Nashville, TN · americana · old-time

Old Crow Medicine Show

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'Wagon Wheel' originators and old-time revivalists — a string band that plays with punk-rock urgency.

Old Crow Medicine Show formed in 1998 and built its early reputation busking, including a stretch outside a pharmacy in Boone, North Carolina, in 2000, where Doc Watson heard them and invited them to play his MerleFest. Founders Ketch Secor and Chris "Critter" Fuqua had met as seventh graders in Harrisonburg, Virginia, while singer Willie Watson came out of the old-time scene around Watkins Glen, New York, before the group came together.

Led by singer and fiddler Secor, the band plays banjo, fiddle, guitar, harmonica and upright bass in an old-time string band configuration, but with a loud, fast, rowdy attack drawn as much from punk as from the pre-World War II blues and folk songs they study alongside their own writing.

Their best-known song, "Wagon Wheel," grew out of an unfinished Bob Dylan sketch that Secor completed. It was certified platinum in 2013 and later became a top 40 hit for Darius Rucker. The band's influence has been credited with helping spark a wider revival of banjo-driven string bands within Americana music.

The group were inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in September 2013 and won the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album for their 2014 record Remedy, one of nine studio albums that also include Volunteer, released in 2018 to mark the band's twentieth anniversary. They have recorded both original material and full-album tributes.

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americanaold-time