November 2024 Edition

Hello Friend,

Ketch here, rubbing my eyes the morning after a four day run through a few of my favorite mid-Atlantic states, happy to be waking up this bright November day back home in Nashville. The most interesting part of our recent string of OCMS concert dates was performing for audiences so close after the election. Amidst such a cultural divide to witness first hand the power of music uniting people in ways that politics can’t feels like an almost supernatural occurrence. Just days after what was for many the nation’s most dramatic presidential election, I looked out into the first few rows and saw Red voters and Blue voters singing along to our music, dancing up a storm, and, if only for the length of a 2 hour show, finding some much needed common ground. Truly, it's a beautiful thing to watch from the stage. And as much joy as the crowd finds at an Old Crow show amidst these discordant times, you better believe I’m finding just as much—if not more. It’s like Hoyt Axton wrote when he conjured up a bullfrog named Jeremiah and sang, “Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me.” “Joy To The World." If I sound too optimistic about the latest primary color mashup maybe its just because Old Crow is old enough to have seen our fair share of contentious red and blue ballots cast. In the 26 years since I began playing professionally I’ve participated in 13 election cycles and 6 presidential runs, so believe me when I say I know a thing or two about music’s important role in the victories and defeats of our representative democracy.  

One of OCMS’ first election experiences came in the year 2000 when a group called Democratic Women for Gore hired us to play a voter registration drive in West Tennessee. This was during the height of our “need to shower more” years when we were just starting to transition from panhandling to paid work, so there was quite a scene that crisp autumn morning before dawn as 5 very ripe and hungover Old Crows and 5 very perfumed and sober Democratic ladies loaded in to a 12 passenger van and pulled on to Highway 70 westbound. Our tour was scheduled to make stops in some pretty off-the-beaten path places, a number of towns which I have yet to again visit since that fateful fall morning just days before the big Bush v. Gore showdown. Back in 1956 when President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke ground on a new national interstate system roads like Highway 70 were supposed to serve as suggested routes, however, when I-40 was laid across Tennessee the following year, engineers decided to shave off more than a few miles, bypassing long established West TN towns to more directly connect Nashville and Memphis. That meant that several vital communities of the region became isolated from interstate commerce, making this region of the Volunteer State a little sleepy. Could these voters help turn the tide for a native son running for president? Could Old Crow music help shake the dust off undecided Dems? Remember, back then a lot of rural southern voters were still Democrats, especially in West Tennessee, so the hope of these Democratic Women for Gore was to drum up rural support for the then Vice President in the critical days before the election. The first stop was to play in front of a laundromat across the street from the town offices of Waverly, TN home to two of my favorite hillbilly musicians, George Morgan who’s juke box favorite “Candy Kisses" was one of country music’s biggest hits of 1949, and Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith's “Going To Town” from nearby Bold Springs TN who represented old-time fiddle on the airwaves long after most violin players had made the switch to the more progressive bluegrass fiddling style.

From Waverly we headed to Huntingdon Tennessee where our stage was a cotton trailer wrapped in American flag bunting. Whisps of dirty cotton still clung to the splintery planks we leaned against on the ramshackle wagon. While we played a couple rousing fiddle tunes, a small crowd of undecided farmers looked on while the Democratic ladies aired out the van stench. Decidedly, one of my favorites presidential songs comes from a crooner named Carl Mann, a long forgotten jam called "Burnin’ Holes in the Eyes of Abraham Lincoln." Carl, a native of Huntingdon cut his first rockabilly single on Jaxon Records at age 15 before turning to a more countrypolitan sound. From there we continued on to Jackson Tennessee, home to a far more influential singer named Carl, Carl Perkins, and, home to one of roots music’s most immortalized railroader, Casey Jones. Carl Perkins "Blue Suede Shoes" is surely one of the greatest recordings of all time, it's a genius tune of genre-bending, shot-heard-round-the-world acclaim. Of all the songs recorded about the tragic death of the Illinois Central engineer in a train collision at Vaughan, Mississippi on April 30, 1900, one of the most interesting recordings of “Casey Jones” is by Leonid Utyosov, a Soviet Estrada singer who was a favorite of Stalin’s and brought the famous American melody east to a whole new audience with his Russian version.

In Jackson we played out on the curb of TN-45 beside a bus shelter facing a Super Walmart. For this stunt the Democratic Women held signs that said “Honk if you love Gore” and a local TV news crew arrived to film the reactions motorists had to an old time string band playing at Jackson’s busiest intersection. There were a few honks and a few jeers and more than a little eye rolling from Old Crow band members who by now had been on the road for 8 hours with Memphis still more than an hour away, and numerous stops planned there before our return to Music City. The day ended in the tony Memphis suburbs of Collierville at an opulent McMansion at the end of a ginkgo-lined cul-de-sac. The sign out front said Welcome Democratic Women for Gore and Old Crow Medical Shop.

Sufficiently lubed after many trips to the open bar, we played a blazing set of our best Memphis jug band material, including Willie’s new discovery, the blistering “Minglewood Blues”, before hopping back in to the van for the 3 hour ride home. This was a day or two before Halloween, Election Day just days later. Soon after we learned that our efforts had failed to send Tennessee’s first president-elect since Andrew Johnson to the White House, and instead began two terms of the George W. Bush’s presidency. About a week after the election Critter and I drove his little red Chevy S-10, the one we called the Blood Donor, down to Metrocenter Blvd. in North Nashville to pick up our check at the TN Democrat Headquarters. I'll never forget how deserted the place was, with papers strewn about like a windstorm had blown through. But sure enough, there on a recently abandoned desk was an envelope addressed to Old Crow Medicine Show with a $500 check. Whistling the opening melody from Neil Young’s classic “Campaigner”, Critter and I walked out of the campaign offices of the losing candidate, clenching our money, a little pep in our step, and bound on down the road toward whatever came next.

I hope you enjoyed this newsletter and will dig the music I picked to accompany it. Music really is medicine. Like I told ‘em the other night in West Virginia right before we launched into “Wagon Wheel". I said, "We don’t care who you voted for. Let's all just dance to the music and act like Americans for a change.” Right now is a difficult time for a lot of people, and for so many reasons. I hope that, by striving for the greater good and setting aside our differences, we will feel the winds shift and start heading in a better direction not only for our beloved nation but for the whole of humanity.  

Much Love,

Ketch Secor