A couple of months ago I was driving home from the train station after a long day at work and heard the deejay on a local country station say that “Wagon Wheel” was the next song. The next part caught me off guard when he said it was a new song by Darius Rucker. Being from South Carolina, I knew about Hootie and the Blowfish before they made it big nationally. Several of the songs on Cracked Rear View were actually previously done by them regionally. It got to the point on the national stage that all their songs were sounding the same to me (and others) and to a lesser extent Darius Rucker has had the same problem since he came onto the country scene. He has good videos that have a lot of references to the Palmetto State (yay!) and also a lot of Gamecock references (boo!)

His videos are usually good, and now that I finally saw the Wagon Wheel video the past couple of weeks, featuring Lady Antebellum and members of the cast of Duck Dynasty (especially Si Robertson), I like the video. I like the song overall too, but then the Old Crow Medicine Show version of the song is one that I can’t resist singing along to any time I hear it (not so with the Rucker version.)

Granted, one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended was Old Crow Medicine Show (along with Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Iron & Wine, Levon Helm, and the Felice Brothers) at Merriweather Post Pavilion a few years ago. Wagon Wheel was the last song of the night, and I don’t think there was a person there who wasn’t singing the chorus (and many of them the whole song.)

Here’s the Old Crow Medicine Show version:

Here’s the Darius Rucker version:

Which do you prefer?