Old Crow Medicine Show’s New ‘Nashville Rising’ Is a Rallying Cry [LISTEN]
Old Crow Medicine Show's "Nashville Rising" is a rallying cry for the city following the tornado that caused damage in its North Nashville, Germantown and East Nashville neighborhoods on March 3, and in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Press play above to listen.
OCMS' Ketch Secor wrote "Nashville Rising" 10 days after the tornado, he tells the Tennessean. The musician and his family live in East Nashville -- he moved to town "right after the last tornado that really tore through this town" in 1998 -- and although their home was not directly hit by the storm, they spent the night in its crawl space for safety.
"When I saw the beautiful old [East End United] Methodist Church all torn up, its limestone cornerstone spit out on top of the rubble … I just had to sit on the curb and cry,” Secor recalls of seeing the damage in the area. "I went home and started writing right away."
Old Crow Medicine Show -- Secor, Morgan Jahnig, Cory Younts, Joe Andrews, Robert Price, Charlie Worsham and Jerry Pentecost -- and special guests Molly Tuttle, Shelly Colvin and Skylar Wilson recorded "Nashville Rising" at the band's Hartland Studio. It was only a few days before city officials issued the "Safter at Home" order that's currently in place to combat the spread of the coronavirus.
"As Molly left, she said, ‘I get the feeling this is the last I'm going to see of people for awhile,’” Secor remembers. "[She] was right, that's the last time since I made music together in a room with friends."
Released exactly one month after the tornado -- which also wreaked havoc in Donelson, Mt. Juliet, Cookeville and other locations -- "Nashville Rising" will benefit the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee's Emergency Response Fund: Proceeds from the song will go to the organization.
"I know most of us never thought we'd see anything like what this last month has been, whether in Music City or elsewhere around the world," Secor reflects in a press release. "These are the dark times where music can really light the way, the times of immeasurable hardship where music can soothe a troubled soul."
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