Old Crow Medicine Show
Tennessee Pusher
(Nettwerk, 2008)

Old Crow Medicine Show’s first two full-lengths, 2004’s self-titled LP and 2006’s Big Iron World, were full of tremendous promise—both showcasing a young band of edgy folk musicians making thoroughly modern and intelligent music that owed a substantial debt to the jug and string band traditions of yesteryear. But Tennessee Pusher is the band’s best album yet, cementing their status as one of the premier American folk revival bands. We’re still treated to more traditional string band numbers like the lovely “Caroline” and “That Evening Sun”, two up-tempo tracks marred only by subtle but creeping regret. But, this time around, the band further embraces the present, resulting in an album that’s grounded in traditional music but is also intent on chronicling contemporary social ills.

David Rawlings, best known as Gillian Welch’s musical partner in crime, helmed the group’s first two albums. But for this, their third proper LP, Rawlings has been discarded in favor of the famed producer Don Was (Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones). And, to his credit, Was doesn’t mess much with a winning formula. There’s a bit of a shine to the record that wasn’t heard on the band’s previous outings, but much remains the same. The band’s kinetic string band workouts still provide the album’s backbone—showcasing quick picking, wailing fiddle, and wonderfully earnest, if occasionally slightly off-key, harmonies.

But the beauty of Old Crow Medicine Show is the band’s ability to mine the past without getting stuck in it. Indeed, Tennessee Pusher is thoroughly modern in its approach to contemporary society. Methamphetamine is the subject of the frenetic “Alabama High-Test”, and the drug’s consequences can be heard throughout. Even Blind Alfred Reed’s classic “Always Lift Him Up”, the album’s lone cover, is given a graceful updating and turns out to be a highlight. The band still turns to the past, though it’s sadly not so distant, on “Motel in Memphis”, a mournful tribute to a giant of the civil rights movement (“Were you there when the man from Atlanta was murdered in Memphis?”).

The band’s enlisted a pair of gifted ringers in Jim Keltner and Benmont Tench. Keltner, who has handled drumming duties for John Lennon, Neil Young, Brian Wilson, and countless others, and Tench, keyboardist and organist for Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, are in fine form, gracing Tennessee Pusher with decades of instrumental wisdom and granting the album an uncanny authenticity.

Old Crow Medicine Show makes American music of the highest order, combining a keen awareness of the history of folk music with a contemporary worldview—and finishing it all off with a distinctly rock ‘n’ roll sneer. Even Was, the band’s producer, has a bit of trouble knowing precisely what he’s dealing with. “People ask me what the Old Crow Medicine Show are all about,” Was muses. “If I’m in a hurry, I just say they’re the Clash of bluegrass music, but that doesn’t really do anyone justice. I could tell ‘em they’re a rock ‘n’ roll band who use fiddles and acoustic guitars instead of Les Pauls and Marshall stacks, but that’s only one small part of the story. They’re an American band—even more so than Grand Funk Railroad.”

Maybe, maybe not. But any band that manages to pull off a song recounting the horrors of methamphetamine addiction set to quasi-jug band arrangement must be on to something worthwhile. Tennessee Pusher is an album that deserves to be savored—a thoroughly modern and unique interpretation of an earlier era.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

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