Old Crow Medicine Show: Tennessee Pusher (Shock)

 |   |  <1 min read

Old Crow Medicine Show: Alabama High-Test
Old Crow Medicine Show: Tennessee Pusher (Shock)

Reviewers have struggled to label this Nashville-based outfit, but they certainly sit somewhere along the contemporary bluegrass (new-grass?), alt.folk/country Americana axis with nods to old time music, Dylan (the opener here, Alabama High-Test, is bent bluegrass in the manner of Subterranean Homesick Blues) and the early Band.

They may adopt the instrumentation of a century ago (acoustic guitars, upright bass, fiddle, slide) and sing in that high lonesome sound or offer backporch storytelling, but they also deal with life in the 21st century (the title track and Methamphetamine about the scourge of the poor white folks, co-written with Gillian Welch's guitarist songwriting partner David Rawlings), the trickle-down of bad politics (the affecting Motel in Memphis about the murder of Martin Luther King) and the dispossessed (Crazy Eyes).

All this to chugging acoustic rhythms and with guest Benmont Tench on Hammond, and drummer Jim Keltner.

They do reach way back however: Lift Him Up is by the little-known Blind Alfred Reed (1880-1956).

With a few singers taking frontline duties they offer some diversity in delivery -- and Wilie Watson's plaintive style is the standout with its aching, high quality putting him directly in a great lineage.

OCMShow haven't achieved much of a profile in New Zealand and this is an uneven and unpersuasive album: but at its best you can hear why they could be quite something to see. 

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Half Japanese: Invincible (Fire)

Half Japanese: Invincible (Fire)

And now something for those hardy few who live in that small space where the Venn Diagrams of sci-fi and horror intersects with post-No Wave rock and indie-pop. The longtime on-going project of... > Read more

King Creosote: Flick the Vs (Domino)

King Creosote: Flick the Vs (Domino)

Scottish singer-songwriter Kenny Anderson, aka King Creosote, gets away more albums and EPs than I see local buses: I think he's closing in on Bob Dylan's tally somewhere in the mid-40s -- and he... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

THE DIFFICULT ARTS UNDER NAZISM: The uncomfortable past -- and present

THE DIFFICULT ARTS UNDER NAZISM: The uncomfortable past -- and present

Back in the early NIneties there was a modicum of good news about the career of the German rock band Endseig whose name meant Final Victory. It was that they weren’t particularly popular and... > Read more

AFTER THE TAMPA by ABBAS NAZARI

AFTER THE TAMPA by ABBAS NAZARI

Decades ago, at Refugee and Migrant Services in Auckland, I glanced at a map showing that vast territory between Greece and India, lands unfamiliar to most New Zealanders but from which refugees... > Read more