Ketch Secor (Of Old Crow Medicine Show): Story The Crow Told Me Tour

Ketch Secor was 6 years old when he first visited Nashville. Sitting in the church pews of the Grand Ole Opry, he watched Minnie Pearl command the stage, transfixed by country music’s ability to bridge the gap between past and present. When he returned to town in 1996 — two years before forming Old Crow Medicine Show, the Grammy-winning string band that would turn him into a kingpin of American roots music — it was as a busker, playing old-time songs on street corners before shuffling back home to North Carolina. 

Now a Nashville resident for 25 years, Ketch reflects on a quarter century spent in Music City and beyond with Story The Crow Told Me. Sharply written and wildly creative, the album marks his first full-length solo release. Its 12 songs tell the story of a Kerouac-worthy journey through the misfit wilderness of life, love, longing, and leaving home, filled to the brim with spoken-word vocal performances, punky tempos, bluegrass harmonies, honking harmonica, and fiddle. There are cameos from simpatico artists like Molly Tuttle and Marty Stuart, and even poignant samples from Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. Gluing that expansive mix together is Ketch himself: a roots-music ringleader, countrified carnival barker, and torchbearer of twang, skilled in reinterpreting the sounds of the past for today’s audience. Here, he’s much more than the fiddle-playing frontman of a beloved band; he’s practically the entire band himself, playing nearly a dozen instruments (“including things like organ, bass, spoons, and electric guitar, which people don’t necessarily know I play,” he says) and co-writing every track. The result is a record that’s equal parts coming-of-age story, road-warrior autobiography, and love letter to the city that watched him grow into a man. 

NEST OF SINGING BIRDS

A “nest of singing birds” was the name Cecil Sharp gave to the Sodom Laurel Community of Madison County, NC when he visited the area in 1916 to collect the ancient ballads that had survived there, being gently passed from hand to hand and knee to knee. The county is still known for this rich tradition that goes back at least nine generations.The moniker has now been adopted by a cooperative of singers in the region that are keeping this art form alive. Centering around Sheila Kay Adams, the matriarch of the traditional music community in Western North Carolina, the group is led by her second cousin Donna Ray Norton, one of the 8th generation of their family to keep alive these songs of love and loss and the stories surrounding them. 

JESSE SMATHERS

Jesse Smathers was born and raised in Eden, North Carolina but holds his Western NC roots close. Jesse comes from a long line of musicians. His grandfather, Harold Smathers, and grand Uncle Luke Smathers, recorded for June Appal and were awarded the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award in 1993 for their contributions to North Carolina Folk Music. He began playing the guitar at age eleven and not long after took to the mandolin. He spent his teens competing at fiddlers conventions across North Carolina and Virginia, and in 2010 he began his career as a touring musician with the James King Band playing mandolin and providing the tenor harmonies.