On paper, the pairing of alt-country singer Brandi Carlile and old-timey bluegrass band Old Crow Medicine Show might seem odd.
But on stage, the two acts meld together like biscuits and gravy.
“It all works. Country is country is country. We play Johnny Cash stuff and ‘Jolene’ and stuff like that,” said vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Christopher “Critter” Fuqua, whose arsenal includes banjo and slide guitar. “We love Brandi. She’s the best on stage and off. She’s the most loving kind of performer. We felt instantly welcome by her camp so it’s great playing with her.”
Carlile and Old Crow swing their co-bill tour into the AVA at Casino del Sol on Wednesday, Aug. 17.
While Carlile has been no stranger to Tucson — she played to a full-house at Rialto Theatre last September — Wednesday’s show is OCMS’s first Tucson gig since they played the Rialto in 2007.
It’s been so long that Fuqua had a hard time recalling the last time the band made it to Tucson. In musical years, it’s been nearly a lifetime. Since we saw them last, the band has been inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, won a pair of Grammys —Best Folk Album for their 2014 album “Remedy” and Best Long Form Music Video for “Big Easy Express” in 2013 — and seen their song "Wagon Wheel” certified platinum for selling more than 1 million copies. The band shares writing credit on the song with Bob Dylan after writing through Dylan's “Rock Me Mama” chorus.
OCMS’s version of the song was eclipsed by a cover from Darius Rucker, who took “Wagon Wheel” to No. 1 on the Billboard Country charts in 2013 and earned the 2014 Grammy for Best Country Solo Performance.
“Remedy” already is in OCMS’s rear-view mirror. The band just wrapped up the followup, which Fuqua said should come out early next year or next spring.
“It’s different than ‘Remedy,’ different than all of our albums,” he said of the new record. “It’s definitely an Old Crow album. It’s a different turn for us, a different phase in our development.”
OCMS started out in 1998 playing old-time Appalachian roots music as a string band. Their big break came after being spotted by Doc Watson’s daughter while busking outside Boone Drug store in North Carolina . She brought the band to her father’s attention, which led to an invite to play his annual MerleFest. That proved to be the turning point.
Ask Fuqua to describe the band’s music and he demures a bit. It’s so-called old-timey in the sense that they started out playing claw-hammer banjo, A and B fiddle tunes from the Appalachian Mountains and adhered pretty strictly to the four-piece pre-bluegrass sound prevalent in the Appalachians.
“We were that for a long time until we started doing our own thing,” he said.
“I don’t even think we are conscious about it. It’s all about writing good songs," he added. "If you have a good song you can kind of do anything with it. I think we realized at one time that that old music was brand new. It wasn’t always old. And really it’s not really that old. You’re talking about American music; it’s not incredibly old, but it is our roots. It’s sort of kind of in us now; it’s what we do.”
But Fuqua said his music is a perfect fit with Carlile, whose repertoire leans more on the contemporary, outside-of-mainstream-country-radio realm.
“I think on paper it might have looked like a weird combo, but I don’t think it is at all,“ he said.
