Everyman group, Old Crow Medicine Show don’t want you to forget about them during the summer festival season. To bring you back into the old timey fold they’ve released the three song EP Carry Me Back to Virginia.
The opener “Carry Me Back” rehashes the past success of their latest full length of the same name with an alternate recording. “Ain’t it Enough,” also featured on the same full length gives the uninitiated a small sampling of the newly minted Old Crow Medicine Show brand. For those new to the act, the EP displays Old Crow’s ability to offer up legitimate country/western while pleasing the pop-sensibilities of modern consumerist culture. For those who’ve been following the group for quite sometime the most interesting track will undoubtedly be its finale, the cover of Alabama’s “Dixieland Delight.”
Alabama is a group much over-looked in the annals of country music’s history despite their massive record sales and string of number 1 hits. They come up to fame in the period before Shania Twain and Tim McGraw effectively hijacked the genre in favor of soulless, cliched, pop tinged mass appeal. Old Crow Medicine Show as group parallels Alabama in many ways, none the least their insistence on traditional delivery, utilizing universal subjects as opposed to the first person p.o.v., and a focus on musicianship in contrast to so many pretty faced vocalists. “Dixieland Delight” off of 1983’s The Closer You Get… is quintessential southern fried country music, and Old Crow Medicine Show’s handling of it proves that while tastes may change, quality tunes will endure.
Look for Old Crow Medicine Show on their summer tour de sud and our coverage of their headliner set at the Newport Folk Festival later in the month.
Rating: 5.5/10
MP3: Old Crow Medicine Show “Dixieland Delight”
Buy: iTunes
