Southern Songs and Stories is a documentary series about the music of the South and the artists who make it. We showcase their performances and discover the stories behind their songs with a look at their lives on stage, in the studio and at home as well as the family, friends, fans and music professionals around them.
Painting a Portrait of 23 Years With Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show
May 28, 2022
Show notes
How long is the average lifespan for a band? That could be hard to pin down, but it is surely a lot shorter than the time we have witnessed Old Crow Medicine Show do their thing. Starting out as strict revivalists of old-time string band traditions, they did not even believe in writing original songs. To Ketch Secor’s thinking back at Old Crow’s inception, all the great songs had already been written, so any attempts to add to that canon would be futile. Fortunately for all of us, Ketch and the band changed their minds on that point, and almost immediately discovered how much impact they could have with originals (and one whale of a co-write). Like any group starting out, they had no way of knowing how far they would go or how much they would change in time. If you had told them that they were going to sell millions of records and win multiple Grammy awards back in 1999, they would likely have laughed. If you had pointed out that a future member of their group (Mason Via) had just been born, my bet is that they would have looked at you as if you had come from another planet. But all of this would come to pass.
Fast forward to spring 2022, when Old Crow Medicine Show returned to the place that a generation before had served, as Ketch said in our interview, a lily pad, a springboard for their success. There at MerleFest, I sat with Ketch in the library at Wilkes Community College ahead of their two shows that day — the first a surprise acoustic performance off stage on the festival grounds, the second their main stage performance hours later. A documentary crew was on hand filming our conversation, which covered a wide range of topics, including the current lineup of Old Crow Medicine Show, his time living off the land in Avery County, North Carolina when the band first formed, his recent fascination with music from Equatorial Africa and Texas border country, how he always wants to be, as he puts it, a mockingbird, and more. There is plenty of music from their latest album Paint This Town featured as well.
Old Crow Medicine Show plays a surprise acoustic set on the Wilkes Community College campus ahead of their main stage performance 05-30-22
Photo: Martin Anderson
Painting a Portrait of 23 Years With Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show
Joe Kendrick/Osiris Media/WNCW
Songs heard in this episode:
“DeFord Rides Again” by Old Crow Medicine Show from Paint This Town
“New Mississippi Flag” by Old Crow Medicine Show from Paint This Town, excerpt
“Used To Be A Mountain” by Old Crow Medicine Show from Paint This Town, excerpt
“Gloryland” by Old Crow Medicine Show from Paint This Town, excerpt
“Paint This Town” by Old Crow Medicine Show from Paint This Town
We are glad to have you visit us, and would be even more so were you to share this with someone. It is super easy to follow us on your podcast platform of choice, and then it will only take a minute to give it a good rating and a review. Great ratings, and reviews especially, will make Southern Songs and Stories and the artists it profiles more likely to be found by more people just like you.
Southern Songs and Stories is a part of the podcast lineup of both public radio WNCW and Osiris Media, with all of the Osiris shows available here. You can also hear new episodes of this podcast on Bluegrass Planet Radio here. Thanks to Corrie Askew for producing the radio adaptations of this series on WNCW, and to Joshua Meng, who wrote and performed our theme songs. This is Southern Songs and Stories: the music of the South and the artists who make it. - Joe Kendrick
It's Not Always About the Jam: Justin Golden
May 17, 2022
Show notes
Music is a lot like a blueberry bush. Especially blues music, since blueberries are among a handful of fruits native to North America, just as blues is a native art form. With a blueberry bush, you get fruit off the newer branches -- once they get old enough to form a lot of bark, they do not yield many blueberries, and you need to start pruning so that you can get new growth, and more of those delicious berries. In the same way, music blossoms in its newest forms, forms which tend to become rigid over time. Everyone likes to focus on the fruit but they can easily lose sight of where those new, fruit bearing branches came from, which is always an older, more rigid branch. And those oldest, most foundational branches, like blues music, tend to invite more preconceptions.
Enter Justin Golden. Justin is here to expand the tent of what we think of as blues music by both pointing back to the Piedmont blues, fingerstyle guitar tradition of his native Virginia, and by charting a new direction of his own. As he said in our interview, one thing people tend to get wrong about blues music is thinking that it is all about electric guitar jams: “acoustic blues was about expression, you know, especially the country blues. It's not really jammable music if you don't know the song. Because it's not a set form for a lot of it. It's just, you know, the recording is how they played it that one time. And if you ever hear … recordings of some of the older people like Blind Boy Fuller and stuff, and there's multiple takes, it's played wildly differently every time. So that's the biggest misconception is that it's lots of leads, or they assume I play lots of lead guitar. And I'm more of a rhythm guitar player that can finger fake leads on top of it.”
It's Not Always About the Jam: Justin Golden
Joe Kendrick/Osiris Media/WNCW
Justin Golden
Songs heard in this episode:
“Can’t Get Right” by Justin Golden from Hard Times and a Woman
“Dog Days of August” by Cephas & Wiggins from Dog Days of August, excerpt
“Lightning When She Smiles” by Justin Golden from Hard Times and a Woman, excerpt
“The Gator” by Justin Golden from Hard Times and a Woman, excerpt
“Moon Far Away” by Justin Golden from Hard Times and a Woman
Thanks for visiting Southern Songs and Stories, and I hope you might tell someone you know about the series in person or on social media (feel free to tag us in your posts!). Please follow us on any podcast platform you prefer. After that, it helps a lot when you give us a good rating and a review. Top ratings, and reviews especially, will make Southern Songs and Stories and the artists it profiles more likely to be found by more people just like you.
Southern Songs and Stories is a part of the podcast lineup of both public radio WNCW and Osiris Media, with all of the Osiris shows available here. You can also hear new episodes of this podcast on Bluegrass Planet Radio here. Thanks to Corrie Askew for producing the radio adaptations of this series on WNCW, and to Joshua Meng, who wrote and performed our theme songs. This is Southern Songs and Stories: the music of the South and the artists who make it. - Joe Kendrick
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
