Old Crow Medicine Show have just released their new album Remedy and to drum up interest have also unveiled their new video for Sweet Amarillo which you can watch below. There’s an interesting story behind this song which goes in full circle via Bob Dylan. Most folks know by now that OCMS’s multiplatinum hit ‘Wagon Wheel‘ is based on an unfinished Dylan song, something Ketch Secor has been thanking Dylan for ever since. Dylan unexpectedly responded again with another offering of a new song asking Secor if he’d like a go at this one.
The unfinished song offered turns out to be from the same writing session that Wagon Wheel was from which was originally recorded for the 1973 soundtrack to “Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid.” Talking about working on the song Secor said “I was working with about 26 seconds in which there’s a lot of giggling in the background and it just sounds like a pretty high time down in Monterey, or Durango, or wherever they are making this Western movie”.
From this came Sweet Amarillo a tale about a cowboy in search of his lover. The demos for the song were sent to Bob Dylan’s management, the message back was a suggestion to move the chorus up and switch the harmonica for a fiddle. “The reason it sounds so catchy is because Bob said play the fiddle and get a good hook in your music,” Secor said. “That’s what a good catchy song does. I think Bob is rooting for it, too.”
See what you think, here’s the new video for Sweet Amarillo
Released via ATO Records, out now.