O.C.M.S. (also called Old Crow Medicine Show) was released on Nettwerk on February 24, 2004. David Rawlings produced it, with sessions at RCA Studio B and Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville. The group on the record is Ketch Secor (vocals, fiddle, harmonica), Critter Fuqua (banjo, guitar, vocals), Willie Watson (guitar, banjo, vocals), Morgan Jahnig (upright bass) and Kevin Hayes (guitjo). Gillian Welch plays drums on two tracks, and Rawlings plays guitar on one, “Wagon Wheel.”
The band had been playing on the street before it got to a studio. Secor, Fuqua and Watson met around Ithaca, New York, and in October 1998 went on a busking tour across Canada; the next spring they settled in a farmhouse near Boone, North Carolina, where Doc Watson heard them playing outside a pharmacy in 2000. PopMatters counted five traditional tunes among the eleven tracks; the originals are credited to band members, among them Fuqua’s “Big Time in the Jungle” and “Take ’Em Away.” Willie Watson sings lead on “C.C. Rider,” credited to Ma Rainey.
“Wagon Wheel” began as “Rock Me, Mama,” an unfinished Bob Dylan sketch from 1973 that Fuqua brought home on a bootleg; Secor wrote the verses, and when he sought copyright for the album in 2003, Dylan and Secor agreed to share the writing credit equally. The song was certified triple platinum by the RIAA in 2023, and Darius Rucker’s 2013 version was a charting hit. The album reached number 1 on Billboard’s Top Bluegrass Albums chart and number 68 on its Top Country Albums chart.
Tracklist
- 1 Tell It To Me 2:48
- 2 Big Time In The Jungle 2:50
- 3 Poor Man 3:35
- 4 Tear It Down 2:11
- 5 Hard To Love 2:31
- 6 CC Rider 3:51
- 7 Trials & Troubles 2:57
- 8 Hard To Tell 3:15
- 9 Take 'Em Away 3:34
- 10 We're All In This Together 4:50
- 11 Wagon Wheel Source Recording 3:52
