Old Crow Medicine Show releases new album Remedy

Heavily celebrated Grammy Award winning band Old Crow Medicine Show has announced their upcoming new album Remedy, due out June 30 via ATO Records/PIAS. Remedy is full of catchy melodies, quirky and often humorous lyrics, all executed with mesmerizing musicianship. Meanwhile four UK concerts have been announced and tickets are now on sale as follows:

• Sun Nov 19 Manchester, The Ritz
• Tues Nov 21 Belfast, Mandela Hall
• Wed Nov 22 Glasgow, O2 ABC
• Fri Nov 24 London, The Roundhouse

Ten years after the massive success of folk anthem “Wagon Wheel”, which started as a track on a Bob Dylan work tape later finished by fiddler/band leader Ketch Secor, Remedy features a new Dylan/Old Crow penned collaboration on the new track “Sweet Amarillo” one of the album’s many highlights. Remedy also features the return of producer Ted Hutt (Flogging Molly, Gaslight Anthem), who produced 2012’s highly praised Carry Me Back.

Long before the resurgence of folk and roots rock, Old Crow Medicine Show was performing their fiery style of amped up old-time music, cultivating a diverse fan base who thrive on the band’s energetic performances. The songs on Remedy are chock full of the same raw energy, swagger and drive that has made rabid fans of everyone from hipsters to college students to traditional music purists. “This is country music for people who think country music needs a whoopin'’ says Secor, who adds, “Country music that knows how deep its roots run--- from the dirtiest blues to the folkiest folk, the songwriters, the crooners and the Outlaws, to the Opry stage; it's all here”. Kicking off with "Brushy Mountain Conjugal Trailer”, a new take on the classic prison tale, the band then launches into the hyper speed "8 Dogs 8 Banjos" a timeless original that could have been penned ages ago, but with more fire. Though Old Crow Medicine Show is loved for their fast and furious up-tempo numbers, they shine brightly on the ballads including the touching "Dearly Departed Friend" and Critter Fuqua’s “Firewater”.

In support of their upcoming release, the band has announced their biggest headlining tour ever with stops including Red Rocks, The Philadelphia Folk Festival and London’s incredible performance space The Roundhouse. Parker Millsap who will be opening all of the band’s UK dates. Old Crow Medicine Show's story is truly one of building a career from the ground up. While busking in the North Carolina town of Boone, they were discovered by folk icon Doc Watson. Since then the band has toured the world, received mass critical praise, and sold over 800,000 albums.

The band’s single “Wagon Wheel” received the RIAA’s platinum certification for selling over one million copies, and they were recently asked to become the newest members of the Grand Ole Opry. The band was also a part of the Big Easy Express tour and documentary along with Mumford & Sons and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. They were awarded a Grammy for "Best Long Form Music Video" for their part in the film.

One of many things that set Old Crow Medicine Show apart is the way they have earned the respect of both their peers and influences while also influencing the new guard of folk-rock revivalists. While trends have come and gone, Old Crow Medicine Show continues to be a strong and steady force in roots music.

Among the first of their generation to come to old time string music, Old Crow were as rough as green lumber in those early days. As they should have been. “None of us grew up playing this music,” Critter says. “We all grew up playing Nirvana and electric guitars.” “It was raw for a couple reasons,” Ketch says. “It was raw because the source of inspiration was all of the earliest recordings of country music, blues music, race and hillbilly. And that stuff is the raw form. It's dirty. That's the greasy stuff. That's what we were cloaking ourselves with.”

That folk tradition resonates throughout Remedy. “Tennessee Bound” extends a song from Lily Mae Ledford, the Kentucky banjo player principally associated with the Coon Creek Girls. “Sweet Home” recasts a melody originally recorded by the Skillet Lickers.

It is those deep roots which make Old Crow Medicine Show's audience dance and sing. Traditionalists, new and old. Blue collar, white collar, no collar. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because Old Crow Medicine Show is a vital, diverse ensemble. A living cloud of joy. Songs come from anywhere, filtered through the band's streetcorner savvy. But at the center of things remains the long-running creative partnership of Ketch Secor and Critter Fuqua. “Critter and I started writing songs when we were thirteen,” Ketch says. “At a really young age Critter was a phenomenal musician, really innate. Actually, it feels like I'm fourteen when we hang out. It's been such a full wind in our sails to have Critter back.”

The medicine show tradition was all a hustle, musicians (or worse) trotted out to draw an audience so the smart guy could step onstage and sell bottles filled with a remedy for whatever ailed. The smart guy was wrong, even if he made most of the money.

The medicine show was the remedy. The music. People came for the music, and the unexpected joy it brought healed them. The power of a melody, a smile, and a beat that makes young folk dance before they even know what they're doing. That's still what music is, the music that matters: A remedy for what ails us.