Show Me the Way Home, Honey

Old Crow Medicine Show - Tennessee Pusher

Styles: Contemporary Folk, Neo - Traditional Folk, Neo - Traditional Bluegrass
Label: Nettwerk
Released: 2008
File: mp3 @320K/s
Size: 122,3 MB
Time: 53:00
Art: folk + back

1. Alabama High-Test - 2:25
2. Highway Halo - 3:42
3. The Greatest Hustler of All - 7:04
4. Methamphetamine - 5:27
5. Next Go 'Round - 3:38
6. Humdinger - 2:29
7. Motel in Memphis - 4:25
8. Evening Sun - 3:43
9. Mary's Kitchen - 2:43
10. Crazy Eyes - 4:17
11. Tunnessee Pusher - 5:30
12. Lift Him Up - 3:57
13. Caroline - 3:33

Notes: Old Crow Medicine Show release in 2008 their third Nettwerk album called Tennessee Pusher. Produced by the legendary Don Was (Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, the Rolling Stones), the album features the first single "Caroline" along with 11 other Old Crow originals and an American standard called "Lift Him Up" by Blind Alfred Reed. Having sold over 290K albums, OCMS can attribute much of their success to their relentless touring schedule. Between headlining shows and countless festivals (Bonnaroo, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, New Orleans Jazz Festival, etc), the band lives on the road - they thrive on the communal experience of the live shows. OCMS have made a name for themselves as energetic performers with an unbridled spirit."as musicians, songwriters and singers, they are the smartest and finest purveyors of American music to come down the pike in decades." ~ Don Was

Tennessee Pusher



• Le Chat Mort - Le Chat Mort / Roses
• Old Crow Medicine Show - Old Crow Medicine Show

Oznake: Contemporary Folk, Old Crow Medicine Show, Traditional Folk, Bluegrass

Old Crow Medicine Show - Old Crow Medicine Show

Styles: Jug Bands, String Bands, Neo-Traditional Folk, Contemporary Folk
Label: Nettwerk Records
Released: 2004
File: mp3 @320K/s
Size: 83,7 MB
Time: 36:17
Art: front

1. Tell It To Me - 2:48
2. Big Time In The Jungle - 2:50
3. Poor Man - 3:35
4. Tear It Down - 2:11
5. Hard To Love - 2:30
6. CC Rider - 3:50
7. Trials & Troubles - 2:57
8. Hard To Tell - 3:15
9. Take 'Em Away - 3:35
10. We're All In This Together - 4:51
11. Wagon Wheel - 3:52

Personnel:
Critter Fuqua - Banjo, Guitar, Vocals, Bottleneck Guitar
Kevin Hayes - Guitar
Morgan Jahnig - Bass (Upright)
Ketcham Secor - Banjo, Fiddle, Harmonica, Vocals
Willie Watson - Banjo, Guitar, Vocals
and
David Rawlings - Guitar, Producer
Gillian Welch - Drums


Notes: Old Crow Medicine Show is an all-acoustic quintet from four states whose members met in New York City and currently reside in Nash Vegas. Their storied beginnings include a North American cross-continent ramble while they learned their instruments and how to play together, eventually ending up playing on the street in front of the Grand Ole Opry before being asked to the stage some weeks later. Their self-titled debut album is equal parts Woody Guthrie's dust bowl weariness and Cisco Houston's rambling code of the road, Phil Ochs' view of a passing America, the Kingston Trio's wide-eyed enthusiastic earnestness, the New Christy Minstrels' sense of community, Doc and Merle Watson's home-grown blues as informed by Bill Monroe, Beat Generation lamentations, forlorn 1960s idealism, and the musical mindset that fueled America's original folk revival from the 1950s as it moved toward rockabilly. In other words, this record is informed by ghosts but executed in flesh, blood, sweat, and laughter. Whether the tunes are covers from antiquity ("CC Rider," "Poor Man," "Tell It to Me") or originals by fiddler and vocalist Ketch Secor and his songwriting and singing partner, Willie Watson ("Trials & Troubles," "Hard to Tell," "We're in This Together"), the feel is the same: passion, humor, and relentless drive to get to the heart of the tune and put it across. There is so much enthusiasm here, so much willingness and fire, that it would be hard to do anything but want to sing along. Thoroughly enjoyable, wonderfully raw and sinewy, Old Crow Medicine Show may be evoking the sounds of the old string bands, but they do it with a crackling rock & roll energy. ~ Thom Jurek

O.C.M.S.



• Abbie Gardner - Hope •
• Jeff Lang - Half Seas Over •

Oznake: Old Crow Medicine Show, Jug Band, String Bands, Contemporary Folk

Old Crow Medicine Show - Carry Me Back

Notes: With the upcoming release of their new album, Carry Me Back, it looks like Old Crow Medicine Show have retaken the mantle of American roots music superstars, and they’re doing so by going back to their roots as a tough-as-nails old-timey stringband. After 2008?s disappointing Tennessee Pusher, and after a hiatus from touring over band members leaving and returning, it’s about damn time! The only downside to the new album is that it doesn’t really reflect the current lineup of the group. Since Carry Me Back was recorded, founding members Critter Fuqua and Ketch Secor have been reunited after years of separation. Founding member Willie Watson has parted ways with the group, as has mandolinist Cory Younts, and though you won’t hear him on this album, old-time fiddle prodigy Chance McCoy has now joined the band. But so what? We’ll be happy when a newer album comes out with the current lineup, of course, but this one will tide us over nicely until then.
Newer member, songwriter Gill Landry, remains on Carry Me Back, and on the new album has more of a hand in the songwriting, which is good news. Landry was an amazing signing for the group, though it went largely unnoticed by national press. Originally Cajun, Landry should be well known to any roots music fan in the Northwest from his solo work and his work with the legendary street performing jugband The Kitchen Syncopators. Their last album, Underwood, now sadly out of print, is one of my favorite roots music releases of the past decade. Hands down. It’s that good. Check out this interview by Chris Mateer of No Depression to get a better idea of who Gill Landry is. On the new album, Gill takes on the beautiful and rather sad song “Genevieve,” and I believe brings in a Syncopators song, “Steppin’ Out.” Anyways, I’m not clear on all the politics behind these changes, but it sure looks to me like Old Crow’s circling the wagons and focusing inwards on what they do best: punked-out stringband music.
On Carry Me Back, the group sounds more acoustic than ever, focusing on the hordes of banjo, guit-jos, and banjo-what-have-yous that gives them much of their rhythmic punch. Ketch Secor’s rough-as-fuck fiddling is back, which was always one of my favorite parts of the band. In truth, this album is seriously folkie. It sounds like a 21-st century version of Woody Guthrie’s vision, all hopped up on populist pride and pissed-off that times they aren’t a-changin’. “Half Mile Down” sounds like a 70s folk stringband, but the lyrics rage against flooded valleys from government dams. “We Don’t Grow Tobacco,” one of the best tracks on the album, sounds like a drunken barroom brawl and focuses its energy on out-of-work farmers. “I will chop that wicked weed/til my hands and fingers bleed/Workin’ like a mule/maybe more... And I sure am sad to say/We don’t grow tobacco ‘round here no more.” But it’s not all working-class politics. Old Crow Medicine Show cut their teeth on slice-of-life Southern folk songs and there’s plenty of that too, from the title track “Carry Me Back” which sounds like an Appalachian old-time song to “Steppin’ Out,” which could have just as easily been recorded by the Memphis Jug Band back in the day. On other bands, this kind of Southern nostalgia would come off as a bit forced, but the beauty of Old Crow Medicine Show is that they’re having too much goddamn fun to care, and their infectious joy in their own music swings the listener along with them. It’s good to have you back, boys!

Oznake: Old Crow Medicine Show, String Bands, Americana, Contemporary Folk, Bluegrass