Before returning to the State, Old Crow Medicine Show frontman reflects on how Maine has influenced his music

Ketch Secor takes a lot of his musical inspiration from the mountains of Appalachia, however he acquired an enormous dose of early-career confidence whereas enjoying in Portland.

Secor was only a 12 months out of highschool when he and his band, the Route 11 Boys, determined to go to Portland from Virginia within the winter of 1997. They performed on frigid road corners and acquired a weekly gig at The Basement, a small venue on Fore Road.

“One in all my first crowning achievements within the press as a younger performer was getting my story advised within the Press Herald,” stated Secor, 43. “It was one of many first occasions I ever thought ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna make it. I’m within the newspaper.’ ”

Since that 10-paragraph merchandise appeared within the Press Herald’s music column, Secor has certainly made it. He’s the frontman for the Grammy-winning roots/nation band Previous Crow Medication Present. He has appeared on Ken Burns’ epic PBS collection “Nation Music” and wrote the No. 1 nation hit “Wagon Wheel.” He’s a multi-instrumentalist and singer who writes or co-writes most of his band’s songs.

On Saturday, he and Previous Crow Medication Present will play Portland’s State Theatre as a part of a tour selling their new album, “Paint This City.” Molly Tuttle will open.

Ketch Secor will carry out along with his band, Previous Crow Medication Present, at Portland’s State Theatre Saturday. Photograph by Package Wooden

Although Secor sings with a twang and grew up largely in Virginia, he’s spent a lot of his life coming to Maine and studying from its folks and locations. He’s had a home on Chebeague Island in Casco Bay for 14 years, however he hasn’t been capable of spend a lot time there the final couple years due to work and different commitments. When he’s there, Secor likes to dig for clams, go swimming, sail and write songs. He wrote one of many songs on the brand new album – “John Brown’s Dream” concerning the radical abolitionist – whereas on Chebeague.

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Secor began coming to Maine round age 3, to a household dwelling on Vinalhaven, and went to Camp Kieve, a boys’ summer season camp on Damariscotta Lake. Whereas he was in highschool at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, he would come to Portland to see exhibits on the State Theatre. He noticed Bob Dylan there and remembers yelling for him to play “Rock Me Mama.” That’s the tune Secor used as the premise for “Wagon Wheel,” which is his band’s best-known tune and will get lined by bands and festivals across the nation.

So Secor was nicely conscious of Portland’s music scene when he and the Route 11 Boys, a bluegrass band, got here right here in 1997 to play for cash on the streets and see if they might get gigs. Within the Press Herald story, band members have been quoted explaining their music and its old style roots, performed on guitar and banjo. Secor stated within the story that their music was “music that everyone pertains to. Folks really feel at dwelling with this music. It’s the stuff you heard in your mama’s knee.”

“We got here to Maine as a result of there’s a large folks custom right here, though yours has a deeper Irish affect. Ours is extra African influenced. I play the banjo with rather a lot drumming on it – the way in which it was initially performed,” Secor stated within the story.

After a pair years of “rambling round” the nation enjoying music, Secor fashioned Previous Crow Medication Present in 1998 with childhood pal Chris “Critter” Fuqua and several other different musicians involved in old-timey nation and folks kinds. From the start, Secor says, the lineup was fluid, with completely different musicians being recruited for excursions or recording periods. The band performed Doc Watson’s celebrated folks pageant, MerleFest in North Carolina, within the late Nineteen Nineties, and shortly after they have been working in Nashville – the epicenter of the nation music enterprise.

In 2004, the band launched its first studio album, “O.C.M.S.,” which included “Wagon Wheel.” It turned the band’s signature tune and helped catapult Previous Crow Medication Present to nationwide fame. A part of the tune comes from a bootlegged Dylan demo, recognized to audiences as “Rock Me Mama,” so he’s credited with co-writing the tune. Secor wrote verses for the tune across the unique refrain. The tune describes a hitchhiking journey from New England by means of Virginia to North Carolina, a journey meant to reunite sweethearts. In 2013, former Hootie & The Blowfish singer Darius Rucker launched a model of “Wagon Wheel” that went to No. 1 on the Billboard nation chart and No. 15 on the pop chart. Rucker received a Grammy for the recording.

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Secor stated he moved round rather a lot as little one, largely in Virginia and the South, and many of the music he heard was pop and rock on the radio. However when he began coming to summer season camp in Maine, he stated the youngsters have been listening to folks rock artists just like the Grateful Useless and Bob Dylan, and he turned involved in folks and its origins. Whereas at Phillips Exeter Academy – on scholarship – he started enjoying banjo. After the Route 11 Boys broke up, Secor attended Ithaca School in New York for some time and have become immersed within the folks scene there.

His love of musical traditions, together with Appalachian folks and old-time nation, are related to his curiosity in historical past, in how folks in several components of the nation lived and labored. He stated spending time in Maine through the years gave him an appreciation for passed-down traditions, particularly these on Maine’s islands.

“The music I play acquired so wealthy as a result of it frolicked in rugged isolation, that’s the way it endured. As a child, I used to be all the time intrigued with Maine islands, the place I knew individuals who tied their nets in the identical method as 300 years in the past,” stated Secor. “There are plenty of comparisons between the music world I inhabit and the traditions of Maine, from lumber camps to lobstermen.”

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