Top Ten Covers of Dylan Songs: Wagon Wheel (#3)

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Earlier in the countdown of songs of Bob Dylan done by others I had an “asterisk” song. Well, waddaya know, here’s another one that fits into that category. Presenting, for your dining and dancing pleasure, today’s Bob Dylan tune. #3: Wagon Wheel - Old Crow Medicine Show Dylan started writing this song, which he called “Rock Me Mama,” for the soundtrack to the film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (which featured the oft-covered “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”). He never finished the song. Fast forward a couple of decades and Ketch Secor, the vocalist and fiddler of the Old Crow Medicine Show, heard the sketchy chorus on a Dylan bootleg tape and made a bold, bold move: he decided to finish the song. (According to Picky Wedia, Dylan’s son told Secor that “no one in their 30s would have the guts to try to write a Bob Dylan song.” ) And, oh, what a song he finished! Using Dylan’s melody and chorus, “Wagon Wheel” has become what one music critic described as “this generation’s ‘Free Bird.’” Well, it’s true: a friend of mine said there was a note in the green room of one venue he played that said “NO Stairway to Heaven, Free Bird, or Wagon Wheel.” PS: you note I didn’t mention that hideous, albeit very popular, “country” music cover from the early 2010s. There’s a reason. I’m eating. Wagon Wheel Written by Bob Dylan and Ketch Secor Recorded by Old Crow Medicine Show From O.C.M.S., 2004 He’s heading west from the Cumberland Gap: