Wagon Wheel

[Tony Prior]

Why would you dis' a song when you can make people happy by playing it?
They are probably the ones stuffing $$ in the tip jar.

Finally !

This is funny stuff and no disrespect meant to my forum buds.

I tend to lean with what Bob has stated, I know many many songs, more than many many, but I don't connect the lyrics dots, I don't even try, I connect the intro, turnaround and ending dots. Why? because I'm not the singer, I'm either on Guitar or Steel, for all I know they could be making up the words !


We sure are an odd breed, we complain that we can't get a gig on Steel, bands don't use a Steel etc..then we when we get a gig we now complain about the songs we might have to play , not enough chords and too boring !

I tell ya whats more boring, sitting at home on Fri or Sat night looking at a $4000 Steel, glistening in it's polish and shine with no gig and none is sight !

Us humans sure are strange !

[Christopher Woitach]

I'm always happy to play (most) songs people like, to fill the tip jar if nothing else.

I'm surprised more people from Tennessee aren't driven nuts by "heading west from the Cumberland Gap to Johnson City Tennessee"

[Brint Hannay]

Why would you dis' a song when you can make people happy by playing it?
They are probably the ones stuffing $$ in the tip jar.

For most of us, a substantial component of why we play music is to make us happy.

I'll play almost any song to make a tipper happy, but I reserve the right to express my dislike of a song among fellow musicians.

[Charlie McDonald]

I have been a fan since childhood of the Sons of the Pioneers singing the Billy Hill song "Wagon Wheels".

[Brint Hannay]

It wasn't Dylan's first boring chord progression. Consider "You Ain't Going Nowhere"

Yes, and "All Along the Watchtower", same chord pattern: verse and chorus

And "Knocking on Heaven's Door", same chord pattern: verse and chorus

I'll take "Wagon Wheel" over "Knocking On Heaven's Door" anytime. All that Knock-knock-knockin' over and over to the plodding tempo drives me crazy.

I wonder what Hendrix could have done with "Wagon Wheel"? Who'd have thought "Watchtower" had that much potential?

[Rick Campbell]

I'm all about playing what the people want to hear, but there is another side to the story.

1. I've found it's very often the same person that request the same song every show. The rest of the audience is sick of hearing the song, but the band does it to please one person. You can tell, they walk toward the stage grinning, like .... "you know what I'm going to say"..... and then they request Wagon Wheel, Mustang Sally, etc...


RC

[Barry Blackwood]

I'll play almost any song to make a tipper happy, but I reserve the right to express my dislike of a song among fellow musicians.

Amen, Brint.

[Joachim Kettner]

Totally my opinion too!

[Jerry Overstreet]

Yeah, but in the posted case, it's the establishment that has banned the song from being played there. Would you risk getting the band fired for not complying?

[Andy Volk]

I've never heard this song before today. I don't get the fuss. I've heard a lot worse! Yes, it's repetitive but that's what resonates with non-musicians.

[Tony Prior]

Yeah, but in the posted case, it's the establishment that has banned the song from being played there. Would you risk getting the band fired for not complying?

Fired for playing a song !

Now that would be rich...

We had a regular gig, a Country Dance Barn, where the owner checked our set list now and then (we used to laugh behind his back of course) One time we added a R+R song and he came up on the stage and told us to stop playing it all while the entire dance floor was full ! Well we didn't stop and he got mad at us, he didn't fire us because we were packing the place but we wanted to quit so instead we raised our price by I think $200/night and he told us NO so that was a good way to quit without quiting !


Oh yeah the song was Jenny Jenny, the Tommy Tutone song, Crowds love it, even die hard country crowds. If I recall, I think it was requested as we mixed many good R+R tunes in the sets.

8 6 7 5 3 OH 9....who doesn't like to sing along to that ?

[Dustin Rigsby]

I've never heard wagon wheel. I have a list of songs I have refused to play in rock bands. Alone Again by Dokken, freebird, simple man, sweet home Alabama, working man by Rush, and keep your hands to yourself by Georgia sattelites. Anything else is fair game. I've even turned Mickey Gilley's girls get prettier into a rock tune, not too hard to do because it has blues boogie roots.

[Jerry Overstreet]

It's the notice posted here that I'm referencing. Looks pretty cut and dried to me.

Yeah, but in the posted case, it's the establishment that has banned the song from being played there. Would you risk getting the band fired for not complying?

Fired for playing a song !

Now that would be rich...

[Brett Lanier]

Between Wagon Wheel and the suit involving the line "tangled up in blue" in the Hootie song I Only Want To Be With You, Darius Rucker has created a lot of extra income for Bob Dylan.

[Tony Prior]

Fun reads..

I wonder, what if the house and dance fllor is packed and 2 or 3 songs in the band decides to play the evil WW, maybe by request, even though there is a NEON sign pointing to them to not play it and risk being fired or not paid.


So the question is..

the band starts playing and the owner comes up and says you're fired or I'm not paying you...and the gig is only 20 min into 4 hours...and the house is packed...

Do you stay and cry because now you still have 3 hrs to go and you are not getting paid..

Or do you pack up and leave on the spot ?


And then this

What if the sign is just a joke to begin with ? You know like No Brown Eyed Girl or Mustang Sally, of which we all know we play them regardless because dance crowds love them ! And after a few decades of playing pretty much all musicians actually know those songs pretty well !

Just throwin' it out there for good measure.

[Mike Black]

Tom Morrell told me once "If you don't like the song you can't blame the song!" FWIW his version on Dobro is great.

[Lee Baucum]

the band starts playing and the owner comes up and says you're fired or I'm not paying you...and the gig is only 20 min into 4 hours...and the house is packed...

I'd have my gear out in the truck in another 20 minutes!

[Don R Brown]

the band starts playing and the owner comes up and says you're fired or I'm not paying you...and the gig is only 20 min into 4 hours...and the house is packed...

I'd have my gear out in the truck in another 20 minutes!

"Sorry folks, but we've just been fired for playing what YOU wanted to hear. But TOMORROW night, we'll be playing at____, come on out and catch the show there!"

[Ian Rae]

I finally got round to listening to this song. It strikes me as undistinguished but harmless. Help me out, someone - what am I missing?

[Ken Pippus]

What you're missing is not having heard it 7000 times. It suffers from saturation bombing over here.

[Dave Mudgett]

Help me out, someone - what am I missing?

As many have said, including me earlier - yes, some people are totally saturated with this tune. But I don't think that's the real issue behind all the hoopla. If that was all there was to it, people who don't like it would just avoid it without a lot of ceremony - if bands played WW or other 'unhip' tunes and people didn't come, or just got up and left, any band with brains would stop playing it.

So what I think you're missing is that many people feel they have a right to control what other people do, watch, and listen to. I think that, to some extent, this an issue of "what is hip", pure and simple. It is viewed by some that playing tunes like this is "not hip", and they want to control things to the point that they don't have to listen to it, regardless of what others want.

There are things in this world that I don't like, and some that positively annoy me. I think the best way to deal with the latter is to simply get up and leave. Last I looked, nobody was doing the Clockwork Orange thing and forcing me to watch/listen to stuff I really dislike. Ah, well, sometimes people do try that, but it doesn't work - I'll get up and leave in the middle of anything if I feel like it.

As far as clubs banning it - every club that hires bands has to make these kinds of choices about what kinds of music and/or bands they want on their own. Smart owners/managers make these kinds of decisions based on what works for their crowd. Bands can play there, or not. Patrons can patronize these places, or not. But in the end, customers decide who is successful and who isn't.

I live (and play sometimes) in a large university town. Roughly 50,000 college undergrad/grad students tend to dominate the music culture here. Places and bands that seriously frown on "unhip" music that is popular with the masses tend to be pretty dead. Places and bands that play what people want to hear are busy as hell. WW is one of those tunes. Folsom, Ring of Fire, and others mentioned here also. Hello.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAatPPEaZDA

[Mike Neer]

Personally, I do not know the tune Wagon Wheel, though I am aware of this type of sentiment towards it.

As someone who made a lot of money singing and playing songs that others wanted to hear but which made me cringe, I had to make the personal decision to not take those jobs anymore. It wouldn't be right for me to continue and harbor animosity, when I could simply walk away and remove myself from the trap of playing music I didn't want to play. It cost me a ton of money, but it also allowed me to refocus my direction and play music that I enjoy for the rest of my life. It was a quality of life decision for me.

I can understand clubs not wanting certain tunes played in their establishments, especially when they are trying to cultivate a certain vibe that gets undermined by specific songs.

[Don R Brown]

I guess the easiest solution would be that every time someone requests the song, direct him/her to the bar owner and tell them they have to ask HIM for the song. If enough of them do so, maybe the owner will start doing some simple math involving dollars and cents - or should I say sense.

[Doug Beaumier]

I've never had to play the song in a band, but I do know that it's just an 8-bar song. Same 8 measures over and over, both verse and chorus. Add to that, the same melody sung in the verse and chorus. It gets boring very quickly. I think that's the problem for most listeners. I know it is for me.

[Colm Chomicky]

I think the backlash has nothing to do with the song itself. You can analyse the song all you want but that is not the reason for its demise within certain circles. The song was reasonably well-liked among a more roots and traditionalist crowd. Darius Rucker was mentioned as a factor by some of the other contributors above and I tend to agree. I've always thought that the backlash is that a certain set of musicians and traditionalists feel that Darius Rucker came along "uninvited", snatched the song, and rode the song to the top of the charts. Perhaps it would have been different if Darius Rucker had been a relatively unknown starving artist (having long paid his dues of obscurity while being true to a traditional roots genre) before bringing it to the top of the charts.