Sample Stories: ‘Wagon Wheel’
No, Darius Rucker didn’t steal ‘Wagon Wheel’ from Ol’ Crow Medicine Show… he stole it from Bob Dylan.
Or did he?
In 1973, the western drama, Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid was produced and distributed by MGM. Directed by Sam Peckinpah (great name, also directed The Wild Bunch), written by Rudy Wurlitzer (also great name), and starring Kris Kristofferson and James Coburn (I mean c’mon). The film was originally butchered by the studio, but in ‘88 the original Peckinpah version was released and heralded as an unsung classic.
Another reason why the film was so beloved was the soundtrack. That’s because Bob Dylan was in charge. Dylan recorded half the songs in Mexico City and half in Burbank, California. One of those songs was Knockin On Heaven’s Door, which was a big hit then and has been covered by 57 different artists since.
But that’s not why we’re here today. We’re here today because in 2013, Darius Rucker sang “Wagon Wheel.” He went on to become the second black man to win a country music award at the Grammy’s for the track that also went 8X platinum. But...didn’t Darius steal this song from little known Ol’ Crow Medicine Show? Did people forget that Ol’ Crow released the exact same song ten years earlier?
From left to right: Critter Fuqua, Ketch Secor, Darius Rucker. Photo credit: Rick Diamond/Getty Images
Surprisingly to me, Ol’ Crow didn’t feel betrayed by Rucker. Instead, Chris ‘Critter’ Fuqua was happy for him. “He's a country music fan and, more than that, he just loves music and loves playing. I'm really glad he cut the track. It's been good for him and good for us, but I'm just waiting for the time when people come up to me and say, ‘I love when you guys played that Darius Rucker cover.’”
People helping people. You really love to see it. And to be fair, Rucker’s version is a little different and maybe that little difference is what propelled it from a semi-hit to a massive, 8X platinum chart-topper. Despite that, I couldn’t help but feel bad for Ol’ Crow. It felt like Kanye getting all the credit for taking a song and just slowing it down a little bit with otherwise minimal changes (“Touch The Sky” feat. Lupe Fiasco and Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up”) and being called a genius producer for it. I get it, I’m a hater, but I still felt like credit wasn’t flowing to the appropriate destination.
Then I looked into Ol’ Crow’s version and I learned that I was right. Credit wasn’t flowing to the appropriate destination because… they hadn’t even written the original version!
It was obviously written by one of the most prolific songwriters of the past 100 years. Bob Zimmerman a.k.a. Bob Dylan. He writes more songs than he eats meals.
Bob Dylan also acted in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. This is him on set in ‘73. Photo credit: Somebody on set.
Back to Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. In 1973, Bob Dylan accepted the offer to produce the soundtrack for the film and went to Mexico City to record the first half of the album. When it was time for the second half of the album, he conjured up music magic in his Burbank studio. He wrote “Sweet Amarillo,” “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” and improvised a little diddy called “Rock Me Mama.” If you’ve ever listened to “Wagon Wheel,” that line might ring a bell. “Rock Me Mama” never made it into the film because it wasn’t considered a completed song. It was just him fucking around.
Fast forward to the early ‘90s when Critter Fuqua and Ketch Secor became best friends in 7th grade. They started playing music together at open mics in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The boys stayed in touch even though Secor went to boarding school at Phillips Exeter Academy in New England, while Fuqua stayed back home in Virginia.
During their freshman year of high school, Fuqua went on a family vacation to England. While he was there, he popped into a record store and bought a bootleg vinyl of the Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid soundtrack. When Secor was home for the holidays, Fuqua gave him the bootleg. Secor brought it back up north to New England and when he got homesick, he’d play that one “Rock Me Mama” track that was “more of a sketch than a song.” As he strummed his guitar with the melody, he wrote a few verses about hitchhiking his way home back to Virginia. That song became “Wagon Wheel.”
They played the song at concerts for the next nine years before finally getting the idea or courage to contact Dylan about buying the rights to release it and actually make some money. They agreed to a 50/50 split, but not before Dylan shared his inspiration for the song and the phrase “Rock Me Mama.” He originally came across the phrase and melody from Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, who Dylan believes inherited it from Big Bill Broonzy.
A young Big Bill Broonzy looking like a boss. Photo credit: University of Chicago
Hold up! So you’re telling me that Darius Rucker copied Ol’ Crow Medicine Show. Ol’ Crow Medicine Show copied Dylan. Dylan copied Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup. And Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup copied Big Bill Broonzy??? (Looks like RollingStone didn’t do enough research when they stopped at Dylan, but maybe that’s because they only believe white dudes are the best songwriters.)
Only one way to find out. And that’s by listening to Big Bill Broonzy’s 1940 song “Rockin Chair Blues.” It’s like buried treasure in your eardrums as soon as the song starts. This is definitively the first recorded moment of inspiration that led to Darius Rucker’s 2013 hit. And it makes sense because Big Bill Broonzy is an absolute legend who went on to mentor Eric Clapton and Muddy Waters, get inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, and have his song, “Black, Brown, and White Blues” performed at Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony. Ok, so we have our answer. “Rockin Chair Blues” was the beginning of “Wagon Wheel” and deserves all of the credit for what we’re listening to today right? Right?!
Well… then we’d be ignoring Curtis Jones’ 1939 “Roll Me Mama” which shares some similar lyrics. And what about Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “Rock Me Mama” that Dylan mentioned to Secor and Fuqua which was recorded in 1944? And then there’s Melvin ‘Lil’ Son’ Jackson’s 1951 jam, “Rockin and Rollin,” one of the most recorded blues songs of all time. While Big Bill Broonzy’s “Rockin Chair Blues” is the most obvious origination, the music magic from all of these songs floated in the air of that Burbank studio in 1973 when Dylan freestyled his rendition.
What Dylan did is something that’s been done a million times and will never be duplicated. The blues legends he channeled in the studio helped him create his piece. When his B-Side “sketch” fell into the hands of two high school kids from Virginia, they gave it new life. A decade later, Darius Rucker turned it into the biggest country song in the fucking world and filmed a music video with Duck Dynasty at their peak. The real credit should go to me for doing all of this goddamn research!