs with young people dying or losing each other. I’ve always wanted to write a mournful type of song like this, but one that questions the tragedy … like how could something so sweet like being young and in love go so wrong so fast? 

The Dustbowl Revival — “Debtors’ Prison”

This is how it all comes together.

The Mile Markers of Music: A Conversation with Ketch Secor

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It’s not a stretch to say that Old Crow Medicine Show is intrinsically linked to Bob Dylan. The country-roots band has never shied away from voicing their admiration for the seminal singer/songwriter, and the story behind the infamous “Wagon Wheel” is common musical fodder at this point: Old Crow’s Ketch Secor filled in the verses to an incomplete track titled “Rock Me Mama” from a Bob Dylan bootleg his bandmate Critter Fuqua found during a trip to London. After Darius Rucker’s cover of “Wagon Wheel” hit number one on the Billboard chart in 2013, Dylan’s camp reached out to Old Crow. They offered another song fragment Dylan dreamed up around the same time as “Rock Me Mama,” and wanted to see what Old Crow could do with it. Old Crow cut the track and after incorporating a couple of suggestions from Dylan himself, “Sweet Amarillo” became the first single from the band’s 2014 release, Remedy.

Now, Old Crow Medicine Show is paying homage to Bob Dylan with the release of 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Dylan’s first Nashville record. The live album features Old Crow’s performance of Blonde on Blonde in its entirety, recorded last May at the CMA Theater, located in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

“As somebody with such deep respect for Bob Dylan, I hope that he likes what we did with the songs,” Secor says. “We really tried to go, ‘What if the Memphis Jug Band had come up with “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat?” What if the Mississippi Sheiks had figured out how to write a song like “Visions of Johanna?” And what would it sound like if they did?’”

As Secor puts it, Blonde on Blonde was “the shot heard ‘round the world” – the record that changed the landscape of country music and split Nashville’s sound wide open.

Do you remember the first time you listened to Blonde on Blonde ?

The first time I heard Blonde on Blonde, I was probably 14, 15 years old and I was headed down a sweeping Bob Dylan kick and ingesting as much Bob as I could like it was water or wine.

Dylan has such a vast catalog. What was it about Blonde on Blonde that made the band want to take this particular record on? Why did you pick this record to celebrate for the 50th anniversary?

Well, it’s true we could have picked any of Bob’s records ’cause we’re at that point in a lot of history where we’re at milestone marks for many of the seminal musical efforts of the past 50 years and more. This one made a lot of sense because it was made in Nashville and it’s the first of Bob’s Nashville records. And this was also recorded at a time when Nashville had yet to have a rock ‘n’ roll record. This was kind of the very beginning of the ever-expanding Nashville sound, so it’s a real milestone in that regard and, with it, in the wake of Bob Dylan’s trip to Nashville, everybody from Leonard Cohen to Joan Baez to Ringo Starr and Neil Young were in Nashville in the next five years making their own records.

In recording and releasing this project, what are you hoping to communicate about the Nashville sound? Are you hoping to preserve that Dylan and post-Dylan time? Or how do you see Nashville as changing or staying the same in the last 50 years?

Well, one of the sentiments that seems active here in Nashville right now is this feeling of, “Wow, everything is changing.” You look at the skyline and there’s something new going up every day; it’s full of cranes and boom shafts and towers. So much development, so many people moving to town. So I think it’s easy for Nashvillians to think, “Wow, things sure are getting different.” My argument, with this record, is that 50 years ago is really when things started getting different, and that’s the shot heard ’round the world that the Nashville music community and its spectrum of sound became so much wider beginning with the making of Blonde on Blonde and that it’s very wide today.

Now, with country music, as it’s heard on the radio and viewed upon the charts, that has actually become very, very narrow in its scope. So I think, with a record like this, we’re hoping to kind of shine a light on a time in which that very thing was happening and somebody like Bob Dylan came in and said, “Hey, I belong to country music, too! I’m from a mining town just like Loretta Lynn. I’m the fringe of America, just like Charley Pride. And I’m an outsider.” So to make an outsider record in Nashville at that time was a really powerful turning point for our state.

Can you walk me through the prep for this project? How long did you all work on learning these songs or what did you do with the arrangements to make them your own? What was your approach?

We started this project about two months before we went in and recorded it — maybe two or three months — and just started learning the songs. That was the biggest challenge — getting all the lyrics down. This is probably Bob’s most intensely lyrical album in well over 50 years of record-making. So to be able to recite it was a real challenge. It’s such a kaleidoscopic collection of lyrics, so the real challenge is being able to differentiate at every moment in live performance whether you’re supposed to sing about the “sheet metal memories of Cannery Row” or the “sheet-like metal and the belt-like lace.” You know, it’s all this impressionistic poetry or Beat poetry or whatever it is, post-modernism or something, and trying to be able to find form and meter in it when Bob so deliberately created it to be formless and without meter.

I watched a promo video for this project — it was an interview with you in the studio where Bob recorded this album and you said something I loved: “These songs, Bob wrote them, but they belong to all of us.” I was wondering if you could expand on that sentiment?

Well, I think we all know what folk music is and I think we all know the term public domain or the idea of a statute of limitations by which copyrights run out and they become part of a common vernacular. I think it’s less obvious to apply that to something that’s so clearly Bob Dylan’s. But my argument is that “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” belongs to America, no matter who wrote it. And that’s the same … like Elizabeth Cotten wrote “Freight Train,” but I didn’t learn that song from Elizabeth Cotten. I learned it from my mother. And when music becomes the property of everybody, when it’s on everybody’s tongue and when it’s streaming out of a guitar instead of out of your little pocket telephone, computer, when the folk music muscle takes hold, that’s when songs cease to become so much about their origins and rather about them existing on their own. I really think it’s all folk music, everything — Beyonce’s Lemonade.

I think a better example of how pop music can be everybody’s is, you listen to the opening lines of “Beat It” or “Billie Jean.” “Billie Jean,” I mean, that’s basically “Knoxville Girl” without the murder. It has all the same intensity. Or like on our album, or on Blonde on Blonde, “4th Time Around,” the sort of lover’s duet. These are songs that are archetypal and they belong to whoever the singer is singing ’em. So, when you think about bluegrass music … bluegrass music is always exploring between the public domain or contemporary bluegrass songwriters. You know, Blonde on Blonde makes for pretty good bluegrass music, too.

You all also released a Best Of album earlier this year and, if I’m doing my math right, next year — 2018 — will mark 20 years as a band for Old Crow Medicine Show. What does it feel like to hit that milestone?

You know, it’s been a little while. About half of my life now, I’ve been signed up playing music for the Old Crow Medicine Show. I kind of feel like … well, the Yankees wouldn’t be a good metaphor because I don’t actually like the Yankees. I’m more of a BoSox fan. I kind of feel like Carl Yastrzemski — like a guy that has come to personify the Red Sox as much as the Red Sox themselves. You’ve gotta do things to keep it fresh and that means musical exploration can never cease. You can never get too good. Fortunately, for our band, when we started out, we could barely play our instruments. I mean, I remember when I learned to play the fiddle. I had been playing for two weeks before I was playing on the street corner with the one tune I figured out how to play. And I just played for 10 minutes and then I’d take a break, and play for another 10 minutes.

So the vista for Old Crow has been sort of endless because we started out at the very beginning of the trail. We started on street corners and we weren’t trying to get that much bigger. We were just having a good time doing it, and then the trail just kept unfolding and we just kept hiking up it. So, I think the 20-year mark, it hasn’t really sunk in yet because we’re still very much in 19, but you don’t really think about. When I think about 20 years, that kind of scares me, moreso than celebrates it. I think about this: When Blonde on Blonde was 20 years old, it was 1986, and I was a kid listening to Michael Jackson and was about to discover Bob Dylan about a year later. It’s funny the way that you find yourself being a part of the very time that you would celebrate. You know, 50 years of Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde … that’s about 38 years of my life, too.

Photo credit: Laura E. Partain

3×3: Beth Bombara on Cat Pillows, Crow Songs, and Hawaiian Sunsets

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Artist: Beth Bombara
Hometown: St Louis, MO
Latest Project: Map & No Direction
Personal Nicknames: My name was misspelled on a sign once at one of my shows. Instead of BOMBARA, it read BOMBASA. That became a nickname shortly after that.

 

Having an amazing time at #fai2017 @folk_alliance #latergram

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If your life were a movie, which songs would be on the soundtrack?

“Strangers” (The Kinks), “We’re All in This Together” (Old Crow Medicine Show), “I Won’t Back Down” (Tom Petty), “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got” (Joan Jett)

How many unread emails or texts currently fill your inbox?

Currently 110 unread emails.

How many pillows do you sleep with?

Does a cat count as a pillow? If yes, then two.

 

Oh hey, just walking up a mountain to get a view of Albuquerque.

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How many pairs of shoes do you own?

7

Which mountains are your favorite — Smoky, Blue Ridge, Rocky, Appalachian, or Catskill?

I’ve probably hiked the most in the Rocky Mountains, but all mountains are my favorite.

If you were a liquor, what would you be?

Rye Whiskey

 

#tulsa #oklahoma #tour

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Fate or free will?

Free will with a dash of fate, if that’s even a thing.

Sweet or sour?

Mix it all up, I don’t mind

Sunrise or sunset?

Sunset, except for this one time I got to see the sunrise above the clouds at Haleakala National Park. We got up at 4 am and drove an hour-and-a-half to make it there for sunrise. It was the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen. Then, we drove back down the mountain and, at the end of the day, watched the sunset over the Pacific Ocean on the beach.

The Essential Old Crow Medicine Show Playlist

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Though Old Crow Medicine Show are generally associated with North Carolina, where they were discovered busking outside a drug store in Boone, the band also known as O.C.M.S. are actually the product of two different areas of the Appalachians. Two of the band's five founding members, Ketch Secor and Critter Fuqua, are from the east side the mountain (Harrisonburg, Virginia) while Kevin Hayes and former members Ben Gould and Willie Watson were from the fertile string music scene of Ithaca, New York. It was when Secor headed to Ithaca College — and brought Fuqua along for the ride — that the band got its start in earnest (and later found their big break in Boone).

Like many of their counterparts in modern string music, the members of O.C.M.S. are as influenced by the sounds of Guns ‘N’ Roses as by the songwriting of Doc Watson. It has been their ability to meld the classic melodies and storytelling style of the traditional string music with the energy and enthusiasm of classic rock 'n' roll that have made them so successful.

Now, with nine studio records to their credit, from 1998’s cassette recording, Trans:mission, to their award-winning 2014 set, Remedy, O.C.M.S. have been consistently at the leading and influential edge of modern string music. For newbies and fans alike, here’s an essential playlist that spans most of their career, ranges from covers of classics to their own songs, and includes the tune that not even Bob Dylan has our permission to cover.

Photo of OCMS by Crackerfarm.

3×3: Noah Wall on Staying Healthy, Feeling Heavenly, and Laundering Monthly

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Artist: Noah Wall (of the Barefoot Movement)
Hometown: Oxford, NC
Latest Album: Down Home Blues (solo), Live in L.A. (The Barefoot Movement)
Personal Nicknames: I don't have any nicknames, but I have four nieces and nephews, and hearing them call me "Aunt Noah" is pretty awesome.

 

Playing @the_ark_ann_arbor tonight at 7:30! Still reeling from a fabulous time at the #indianafiddlersgathering

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What song do you wish you had written?
Someone asked me this recently, and I had a hard time giving them an answer. There are so many songs that I love with all my heart, but I don't wish I had written them, necessarily. I just feel so happy that they were written for me to enjoy. But I do wish I could write a song as good as "I Hear Them All" by Dave Rawlings or Old Crow Medicine Show. I love the simplicity of the music and depth of the words.

If money were no object, where would you live and what would you do?
I'd pretty much do the same things I'm doing now; I'd just do them a little better! All I want to do is write music and play shows. If I had plenty of money, I might plan my tour schedule a little differently. Right now, it's a pretty constant thing and it can be hard to stay grounded (and healthy!) when you are always traveling. People say do it while you're young, but the harder you go, the faster you age, so I feel like it evens out. Also, I used to do a lot of theater and I absolutely loved it. One day, I'd like to have the freedom to do that again somehow.

If the After-Life exists, what song will be playing when you arrive?
Whenever I hear the harmonies at the end of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Only Living Boy in New York," it makes me feel pretty heavenly.

 

Not a bad place for preproduction. #studioherewecome #dayone

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How often do you do laundry?
Ha ha! Probably when I get home from every tour — so maybe once a month, for like two days straight.

What was the last movie that you really loved?
ROOM! With Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay. I have not been so enthralled with a movie in years. I watched it three times in a week. Also, I just watched Schindler's List again on an airplane, and I cried the whole time. I've been good and depressed ever since. But I think that can be a good thing.

What's your favorite TV show?
I'm definitely a movie and TV person (and music, of course) so as with any of those, it's hard to pick just one. A few of my all-time favorites are Mad Men, Downton Abbey, The Walking Dead, Felicity, That 70s Show, Friends, 30 Rock, thirtysomething, and, like everyone else, I'm completely obsessed with Game of Thrones.

 

#bandontherun Taking in the Utah air at 7 pm tonight @ogdennaturecenter

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Morning person or night owl?
I saw a sunrise once … so, yeah. Night owl, through and through.

Who is your favorite Sanders — Bernie or Colonel?
I'm not too politically opinionated, but I do love chicken.

Coffee or tea?
Herbal tea. I have Throat Coat before every show. When I need something sweet and delicious, Oprah's Herbal Chai blend with cream and sugar is the best.

Photo credit: Catherine Truman

The Felice Brothers, ‘Aerosol Ball’

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It's hard to find a downside to this most recent modern roots revival — after all, what could be bad about a trend toward acoustic instruments, old-time influences, and keen harmonies? Well, not much, and we're certainly not complaining. But as more and more bands have ditched the distortion pedals for the dobro, there is one thing that's sometimes lost along the way: edge. When a good string band is good, they often teeter on the brink of madness, creating an environment that's as much punk rock as it is Americana. Old Crow Medicine Show paved a roadmap to how this could be done on LPs like Tennessee Pusher and Big Iron World, where expert musicianship and classic craft didn't have to breed something that's just so darn earnest.

The Felice Brothers, who got their start busking in the New York City subway, ain't earnest. Not in the pejorative sense, at least — and that metaphor of playing acoustic music as the concrete jungle towered overhead and trains whirled by is a perfect expression of how their sound, while entrenched in past traditions, manages to never succumb to serious, precious practices. Their newest track, "Aerosol Ball," from their forthcoming album, Life in the Dark, is proof that even after 10 years as a band, they've never lost that gritty grasp on their breed of folk-country. Propelled by Ian Felice's off-kilter vocals and James Felice's accordion, there's a welcome dose of angst behind the melodies that demonstrate the song's visceral tension toward the modern age. "The lines on her palm are made by Viacom," sings Ian, full of vinegar, "and her dreams and her thoughts were made by Microsoft." Acoustic punk, not cutesy roots, at its best.