How many bands get tapped by Bob Dylan to finish his unreleased work? Well Old Crow Medicine Show have be handed pieces by Dylan, twice, to record and finish. Now that’s a band I want to see!
“Wagon Wheel,” the country single made popular by Darius Rucker was first recorded by Old Crow Medicine Show, the Nashville-based bluegrass and folk band that will perform Friday, Aug. 15 at the 53rd annual Philadelphia Folk Festival.
Frontman Ketch Secor is, along with Dylan, credited with writing “Wagon Wheel,” and is joined by Chris Fuqua, Kevin Hayes, Morgan Jahnig, Gill Landry, Chance McCoy and Cory Younts in the band.
Old Crow has been a festival favorite at Bonnaroo, MerleFest and the Newport Folk Festival. This band has been riding at the crest of the modern roots revival wave, touring with Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros and Mumford and Sons. Critically acclaimed and platinum record recording, Old Crow Medicine Show thrives off audience energy and puts on a mesmerizing show.
These guys have played every dive bar in the south and gained a following over the past 15 years from country music fans to folkies. They’ve earned the respect of their peers and elders alike, but still fly under the radar of popular music and hipsters.
On the band’s most recent album, “Remedy,” released earlier this year, Secor was tapped by Dylan to record yet another unearthed track from the 1973 “Patt Garrett & Bill the Kid” studio vault – “Sweet Armarillo.”
Secor also leads the band with a fierce fiddle, and with stomp and whoops, herds a stampede of sound with a country twang.
Old Crow Medicine Show will perform at 10:45 p.m. Friday on the main stage at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.
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