Old Crow Medicine Show - Remedy

          The band that brought you Wagon Wheel is back with another dose of old-time country and bluegrass music that is guaranteed to get your feet stomping and your fingers snapping.  Remedy is Old Crow’s fifth studio album and first without founding member Willie Watson.  It is the band’s response to the current state of country music which frontman Ketch Secor believes pays little respect to its predecessors.  The album is an excellent mix of country blues and traditional bluegrass, and while it sees the departure of Watson, it also marks the return of founding member, Critter Fuqua, after a two album hiatus from the band due to substance abuse issues.  Old Crow attacks bluegrass and old-time string band music with a punk-rock intensity.  The album opens with “Brushy Mountain Conjugal Trailer,” a blues-influenced foot stomper about a man about to be hanged, featuring an excellent Dobro solo from Gill Landry.  “Sweet Amarillo” is another Dylan and Old Crow co-write, with Secor and Fuqua again digging into 1973’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid sessions, the same sessions from which Secor took Wagon Wheel.  It is a slower ballad, featuring Fuqua on the accordion.  This time, however, Dylan sent the track to Old Crow and asked them to finish it.  With “Sweet Amarillo” they only had about 28 seconds to work with compared to over a minute with Wagon Wheel.  Secor has never met Bob Dylan, but expressed his awe when he received the request from Dylan’s people.  It also took some communication back and forth between Dylan and Secor to get to the final version completed.  Other highlights on the album include “O Cumberland River,” a song about the time when the Cumberland River overflowed its banks, and “Doc’s Day”, a tribute to bluegrass legend Doc Watson who discovered Old Crow in 2000 when they were busking on the street outside a pharmacy in Boone, North Carolina and gave them their first big break.  The album ends right where it started, in prison.  “The Warden,” which features minimal instrumentation and all the band members singing in harmony, ends the album on a somber note with the band delivering a “Seven Bridges Road” moment.   The band says that Remedy is their greatest success to date, and I would agree with them, but it does include a few low notes.  “8 dogs 8 banjos” is full of nonsensicalities, while “Mean Enough World” and “Brave Boys” are nothing special and sound like something we’ve already heard on a previous Old Crow album.  “Sweet Home” features lead vocals from guitjo (6-string banjo) player Kevin Paul Hayes who is an interesting choice for lead vocalist in a group with so many excellent singers in it.  The album is a smashing success though and it succeeds in bringing fans of country and bluegrass together.  While Willie Watson has a new album out himself and is embarking on the concert trail as a solo act, Old Crow are still putting out hit bluegrass records.  Ketch Secor was truly “born to be a fiddler in an old-time string-band” and he proves it again here.  Remedy is a must-listen for any country music fan, but the album and Old Crow fans everywhere are sorely missing Willie Watson.