Customer Reviews

Tennessee Pusher (Dig)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am a big Old Crow fan, but didn't indulge in their newer stuff until last week.

Let me say that I was floored by "Tennessee Pusher." I play bluegrass mandolin in a bluegrass band and love bluegrass and old-time music as much as anyone, but I am glad that these guys blossomed on this CD. It's not the typical Old Crow ram it down your throat fast, old-time medicine show. It's more Bob Dylan and Neil Young than the Skillet Lickers. There are traces of R&B in there too, with a country sound throughout.

If you like Old Crow because they are an old time band you won't like this CD as much. But, just remember that Old Crow isn't really an old time band, and most of the guys are northerners who just love that music. They grew up in the 80s and 90s listening to what was on the radio, then chose their favorite music as they matured. It shows on this CD, and it's the most natural and unforced they've ever sounded.

I love it because it's a collection of finely crafted songs that reflect themes faced by young people today. I can also actually believe what they are singing about, instead of just getting hyped by these young guys doing an old thing fast and sublimely reckless.

The Old Crow Medicine Show has matured, and the result is a masterpiece.

I have listened to this album about 40 times since I first got it about 2 days ago, and it is excellent. Granted, it is somewhat of a departure from the eponymous OCMS first album, but it seems to me to be a progression, through Big Iron World and into Tennessee Pusher. They have matured, and aged their sound, sanding off some rough edges but the music remains passionate and moving.

It also sounds like the new producer and better mixing has created a deeper and higher quality sound. I really like the whole effect on every song. In prior albums I sometimes felt like that guy stuck standing right next to the fiddle speaker, and on the next song, the vocals. The songs cover a good range of moods, from the frolicking Caroline (one of my favorites amongst all bands for a while) and the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle humour of Mary's Kitchen to the soulful and mournful Tennessee Pusher and Hotel in Memphis. I don't think there's a weak song on here.

I love this disc, but I am ready for a change. On play 41, I'm switching it to shuffle play.

Gosh I am just so disappointed with this album! I LOVE these guys and the old school sound they've reinvented, but here... i don't know.... it's like they just totally lost their edge. It's got no 'umph' to it. The vocals are thin, lacking the great harmony that they are known for, the instrumentals are overly heavy on the guitar, pushing the other instruments to the background. All and all, it's just kind of boring. Nothing special at all.

This is my first introduction to OCMS and I can't get enough of it. Nearly flawless all the way through. The vinyl version is a double LP set (same track list as CD) that really sounds great. They got it right in the mastering -- didn't simply transfer a compressed digital master onto vinyl, and the result is a high quality sounding record (imagine that -- "a record"!!)

As has been noted this album is quite different from their previous stuff. It is more produced, less ruckus, more country-western than new-timey string band. However, it is NOTHING like pop-country, which I've never liked. This is REAL music expressing real and powerful emotions, a real ballad of our time, especially for young people from the southern Appalachian region.

The songs on love express the negative side... being ripped off by the girl you desire, cheating and murder... good stuff. There is a song about the death of MLK Jr. I s'pose it sorta hinges around how his death may have been symbolic of the death of a movement. I'm pretty sure these guys are all about social change. They have another song about the destructive force of meth, which I saw myself in south-central Kentucky.

But it's not all sad, you're sure to have a humdinger with this one.

Old Crow Does what they do. It is the essence of the band not to give two hoots and a holler on what is expected and to give fine music and they have done that again. Oh, they sure have. This time they dug deeper in their heart and gave a little more of theirselves and I love it. I LOVE IT. Meth is a masterpeice. The Martin Luther King song is haunting and on par with Bobbie Jo Gentry's Ode to Billy Joe and how often does that Happen? HUMDINGER is a stomping, banjo slice of perfection. And its delicious to hear them sing , LOW DOWN HOOCHIE COOCHIE on Greatest Hustler of All. DONT MISS THIS WORK. Go to their MySpace and read what KETCH has to say about the Production of the album with Cowboy Jack Clement....and the others that were involved. This band is one of the most important torchbearers in existence and will gather more and more respect with time. They have mad music skills. This album is Terrific and doesnt need a cheerleader. It stands on its own. It bears no weakness. Amen.

I fell in love with this genre of music once I heard their first album. Then their second album(Big Iron World) was even better! Then I found Eutaw and played the hell out of it! So I found out they were producing a new album and I was so excited for it to come out. I previewed it before I bought it and was like "What the hell?". So I got it and I can say I am very disappointed with it.

I cannot stand country music and they sound really close to it on this album. I don't know if it's because of another producer they got but whatever it is, I prefer the old stuff anyday over this new album and I think a lot of people are with me on that. Lets just hope the feedback they get is somewhat negative and they realize the old sound is much better than this modern day stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE this band and will support them always. But I just wasn't expecting them to change their style like most all other bands today. What made them so unique before was their old timey sound that is nowhere to be found on this new album. I guess if you like the slow, serious style then you will like this. Me, I prefer upbeat, fun and happy sounding tunes. I think they made a change for the worse but I will always be a die hard Old Crow fan.

Not sure what happened to these guys. Maybe losing Critter was what did it (the new guy seems very out of place in live shows). Hope they can rebound after this album.

The first time I heard The Old Crow Medicine Show I was blown away. I believe it was a live version of Shack #9. I'd never heard anything quite like it. I got my hands on a copy of Greetings from Wawa and Eutaw and was amazed. Their OCMS album was equally impressive. They had taken old time classics like Oh my Little Darlin and stamped it with their own unique sound. The sound was very raw and yet beautiful in it's own unpolished kind of way.

Tennessee Pusher is a notable departure from that unique old timey sound. It's more refined and lacks that raw old time sound. There seems to be no traditional songs on this album. I understand that as a band matures they experiment with different sounds but I just can't get into Tennessee Pusher. Granted there are a few good tunes on here but I would much rather listen to these boys play Cumberland Gap, Little Birdie, Kitty Clyde or Hesitation Blues. It's those very kinds of songs that made the band successful. I wish they wouldn't mess with a good thing.

Like many people, I first became entranced by the Old Crow Medicine Show after seeing them live, which is like being hit by a baseball bat. Live, these boys knock you out, with their performance energy, with the quality of the songs, and with the general feeling you take away, like you just saw something that is connected palpably to a time in the past before TV, before CDs, before radio even. I think it's a compliment of the highest order to say that an OCMS live show is almost 'punk' in it's energy; you feel like you are on a street corner, watching them play for money to live on (which they used to do) or in a dance hall at an indeterminate point in history, watching them play because playing was keeping them and everybody in the audience alive. People who have seen that live know that I'm not really exaggerating.
Their albums up to this point have always captured that energy. And the reason I am giving them 4 instead of 5 stars is that this is the first album that feels like a studio album. Having said that, I will also say that this is a studio album that was done at the perfect point in their career: not too early, not too late, and the legendary Don Was also seems like the Perfect Producer for this Perfect Time. These boys are serious artists, and this is an album that reflects that. Mind you, it is nowhere near being an 'overproduced' album; all the instrumentation is clean, and you can hear every instrument and that they are (when they are) acoustic.
There is a bit more of a slightly somber feel to the songs as well. Even "Mary's Kitchen", the biggest romp, has a more *controlled* feel than a song like that would have been on the other albums. (Their other two albums were largely just recorded live in the studio, which is a great introduction to OCMS.) It's almost like the influence of Gillian Welch is present, beyond the presence of David Rawlings (who has co-written one of the songs on this album, and produced the last two albums for OCMS.) Just as Gillian Welch (and I mean the 'group' Gillian Welch, composed of Ms. Welch and Mr. Rawlings) has a gravitas to even their most light-hearted songs, and that pull can sometimes be heard on other artists of the same ilk, so too is OCMS influenced by the seriousness of craft of their long-time association w/ Mr. Rawlings in particular and the Quality Americana Music Scene in general.
The addition of Jim Keltner on drums is a telling sign for this album; the long-time string band aversion to a drummers notwithstanding, the presence of this Session Veteran here feels like an organic fit. OCMS has a habit of being genre-defying, but this time that is especially true; it's really hard to pin them down as Americana, Folk, Bluegrass or even Country. It's all just Good Music.