Old Crow anticipates return
Published April 17, 2007
Ketch Secor of the bluegrass quintet Old Crow Medicine Show said the patch of rural Iowa the band drove through on its way to Columbia was familiar in a homey way.
"It's flat," Secor said. "It's sparsely settled. It reminds me of where my grandparents are from in Ohio."
Secor said the band is enthusiastic about returning to Columbia.
"I used to live in St. Louis at a very young time in my life," Secor said. "I always thought that the Show-Me state was a real magical place, and I still look forward to playing shows there."
Secor said Old Crow Medicine Show is a string band, though he said it is not concerned with the conventions this implies.
"People see a banjo, and they think something," he said. "People see a fiddle, and they think something. Sometimes they think of their fourth-grade gym class when they had to square dance."
Unlike many modern country and bluegrass ensembles, the members of Old Crow Medicine Show all hail from different states. They met and began performing in New York City, and began touring shortly after.
"It was 1998, and we all lived in New York for some strange reason — or at least we all came together," Secor said. "We just happened to be at the same place at the same time, and nobody had any push or pull at the same time. We just knew we wanted to play."
Secor said the highlights of this tour for the band has been the smaller Midwest cities. He said he especially enjoyed the band's gig in Lincoln, Neb.
"I really had a great time playing in Nebraska," Secor said. "I can't wait to go back. Having a nice day off in a funny little town, hearing how people's accents are the first time, seeing the way the people filed in last night, ready to have a good time. Just getting a take on the way people live in Lincoln. Getting right to the heart of the matter a little quicker than everybody else because you're not really involved."
The band's affinity for the Midwest has allowed it to connect in a number of ways with the region. The band members are close friends with National Public Radio host Garrison Keillor and have performed on his program, "A Prairie Home Companion," a number of times.
"I think that it's really helped us out playing in the Midwest," Secor said. "When we play in the big cities of the East, it will usually be because they heard us on that show. But when we get to the Midwest, it seems that Garrison transcends all aspects of race, color and creed. Everybody listens to that show."
Secor said his love for the Midwest stems from the sense of warmth and informality that is a source of pride for the region.
"There's a friendliness that you find in the middle of America," Secor said. "The disdain, the oppressions, the afflictions seem a little more smoothed over here, rather than out East."
Many of the band's gigs on this tour are club shows in college towns throughout the Midwest.
"I like to see all the young people that come out to our show when we play college towns," Secor said. "I think that it is a really exciting age to be."
Old Crow Medicine Show plans to bring a feel-good aesthetic to tonight's performance at The Blue Note.
"(You can expect) a whole lot of energy, some real passion, a real love and admiration within ourselves for one another," Secor said. "And then I think you can expect to get it pretty much rockin' because that's what we do every night. We play together, and we rock out in a way we've learned in the past eight or nine years."