Old Crow Medicine Show performs at Salina’s Stiefel Theatre on Thursday.
Nearing 30 years as a band, the group’s deepest roots are planted in the world of old-time music, a style that predates country and bluegrass music and which endures to this day thanks to contemporary practitioners.
The band’s upcoming album, “Union Made,” which will be released on June 5, offers evidence of the outfit’s ability to advance that genre and blend it with other sounds and voices that come from outside the close ranks of the band. Musicians such as Asleep At The Wheel’s Ray Benson, singer-songwriter Molly Tuttle and Evan Felker (of Oklahoma’s Turnpike Troubadours) offer up powerful guest performances.
The album is produced by longtime Old Crow bassist Morgan Jahnig, who recently spoke with KMUW about the making of the album, how former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones helped him through an existential crisis, and the power of the band’s most popular song to date, “Wagon Wheel.”
The following interview has been edited for length and for clarity.
You have a new album coming out in June, “Union Made” and I understand that you produced this one.
I did, in fact. That’s right. When we were talking about how to do this record, we knew that we wanted to do it more in-house. We have a studio in Nashville, Hartland Studios, it’s where we’ve done the last three or four projects. We wanted to give it a shot of doing it all on our own. We’ve done some things in the past where I’ve functioned as engineer and producer and bass player and my hands can get a little full with all that going on.
We’ve got, in PJ George, an incredible bass player as well. He stepped in and performed most of the bass parts. They did get me in on one [song]. But it freed me up to just listen and make sure that we were getting the best of everything that we could.
Were you always in recording bands?
I’ve been recording almost as long as I’ve been playing bass. I was recording and running live sound for a bunch of my friends’ bands in Chattanooga. I’ve always really enjoyed that aspect of music-making. The road kept me away from it for a long time, but about 15 years ago or so I got a studio again and I’ve been recording Old Crow stuff and other stuff since. I absolutely love it.
I know a lot of bass players who have that kind of engineering/production background. It’s almost like it’s genetic.
I have a story about that. When we were in England playing with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and they had [former Led Zeppelin bassist] John Paul Jones around when we were in Leeds and at a couple other shows. We got to hang out with him and play a bunch of old-time music with him. I was having a hard day and kind of an existential crisis, just wondering, “Gosh, I’m here and I’m playing bass, and I do all this other stuff. Are my talents being used? Should they be used elsewhere? Should I be an air traffic controller or something?” John said, “You’re a bass player, that’s exactly what you are.”
I think the air traffic controller aspect of bass playing lends itself to production and engineering.
And there’s a guy who would know.
He knows, yeah.
He’s fascinating to me because he’s a multi-instrumentalist with deep musical roots.
As an arranger, as a writer, as a producer, he’s absolutely second-to-none. He’s incredible.
You have some guests on this album, including Ray Benson of Asleep At The Wheel on “Lincoln Highway.” You also have Molly Tuttle, as well as Del McCoury and Ronnie McCoury, who are the first single “My Side Of The Mountain.”
We’ve known Ray for a long time, it was so great to have him on the album. Being in the room with Molly Tuttle playing guitar? That’s a heck of a thing any time you get the chance to do that. Maggie Rose, who is also such an incredible singer, [is on “Beautiful Land”]. This was also our first time working with Jesse Welles, who we’ve been admiring for a while now. Luckily, he was able to swing through town and come in and work with us. And, of course, our great friend Evan Felker from Turnpike Troubadours. He was actually working with Shooter Jennings at the time and so we had to send [the song] out to him and so Shooter helped him with that take.
Del was one of the first people that we ever got to tour with. He and his wonderful band and his wonderful wife taught us so much about touring and the road and how to be professional. To actually have him come in and sing on one of our records was such a thrill.
We knew that we wanted to have more involvement from people on this album, being [titled] “Union Made.” It’s supposed to be about community and about togetherness, so we knew that we wanted to have a lot of people. Knowing that ahead of time and just being able to go out and find the right people to come in and add their voices and their talents to the songs [and do it] in a more complete way than I think we’ve been able to do it on any other record.
There’s another cool thing in Old Crow in that among the members you can kind of play ‘Pass the Instrument.’ You can pass your bass off and wind up with a mandolin, someone else can wind up on piano.
As we try to figure out how to play these songs live, there’s a lot of that. We might say, “Well, I played this and this on the record, but I guess I can do something else. Molly played guitar on this, I guess I’ll play banjo.” There’s a lot of moving and shaking and such talented guys in this band. We have a great band right now that can do so many different things.
The membership of the band has been fluid over the years. People have come and gone. Critter Fuqua has done that and over the last couple of years Willie Watson has been back on stage with you. It kind of seems like once you’re in Old Crow you’re in for life. You might not be on the bus but you’re still part of the band.
[Laughs.] I’m not saying that we’re an organized crime family but…
[Laughs.]
It’s true. There’s always an open door with Old Crow. People have come and gone for various reasons over the years and the show goes on. If somebody decides that they need to go do something else for a while, then we’re gonna need to find somebody else who wants to do this with us. They’ll be around and then they’ll go away. We had Chance McCoy in the band for eight or nine years before he went off to work on his own music, but he’s back. We’ve also just got back Joe Andrews. Any time we’re around somebody who has shared the stage with us, we’re always trying to get them to come back and play with us a little bit more. Some people have hung up their road shoes, and I understand that. We’ve been doing this for almost 30 years now. It’s definitely a long-haul lifestyle.
I caught you in Nashville at the end of 2025 for two shows at The Ryman Auditorium. It was great to see such a wide range of people there, from children who were probably not yet 10 to retirees. But there was something really special that happened when you went into “Wagon Wheel.” There was this surge of energy in the crowd and I remember thinking, “This is really something powerful to be part of.” Do you have a sense of that when you’re on stage and go into that song?
Absolutely. You talk about “Wagon Wheel” and a question I get asked a lot from all kinds of people is, “Don’t you ever get sick of playing that song?” No, I don’t. I’ve been playing that song as long as I’ve been in this band, and just like you described, every time those chords light up, the people get on their feet. The energy in the room changes. That never gets old. That will never get old. Through the night there are moments like that, there’s ups and downs, people connect to different things. That’s one of the beautiful things about live music. The two hours that we’re on stage is the easiest amount of time spent in any given day. And it’s the most joyous.
