So this interview is a little old, but it never really got read and i thought you people here might appriciate it. So here you are;
by Jesse Hill | www.CountryMusicPride.com
On September 23rd, Old Crow Medicine Show will release their third album Tennessee Pusher, a beautifully cinematic and empathetic album about a people and from a people, the American people, the people from which this musical tradition is sprung. After going into the lost alleys and forgotten trailer parks to find the real Americans, the lost Americans, the Old Crows stand up here as their representatives. And they sing! They sing for the people. They sing because that is what they do. It is their lifeblood.
The album was produced by the legendary Don Was (Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan) at the famed A&M Studios (now called Henson Sound Studios) in Los Angeles. Members Ketch Secor (fiddle, harmonica, banjo, vocals), Willie Watson (guitar, banjo, vocals), Kevin Hayes (guit-jo, vocals), Morgan Jahnig (upright bass), and Gill Landry (slide guitar, banjo, vocals) along with major session men Jim Keltner (John Lennon, Neil Young) and Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) recorded 13 tracks about this America, using Tennessee as their canvas.
I had a chance to speak with founding Crow, vocalist and musician Ketch Secor. This man’s speech reveals the way his mind and heart work, and to witness it is truly a beautiful thing. He cares about us all. Despite the clinical agenda of the interview, we had a relatively organic conversation, and though it would be more typical to lay down the press info I got from their publicist and some brief highlights of our interview, I don’t think I do this man, this band, this album or the people justice unless I just print the interview in its entirety.
Country Music Goodness: Hey, Ketch, my name’s Jesse Hill and I write for Country Music Goodness.
Ketch Secor: Well, hey Jesse thanks for your call. I apologize. My other interview went really late. So, I know you’ve been waiting to get through so I appreciate your patience.
CMG: Not a problem. How you doing?
KS: I’m doing great. Where you calling from this morning?
CMG: I’m calling from Austin, Texas.
KS: Right on.
CMG: How ’bout you? Where you at right now?
KS: I’m in Nashville. Wish I was in Austin.
CMG: Well you ain’t coming through here anytime soon, are you?
KS: No. It doesn’t look like the Texas tour has been put together yet. It might be in the spring for us. I know it’s way over due. We keep getting e-mails from places all over the Lone Star State. Getting ‘ancy. When are you gonna come back to Dallas? When are you gonna come back to Pflugerville?
CMG: Yeah, y’all played Pflugerville before?
KS: No, I made that part up. Nobody ever wrote that. But meanwhile I got my own thoughts thinking, ‘When are you gonna take that plunge in Barton Springs? When are you gonna dance the two-step with that girl down in Victoria that you want to? When are you gonna get back to Port Aransas and go for a slurry dip?
CMG: I was just in Port A two weeks ago. Got swimmer’s ear.
KS: Well, that’s a good place to catch it man.
CMG: Well, I listened to Tennessee Pusher yesterday. Three times. It’s great, man. It’s really fucking great. I really love it. Best album I heard all year.
KS: Hot damn! Hey, thanks. That’s what we’re hoping for.
CMG: You hear it all in there. Hanks crying, Dock Boggs sly grinnin’. Trickster cool and humble hearts. I really dig it.
KS: Cool. Well, I can tell you do and I can tell you got out of it what I put into it.
CMG: Now I’m not going to ask your influences because I think what’s obvious is that they come from this American music tradition. And anything you could have possibly come in contact with is basically a part of this tradition. Do you feel like you are now a part of this tradition? Do you feel like you’re contributing to it?
KS: Oh, I definitely feel a part of it. I mean it’s all around. Everything that this band does is very related to everything that’s been done before. I feel, I’ve often spoken about this great thing that Pete Seeger once said about making folk music back in the late 50’s. Pete talked about us all being links in a chain and that chain going way, way back. And that all of us are fused together in the forge. So, I read that when I was 14, and thought, ‘Wow! You mean I could be like Leadbelly? I could be like Bob?” So, I’ve spent the last 15 or so years since I was first dreaming of those things trying to make them happen, trying to, well, trying to build up my repertoire. I like to fancy that we could go into any barroom in America and be their hometown band. That we could be the boys that they looked upon fondly. The band that the old ladies felt wistful towards and that the old men wanted to throw their daughters at. And in our travels we’ve found that to be true. It’s a little different now in the climate controlled comfort of the tour bus, but when you get into the studio, particularly a band like us, I think it’s just fun to be evocative, to evoke, I’m always talking about who my influences are and I say that they’re just old dead men and women and old dead men singing about old dead women. And that’s really true, but I like being able to, I like the controlled atmosphere of the studio because you get to say it exactly how you want to.
CMG: You’re the hometown. And this music comes out of the American people. I know you cite Nashville’s inhabitants as definite inspiration for the album. How do you stay in touch with the people? How do you relate with them when you are riding in the climate controlled comfort of the tour bus these days?
Its pretty long, if you want to read the rest you can just tom cruise on over here
