Sorry, it's been months and it ain't Friday, but I was just feeling like it tonight. Myles, who will be 2 in a couple of weeks, and I were playing "jams" (as he calls them) this evening from Youtube through the DVD player. This is one of his favorites of all time. "Wagon Wheel" by Old Crow Medicine Show. OCMS is a true old-time string band. Fiddles. Guitars. Banjos. Double bass. The occasional harmonica, Great music. It's not really bluegrass and it's not really country, but it is authentic old timey Americana, the kind of music that rural Americans played on the farms, ranches and homesteads by themselves and for themselves before it became common to listen to music recorded by other people - via the radio.
This particular song, "Wagon Wheel," is listed with a co-writing credit between OCMS's lead vocalist and fiddler, Ketch Secor, and the legendary Bob Dylan. How does this happen? Well, young Ketch is a major music junkie, and he was in the process of listening to every bootleg and outtake available of Bob Dylan's and he heard this "Rock Me Mamma" chorus sung by Dylan on an old tape. It was really just an idea for a song that Dylan did for a movie soundtrack. Secor took that idea and finished it with several verses about hitchhiking from college in New York to get back home to his native North Carolina. Once OCMS started getting some local notoriety, Ketch realized that he really better get some rights to this song if they are going to sell it... I mean, it started as a Dylan song. They ended up with co-credits and the song became synonymous with OCMS.
These guys can play their instruments, but they also have ridiculous voices suited to this kind of music. Listen to Ketch on the leads, but keep an ear out for when the skinny, scraggly-haired guitarist chimes in with the high notes to harmonize with Ketch - if you like music, these vocal harmonies are fucking hair-raising - especially if you've had a few whiskeys and miss somebody or somewhere.
Great lyrics, simple heart-felt ideas, Americana imagery. Trike and I are committed to seeing these Carolina boys perform in their adopted new home of Nashville. Just hear how the home crowd goes nuts when he mentions the Volunteer State in this verse about trying to get home:
Walking due south out of Roanoke,
I caught a trucker out of Philly, had a nice long toke
But he's headed west from the Cumberland Gap
To Johnson City, Tennessee
Go ahead, treat yourself. Don't be shy about saying "gawdayam!" when you hear the fiddle parts between verses.
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