Old Crow Medicine Show (O.C.M.S.), doing things the old-fashioned way, took their stirring and reassuring music to people where they lived, made friends, opened ears, moved feet and developed a style all their own. Today, with a wider musical range than their Appalachian string band origins, O.C.M.S. play more concert halls, festival stages and rock venues than street corners, but a sense of surprise can still be seen on the faces of the band members. Old Crow is not the only band playing pre-World War II blues, fiddle tunes, rags, hollers, hokum and jug band music, but they do so with a mixing of elements born of growing up around hard rock acts such as AC/DC and Nirvana and aggressive rap groups including Public Enemy. The fiery result equally impresses fussy old-time music scholars; fellow modern day roots musicians and fans that forage for eclectic tunes and talent knowing no bounds.

These five young men from four different states joined forces in New York toured like gypsies while still learning their instruments and repertoire. They rambled town-to-town across Canada in a van, playing for food and shelter. They settled for a year in the mountains of North Carolina , where they enjoyed a lightning strike of good fortune. While playing in front of a pharmacy in Boone, North Carolina a woman approached the band, wondering if they would be performing for a while because she wanted to fetch her father. Dad turned out to be folk icon and flatpicking pioneer Doc Watson who expressed his delight by inviting the band to play MerleFest, his four day-congress of acoustic and roots music.

MerleFest led to an invitation to play street-style in the plaza in front of the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville and eventually the Opry stage itself, where the band earned a rare debut standing ovation. By this time Old Crow had moved to Music City where they studied ever-widening circles of early American music and wrote their own new music. More high-profile gigs followed, including opening slots for Dolly Parton and the Del McCoury Band, an invitation to join Marty Stuart and Merle Haggard on a U.S. tour, a massive jam fest Bonnaroo and public radio's A Prairie Home Companion.

Once they'd attracted the interest of Nettwerk America, the label that launched the career of Coldplay, O.C.M.S. was more than ready to go. O.C.M.S. began writing songs, and the new album features six songs by three of the band's members. Critter Fuqua's “Big Time In The Jungle” is an arresting Vietnam War story song that could have come off an overlooked vinyl classic from 1969.  O.C.M.S. members have no illusions that they're rediscovering the music of the pre-War era; many of the songs they hold dear aren't being released for the first time but being reissued for a newer, fresher audience. Old Crow's assets go far deeper than the songs themselves. It's an unbridled spirit, played live and loud across the nation, in a voice that's entirely their own.

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