Apr. 12: Old Crow Medicine Show lands at The Music Hall for part of 25th Anniversary Tour

    Old Crow Medicine Show will be at The Music Hall Friday night. Photo/Joshua Black Wilkins

    Twenty-five years is a long time for any band to persist when you consider how many groups struggle to even get off the ground. This is true when it comes to the Nashville Americana string band Old Crow Medicine Show, who originally started out in the city of Harrisonburg, VA, in 1999 and are still going strong.

    Since that time, the band has garnered many achievements, including getting the attention of folk legend Doc Watson while busking outside a pharmacy in Watson’s hometown of Boone, NC, winning a Grammy for Best Folk Album with their 2014 release “Remedy” and their song “Wagon Wheel” becoming a Top 40 hit. They’ve also performed at more than a few legendary places over a quarter-century, and among them will now be The Music Hall in Portsmouth on April 12. The show starts at 8 p.m. with Old Crow Medicine Show founding member Willie Watson starting the night off with a solo set.

    I had a talk with bassist Morgan Jahnig from the band ahead of the show about Old Crow Medicine Show’s latest full-length release, performing in historic venues and plans for the coming months.


    If You Go

    The Music Hall

    28 Chestnut Street, Portsmouth, NH

    [About a 54-minute drive from downtown Manchester]


    Rob Duguay: Old Crow Medicine Show’s most recent album “Jubilee” which came out last summer was recorded to celebrate the band’s 25th anniversary, so would you say that the songwriting and recording process had a bit of extra meaning due to this fact being apparent?

    Morgan Jahnig: When we were making that record, we did it pretty quickly after releasing “Paint This Town.” I think what it really captures is we got this new group of guys with this renewed sense of excitement and energy and we were able to capture something that really has the width and breadth of what we’ve done for the last 25 years. 

    RD: What was it like working with producer Matt Ross-Spang for the second time in a row after having him involved in the making of “Paint This Town”?

    MJ: Matt’s a great friend and during our very first conversation with him it was at a gas station where he was having some tamales. That’s the sort of thing that we do in any town that we’re in, so we immediately felt a real kinship with Matt, he’s one of those people that we respect and love and he was very much one of the guys in the studio. Everything always felt easy with him, he always brought in really good ideas while being very encouraging and having a great attitude. 

    RD: You guys were also able to bring Mavis Staples and Sierra Farrell into the fold for the album, so how did you go about making that happen?

    MJ: With Sierra, she’s someone who we’ve worked with a couple of times in the past live and we were thinking about this song “Belle Meade Cockfight,” which was originally written as a story song. We then thought that it would be really fun as a duet, so kind of on the spot, Ketch [Secor], Mason [Via] and Matt threw their hats in the ring and decided to find a way to make it happen. With everything Sierra does, she doesn’t necessarily take herself too seriously and that’s the kind of attitude that we wanted with that song so she was good for that. When it came to Mavis, we were thinking about the record and we had this long list of people who we would like to work with and do some songs together.

    Mavis was always at the top of the list, so one of the guys in the band reached out to one of the people in her world to ask if she would do a song with us and she was like “Heck yeah! I’m going to do it in Chicago, but I’ll happily do it.” We sent her the song, she put her beautiful voice on it and we felt like we were the luckiest band in the world. 

    RD: That’s awesome.  What are your thoughts on performing at the Music Hall this Friday? It’s a pretty historic place that’s been around since the 1700s. 

    MJ: We absolutely love playing theaters, opera houses and historic places that have been restored. There are so many great rooms around the country that have been lost to parking lots, Waffle Houses and law firms, so when we get the opportunity to play in an old space, we feel it from the first note when we’re singing and playing. Of course, one of my favorite places to play in the world is the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and every time I get to walk across that board, I just know something special is going to happen when we perform. Hopefully, I’ll have a similar feeling when we come up to Portsmouth.

    RD: It’s really cool that you have this perspective. After this tour in support of “Jubilee” while also celebrating the band’s 25 anniversary, what are Old Crow Medicine Show’s plans for the rest of the year?

    MJ: I think right now, this year we’re out, we’re playing and we’re celebrating. There are also a bunch of days when we’re not going to be doing that and we’re very fortunate to have a place in Nashville called Heartland Studios that’s our home base. Stuff keeps bubbling up around there and there’s never a quiet day there, someone is always doing something. I think when it comes to making a new record or coming up with something like that, I think we’re getting close but we’re not quite there yet. We’ll see where the dominos fall and what works for us.