December 2024 Edition

Season’s Greetings to you and yours from all of us in Old Crow. Or, like they say up in Quebec and in my favorite parts of New Brunswick, “Joyeaux Noel!” I hope you’re having a great holiday. And if you’re not … well … have some more egg nog!
 
It's the season of giving and we’re grateful to you for giving us gifts that are so sacred it’s hard to find the words to express: the gifts of your love and support. We’re so thankful because these are the very things we’ve needed to keep our bus wheels turning, bows rosined, and banjos tuned for the past 25+ years of music and merriment. We literally could not do this without you. And what’s more, your gifts keep on giving. Not only were we blessed to have you listen to our music in 2024, you probably also saw us live…meaning you bought tickets, traveled hours over hill and dale, probably paid too much to park and even more to drink those three Michelob Ultras, plus had to get a t-shirt and a hoodie for Meemaw. And on top of that, you pre-ordered the 20th anniversary first-time-ever-on-vinyl (can you believe it!) edition of our debut record “O.C.M.S.” Whoah, now that is some kind of generous.
 
Whether you’re a longtime fan who first bought our cassette on a street corner in New Orleans or Seattle, or a newcomer who just joined the Old Crow parade, you’re here and we’re glad for it, because that’s what makes this whole thing work. See, music is a reciprocal force. You get what you give. We put our all into sharing our gifts with you — whether it's the joy we feel performing live or the passion we pour into every song we write and record. Then you return the gifts right back to us with stomping feet, clapping hands, outpourings of emotion. Sometimes you go even further by making our music your own — by singing it, playing it, recording it, and passing it along to your communities. There are few gifts that I love more than these recordings and videos. They come in from all around the globe. I hear you singing our songs at honky tonks in Argentina, around campfires in Zambia, on the Appalachian Trail, even in the Arctic.
 
After all these years of playing my heart out with this band I started at age 19, I've heard countless stories about how our music touched your hearts, and when I hear these tales, I am overjoyed. You tell me how a song I wrote brought you closer to a loved one struggling with addiction. You share a picture of your newborn and tell me you’re singing ‘em to sleep with our songs. You tell me about our music helping you through your deployment, through your loss of a dear friend, through your divorce, through your cancer treatment. You tell me our music has inspired you to pick up a guitar, the harmonica, a banjo, and in doing so graft your own branch onto these deep-reaching roots just as I have. And for every one of these stories I hear, you make me so proud to be a musician. I get up on that stage every night and just want to do right by you. Because I would have quit a long time ago if you hadn’t made it so fun to keep coming back year after year, renewed as I am by that familiar heart’s swell I feel for our Old Crow audience.
 
Here, in the last days of a year filled with so many highlights, I really just want to say thank you. It's the season of giving and you have given me so much and I am forever grateful. So, Merry Christmas! I can’t wait to see you again in 2025 when our Circle the Wagons Tour comes to your town. Music is a boundless gift, an unlimited expression of spirit — as purifying and unifying as it is soul stirring. It’s good medicine, a cure-all, and it’s one we need especially right now. I can’t wait to share more of this powerful elixir with you soon. 
 
With much love and gratitude,

Ketch