There’s no formula for writing a hit song.
Ok, Barry Gordy might disagree, but whatever the formula for writing a hit, it’s certainly not:
- hear a demo of an incomplete bootlegged Bob Dylan song while you’re in high school
- sing the hook incessantly in your head for years
- decide to write it down and expand on it
- record and release it
- wait 10 years for the former lead singer of Hootie & The Blowfish to cover it
If writing a hit was that easy we’d all have been doing it years ago.
But that “formula” is only half of the story of how “Wagon Wheel”, often cited as the Millenials’ “Free Bird”, came to be, and why a song nearly 60 years in the making just may be the most American song ever.
Old Crow Medicine Show
Old Crow Medicine Show wrote “Wagon Wheel” in the form we recognize it today, so let’s start there.
Particularly, let’s start on a family vacation taken by Medicine Show’s guitarist, Critter Fuqua, while in high school. Critter told NPR:
Yeah, I had gone on a family vacation. My dad decided to take us to Paris and London… I went to the Virgin Megastore and got this Bob Dylan bootleg, like four CDs, and took it back. It was like gold, ’cause Ketch [Secor, the frontman of OCMS] and I were so obsessed with Bob Dylan.
So Critter buys a 4 disc set of Dylan bootlegs and hears something that sticks in his head.
Note, this song is not just from the relatively minor Dylan album, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid Soundtrack, it is an outtake from a bootleg of the session for the relatively minor Dylan album, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid Soundtrack.
(This “minor” work brought the world “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”, a song that would have been the highlight of most other artist’s careers)
Bob Dylan
So Critter shares this Dylan outtake with the band leader Secor:
Secor saw the Dylan contribution as “an outtake of something he had mumbled out on one of those tapes. I sang it all around the country from about 17 to 26, before I ever even thought, ‘Oh, I better look into this.
Old Crow took an outtake of Dylan’s, turned it into a chorus, and built an anthem around it.
But Dylan didn’t write it himself. Or rather, he had an influence of his own.
When Secor sought copyright on the song in 2003 to release it on O.C.M.S. in (2004), he discovered Dylan credited the phrase “Rock me, mama” to bluesman Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, who likely got it from a Big Bill Broonzy recording.
Arthur Crudup and Bill Broonzy
So let’s look at this.
A blues song gets passed around for an unknown amount of time before being recorded in Paris in 1956.
From that recording by Big Bill Broonzy, another blues artist, Big Boy Crudup, sang the version of the phrase “rock me, mama” that got stuck in Bob Dylan’s head.
Dylan records it, but more like “sings it while a microphone is recording”, and it lands on the outtakes of an album released in 1973.
Then…
Someone leaks that outtake and some 20-30 years later it finds itself stuck in the head of Ketch Secor, where it rattles around for years – as it may very well have done to Dylan – before Secor sits down and makes a song of it.
But wait…
While the Old Crow version could have been a classic, and a sing-a-long staple on its own, I doubt it is as widely known as it is today if Darius Rucker’s daughter doesn’t sing it at a school performance.
“Somebody had played ‘Wagon Wheel’ for me years ago,” Darius explains. “It was one of those things that I didn’t really get.
The song alone wasn’t enough for Darius…
So, I’m at my daughter’s high school talent show, and I’m sitting in the audience with my family. We were watching my daughter, and the faculty band gets up. It’s just the faculty from her school, and they play ‘Wagon Wheel.’ I’m sitting in the audience, and they get to the middle of the chorus, and I turned to my wife, and I go, ‘I’ve got to cut this song.’ I’m serious. This all happened in three-and-a-half minutes, four minutes, while they’re playing the song.”
So let’s look at this song in visual form, and then will follow the Blues-Folk-Rock-Country path this song took to anthem status.
In Conclusion: A Professional Drawing
As we can see from the professional drawing above, “Wagon Wheel” touched every genre of American-born music except Jazz & Hip Hop.
From Blues to Rock to Folk to Country, from black to white to white to black.
Many claim America is better described as a stew than a melting pot. A stew having variety of meat and vegetables, all living together, but still remaining separate ingredients, whereas the more traditional melting pot analogy imagines an America where cultures blend.
“Wagon Wheel” is one of the few examples that make a case for the melting pot. The end result looks nothing like the original ingredients, and yet at every point in its journey, this song is a completely American creation, some on the internet might even say it’s in the running for most American song ever.
To put a nice, 21st century bow on it, this story results in a Black artist making not only the biggest cultural impact (not new for America) but getting rewarded handsomely for it (new for America).
Had the story ended in 2004 with Old Crow Medicine Show, the narrative would have remained very 20th-century-and-every-previous-century.
Epilogue: An Argument For the Rucker Version
For those making an argument that Old Crow Medicine Show’s version is better, let me make a quick case for the Rucker versions superiority.
1. Lady Antebellum
As only Darius could, Wagon Wheel features the Grammy Award Winners (for Best Album, 2011) Lady Antebellum as back up singers. It adds a depth to the song you don’t necessarily hear, but rather, feel. From wikipedia:
Rucker cut the song with Lady Antebellum on backing vocals. He told Taste of Country: “Lady Antebellum took the song to a new level. Up until they added their vocals, I thought it was another song on the record.”[31]
2. Bounce & Tightness
The Rucker version just bounces. It is more produced, which doesn’t immediately equate to being better, but in this case, it takes the song from very catchy to anthemic. The Old Crow version has a sparse, spacey, live recording feel. The rhythm itself isn’t as locked in as the Rucker version, which allows more room for words, and that’s not necessarily a good thing…
3. Phrasing & Melody in the Verses
Hearing Rucker sing this song for the first time I was immediately struck at how congested the verse lyrics are. Finding out he didn’t write them made a lot of sense.
Several lines on the verse are simply too long and feel crammed or rushed.
Some lines that feel rushed:
- “I was born to be singer in an old time string band”
- “But he’s a heading west from the Cumberland gap” only fits because the percussion cuts out for this section
- “Hear my baby calling my name and I know that she’s the only one”.
Due to the musical spaciness of the Old Crow version, lots of lyrics fit in each measure (“fit” is a liberal description) and worked well enough in the original context. Once Rucker tightened up the rhythm, he was also able to tighten up the melody and made even the longer lines easier to sing along with.
4. Voice
And of course, Rucker’s voice is more suited for anthems. He has a really rich blend of baritone and tenor that was the mega-selling icing on the cake of the Blowfish’s success.