Brandi and Old Crow Medicine Show Have Your Summer Remedy

July 8, 2016

Busking may be a fun way to play music and connect with people, but it isn’t usually a pivotal moment in a band’s career — unless you’re the Nashville-based Americana string band Old Crow Medicine Show.

The band’s turning point is the stuff of music industry legend. The band was out busking in front of the Boone Drug pharmacy in Boone, N.C., when happenstance led legendary American folk musician Doc Watson to them. Old Crow, on the spot, performed “Oh My Little Darling,” an old-time song they thought Watson might like. When they finished the tune, Watson praised the band and invited them to perform at his annual MerleFest music festival in Wilkesboro, which draws around 75,000 people every April.

At the festival, Sally Williams, general manager of the Grand Ole Opry, saw Old Crow perform and invited the band to participate in some summer music events there.

Old Crow moved to Nashville in October of 2000, and their upward trajectory began. They were mentored by the Opry’s president, Marty Stuart, and would become official members of the Opry in 2013.

What makes the band so compelling and so unique is due in large part to their embrace and reworking of the music that pre-dates their own. When Old Crow were first starting out, they didn’t play originals; they took old blues, hillbilly, and folk songs, as well as tunes from minstrel shows and pre-war jug bands, and infused them with rock and punk sensibilities, playing the songs louder and faster and developing them into their own style. By the time Old Crow got around to writing their own music, the template had been set, and their love for “old-timey” music had become an essential ingredient of their original songs.

“I think one of the biggest reasons people like our music is that it really isn’t old,” explained Old Crow’s Critter Fuqua, who sings and plays guitar and banjo. “I mean, Civil War-era music isn’t even that old. And during its time, it was actually all brand new music.” He suggested that the draw of their music might be its simplicity, an audio backto-basics counterpoint to the noise of modern day’s “over-saturation” of technology and convenience. “I think in America, we’re looking to our past again for music, kind of the way we are with food and sustainable farming and the revitalization of downtowns and neighborhoods,” he said.

The band’s value for organic, simple music is as much a part of their songwriting process as it is a key to their sound. For their original songs, Fuqua said, there isn’t really one songwriter in the band, nor do they have any real pattern to how they write. “The songs just kind of take form as they’re written,” he said, “whether one person brings a song to the band or we all work on a song and arrange it together.” Given that their latest album, Remedy, hit the prestigious Billboard Top 100 at No. 15, the highest debut in the band’s 16-year career, their formula — or lack thereof — is obviously working well.

While Brandi Carlile, the band’s coheadliner at their upcoming Interlochen show, has performed several shows Up North, Old Crow Medicine Show are lesser travelers to northern Michigan. But they’re sure to leave with a host of new fans. As part of the dual Old Crow-Carlile tour, both acts will take the stage together for a few musical collaborations during the show, as well as perform their own separate sets. “When we travel, it’s really about our live show,” Fuqua said. “We really do put on a SHOW, in big capital letters, and we talk to the audience and get them to be part of it. The biggest thing is that it’s important to us to have fun.”

Old Crow Medicine Show and Brandi Carlile will be in concert at Interlochen Center for the Arts’ Kresge Auditorium on July 15 at 7pm. For tickets and more information, visit tickets.interlochen.org.