Old Crow Medicine Show

The first time I heard about Old Crow Medicine Show was when I was wondering aimlessly through the crowds at Cambridge Folk Festival 2004, and found myself watching a small group of skinny musicians playing an impromptu set, basically busking on the corner of some dusty festival path, for anyone who would listen. And there wasn't anybody within ear-range who wasn't listening. The next day, one of the headlining acts cancelled unexpectedly, and with one main-stage slot to fill, the organisers - rather than asking another head-line to fill in - instead to turned to the unknown gang of travelling street musicians. They became the most talked-about act of the festival, selling all of the few copies of their demo-CD they had brought along not expecting to sell. Last Summer they were inbited back by the Cambridge festival organisers, this time as headliners - drawing massive crowds to their performances and one of the only acts chosen to be aired on the short BBC coverage.

For me, Old Crow Medicine Show are everything I was raised on, traditional pre-War American rags and jug band tunes, yet there's something about watching a bunch of kids stomping around a stage, shouting out the same songs my Dad has to use a wind-up gramaphone to play the original recordings of, that makes me get a funny feeling in my belly. Old Crow Medicine are what folk music is about - songs that are hundreds of years old, played on traditional instruments, but still mean the same thing: playing your heart out for anyone who will listen, whether it's on a street corner or on a stage or in your living room, regardless of age or background, because songs that are older than anybody alive on earth can be played by anybody and for anybody, just simply for the joy of playing that music. They're clinging onto all of our pasts, but they're playing for the now, and when you get a band like Old Crow Medicine Show who play it with such control over their instruments but so much intensity... I don't think anybody can listen to Wagon Wheels and not tap their foot.

Wagon Wheels
Cocaine Blues

expired