Old Crow Medicine Show – OCMS XMAS (LP Vinyl) Vinyl Record

Review

Subject matter aside, OCMS XMAS sounds pretty much like other OCMS LPs.

It’s a package of playful, string-band songs - nine holiday originals, plus remakes of “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” - that mostly stick to the secular. And when Old Crow Medicine Show does go for the spiritual, it’s in a good-natured way, as when the band imagines an American-born Jesus on “Bethlehem, PA” and goes rockabilly on “All about a Baby.”

“It’s all about a baby/with a mama named Mary/rocking in a cradle/talking about peace and loving and sharing,” the Medicine Men sing with assistance from the Secret Sisters.

Alongside their hollering from the holler, Old Crow toss in influences from Ireland to Dixieland to Piedmont to porches everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line while singing about bootleg booze on “Corn Whiskey Christmas,” commercialization and broken families on “Store-Bought Christmas” and traditions both scary (“Krampus Night”) and bittersweet (“Grandpa’s Gone).”

As it goes, the album might not appeal to lovers of traditional Christmas music, but Old Crow fans-even those who detest holiday sounds-will enjoy an OCMS XMAS.

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— Kristopher Weiss, jambands.com

Product Details

"We're in the joy business," says frontman Ketch Secor, who launched the Grammy-winning band in 1998. "From the very start, a lot of the virtues of Christmas - the revelry, the singalongs, the happiness - have been present in our show." Nowhere is that more apparent than OCMS XMAS, the group's first holiday album. Decorated with seasonal spirit and string-band stomp, it's the rare breed of Christmas record that packs a punch all year long, shining new light on the band's chart-topping version of American roots music. Old Crow Medicine Show aren't just reinterpreting their favorite yuletide standards; they're adding new songs to the canon, too, from "Jolly Man" - a country-blues number inspired by Mississippi John Hurt and laced with harmonica, sleigh bells, and resonator guitar - to the Zydeco-flavored "All About A Baby."A real legacy, indeed. Old Crow have thrived for more than a quarter century. Like many of their heroes, they've become torchbearers of classic folk music, reshaping those sounds for the modern world. They're creators, not replicators, and OCMS XMAS finds them tackling another tradition - the time-honored Christmas album - with humor, hillbilly twang, and novel ideas. Supported by the band's first-ever "Holiday Hootenanny" tour, OCMS XMAS just might be the start of a new tradition itself: a celebration of the seasonal sounds, shared joy, and holiday rituals that bring us all together. Christmas just got a new soundtrack.