Old Crow Medicine Show @ St Augustine Ampitheater

I’ve been lucky to witness a lot of great performances recently. On the 5th I saw Old Crow Medicine Show. Did you know that they started as a group of buskers who by a chance encounter with Doc Watson found themselves playing at the grand ole opry? The lead singer (if you can say there exists such a thing with these guys) Ketch Secor certainly has the demeanor of a busker, somewhere between a circus ringleader and a used car salesman.

Even if it’s not true, it makes a great story over a bottle of Kentucky bourbon.

These guys really know how to give it to an audience. They played an exhausting 2 1/2 hour set of knee-slapping goodness, to the point where they looked like they were going to keel over.

Now it’s easy to make comparisons between OCMS and Bob Dylan, the influence of the latter on the former is undeniable. But one notable talent shared by OCSM and Dylan is their treatment of cover songs. Yeah, that’s right, cover songs again.

Like I mentioned in one of my older posts, I think the art of covering songs is dying. OCMS is one of the groups that seems to be bucking that trend, makes sense with their old-time American folk roots. Check out the cover of Bob Marley’s Soul Rebel in the video below - it’s got the original’s essence, but a different shade of it (rather than a cheaper shade).