Ketch and Critter play to sold-out crowds

Ketch Secor and Critter Fuqua of the famed Old Crow Medicine Show (OCMS) played to a packed crowd Sunday night at the Floyd Country Store. It was the last show in a January tour featuring the founding band members who grew up together in Harrisonburg, Virginia.  

With Secor playing fiddle, harmonica, banjo and guitar, and Fuqua on guitar, banjo and accordion, the mountain music revivalists sang a variety of original songs, including a new song penned by Secor with a “Carry Me Back to Virginia” refrain and a traditional sensibility. A murder ballad, a song sung in French, a not quite finished tongue-in-cheek song about hillbilly robots, a tribute to Martin Luther King, and a poignant song about an Iraq War vet’s passing, Dearly Departed Friend, were among the songs performed.  

Rick Sutphin, a Galax Fiddler’s Convention flat-footing champion and Country Store employee, was invited onstage to dance to a few rousing reels. An audience member was encouraged to come on stage and do the polka with Sutphin for a Mexican polka number. Christy Clevenger of Asheville, North Carolina, volunteered to audience cheers.

Tapping into the timeless roots of old-time music and adding a contemporary edge, the duo engaged the audience with their vocal and songwriting talents, which were blended with humorous storytelling, regional references and banter.  They closed the two-set performance with the band’s signature song Wagon Wheel – recently certified gold – and returned to the stage for two more numbers after receiving a standing ovation.

“That’s the Ketch and Critter Show for you, Floyd Virginia.  Home in the old dominion. Celebrating 20 years of making music together, a beautiful audience in the great  historic place where so many have played before and so many will play again, young and old, “ Ketch told the audience, adding that after the show he and Critter would be driving back to Nashville, where OCMS is currently based.