Old Crow Medicine Show - Jubilee (LP)

Old Crow Medicine Show’s Jubilee lands like a porch-light celebration, a rowdy, heart-on-sleeve survey of the band’s first quarter century that still finds new corners to explore. Released on August 25, 2023 on ATO Records, it plays like a field recording from a future barn dance, equal parts string band steam and gospel glow. If you have even a soft spot for fiddles and harmonicas cutting through a room, this one has your name on it.

What jumps out first is the band’s easy swing. Ketch Secor’s fiddle and harmonica ride high in the mix, and the crew around him moves like a single engine that knows every bend in the road. Guitars trade off with banjo and mandolin, the rhythm section thumps with front-porch precision, and the choruses feel built for shouting back from the cheap seats. You can hear the miles in their voices, the calluses in the timing. It feels live, warm, and close, the way Old Crow Medicine Show vinyl tends to make your speakers breathe.

The guest list brings extra color without stealing the spotlight. “Miles Away” reunites the band with founding member Willie Watson, and the chemistry is instant. The song rolls like an old postcard, a mid-tempo sway that puts the harmonies front and center. You can hear why fans went a little misty when this dropped, since that voice blend was part of the group’s early magic. “Gloryland” pulls in Mavis Staples, and the temperature rises a few degrees. Her presence gives the track a grounded joy, that Sunday-morning-that-runs-into-Sunday-night feeling, and Old Crow leans into the groove with a steady stomp. Sierra Ferrell turns up on “Belle Meade Cockfight,” a sly, twangy romp with a wink in the lyric and quicksilver phrasing that suits her to a tee. It’s playful, a little barbed, and very Nashville.

Jubilee works because it honors the band’s roots without getting stuck in them. Old Crow have always threaded social snapshots into string band forms, and they still do it with a songwriter’s touch. One minute it’s a fiddle tune that could have rattled a dance floor a century ago, the next it’s a street-corner sermon about the world out your window. That blend is why the records hold up and why the shows feel like history class with a backbeat. They can lay down a front-porch waltz, then pivot to a breakneck rave-up, and both sound like the same band, the same room, the same beating heart.

Context helps here. These folks were busking kids when Doc Watson gave them a boost, they became members of the Grand Ole Opry in 2013, and along the way “Wagon Wheel” turned into a modern standard with a Bob Dylan co-write to boot. You could forgive them for coasting on legacy. Instead, Jubilee carries the spark of a band that still loves the noise they make together. The playing is sharp but lived-in, the jokes land, and the choruses keep sneaking back into your day. It’s the sort of record that reminds you why Old Crow Medicine Show albums on vinyl keep selling, because this music invites you to lean in, then holler along.

If you collect, the Jubilee vinyl is worth the shelf space. The low end gives the stomp some muscle, fiddles bloom, and those group vocals sit right in the room with you. I stumbled across my copy while digging at a Melbourne record store on a jet-lagged afternoon, the kind of lucky find that sends you home grinning. But you don’t have to wait for fate. You can buy Old Crow Medicine Show records online and know you’re getting a set that will get played, not just filed. For crate diggers in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s already popping up among new arrivals of vinyl records Australia shops are stocking.

Jubilee isn’t trying to reinvent the band. It celebrates the mess and the melody of who they are, with friends dropping by to add a little shine. If you’ve ridden with them since the pharmacy parking lot stories and the pre-show busks, this feels like a toast to the journey. If you’re new, it’s a door swung open and a hand pulling you into the dance. Either way, drop the needle and let the party start.