Some call Old Crow Medicine Show roots music; some say bluegrass, folk or alt-country. To me, the latter implies some sort of revivalism, though, and that is not what OCMS is about. They’re authentic Nashville boys, playing old-timey music straight from Appalachia – the kind of music that never gets old.

On banjo, fiddle, harmonica, guitar, bass and sometimes even saw – yes, saw – Critter Fuqua, Kevin Hayes, Morgan Jahnig, Ketch Secor, Gill Landry and Willie Watson break out timeless ditties about contemporary stuff, like, um, well, meth and rehab. But the boys are best when they keep it simple and take a crack at their cracker-ass selves.

They got their start busking in the streets of Nashville. They got their big break – and their name – by impressing a North Carolina doctor with their banjo-pluckin’ and fiddle-scratchin’ outside a local pharmacy.

And although they’ve veered into some dangerous college fraternity territory with the success of their one mainstream country crossover hit, “Wagon Wheel,” they’ve also managed to churn out seven critically acclaimed albums to date, the most recent of which was this year’s Tennessee Pusher.

Despite selling out huge auditoriums across the country, they still like playing on city streets, with a profit hat front and center, the best. Yup, pretty great.