For those not in the know, in 2012 John McCutcheon released an album honoring Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday. In 2015 he released an album in memory of the 100th anniversary of labor songwriter Joe Hill’s execution by the state of Utah. Then in 2019 he honored Pete Seeger’s 100th birthday by gathering a boatload of his music friends and putting new twists on Seeger classics.

These recordings were interspersed with albums of songs from his own prolific catalogue. So, it should come as no surprise that this year John McCutcheon has mounted another centenary project entitled Long Journey Home – 100 Years After the 1925 Mountain City Fiddlers Convention, this one remembering an iconic fiddle contest in the small Appalachian town of Mountain City, TN.

The 1925 convention brought together some of the most prominent country musicians of the time. The nascent recording industry stumbled on to old-time fiddling when Fiddlin’ John Carson surprisingly sold a million 78’s in 1923. The recording companies and radio stations signed up fiddlers by the dozens. And many of them showed up in early May of 1925 to compete for a $10 gold piece.

“There’s a famous photograph taken that day that almost every fiddler knows,” McCutcheon said. “It was like the Woodstock of early county music. Seems like everyone was there: Carson, Clarence Ashley, GB Grayson, the Fiddlin’ Powers Family, Uncle Am Stuart, the Hill Billies, Charlie Bowman, Dud Vance, and more. There’s a giant mural of that photograph on the side of the Arts Center.”

One hundred years later, John McCutcheon gathered some of the most well-known and well-loved figures in modern old time and bluegrass music to mark the centenary of that 1925 event. And the collection shows how much has changed in the ensuing century.

The original event, sponsored in part by the KKK, couldn’t be different than this new collection. The tremendous changes in our country, the culture, and music have nearly equal number of men and women featured, Blacks and whites perform together, arrangements are surprising and thrilling. It is a celebration of both continuity and change.

Molly Tuttle, Old Crow Medicine Show, Tim O’Brien, Becky Buller, Stuart Duncan, Bruce Molsky, Sparky Rucker, Cathy & Marcy’s Old Time Coalition, Jake Blount, The Kody Norris Show, Tray Wellington & Victor Furtado, and the Earl White String Band all contributed cuts to this project that celebrates the past, showcases the present, and provides for the future.

1. Cumberland Gap (Stuart Duncan)
2. I’ve Always Been a Rambler (Molly Tuttle w/Ketch Secor)
3. Old Molly Hare (Tim O’Brien)
4. Rocky Road to Dinah’s House (Becky Buller)
5. House Carpenter (Jake Blount)
6. Tennessee Breakdown (Bruce Molsky w/Stash Wyslouch)
7. Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase (Cathy & Marcy’s Old Time Coaltion)
8. What You Gonna Do with the Baby? (Old Crow Medicine Show)
9. Cuckoo (John McCutcheon)
10. Pap’s Billygoat (Kody Norris Show)
11. Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down (Sparky & Rhonda Rucker)
12. Boatin’ Up Sandy (Earl White Stringband)
13. Cluck Old Hen (Tray Wellington and Victor Furtado)
14. Forked Deer (Becky Buller)

On a project about continuity and change, and one that honors the past, but lives and breathes today, this wondrously crafted new recording opens on the vivaciously spirited fare of Cumberland Gap (Stuart Duncan), the emotive I’ve Always Been a Rambler (Molly Tuttle w/ Ketch Secor) and the joyful Old Molly Hare (Tim O’Brien), and then we get brought forth the beautiful Rocky Road to Dinah’s House (Becky Buller), the quietly rhythmic House Carpenter (Jake Blount) and both the profoundly emboldened Tennessee Breakdown (Bruce Molsky w /Stash Wyslouch) and the fiddling masterpiece Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase (Cathy & Marcy’s Old Time Coaltion).

Along next is the harmonically driven, albeit lyrically questionable babysitting tactics, of What You Gonna Do with the Baby? (Old Crow Medicine Show), the organically sumptuous Cuckoo (John McCutcheon) and the rhythmic gem Pap’s Billygoat (Kody Norris Show), and they are in turn followed by the foot-tapping delights of Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down (Sparky & Rhonda Rucker), the fiddletastic Boatin’ Up Sandy (Earl White Stringband), the set rounding out on the beloved folk classic Cluck Old Hen (Tray Wellington and Victor Furtado), closing on the lightning in a bottle of Forked Deer (Becky Buller).

Adds McCutcheon, “It’s astonishing to me that stumbling upon an obscure recording as a teenager would come full circle over fifty years later. It was the joy and the camaraderie of that album that drew me in. Bringing all these musicians together, celebrating the mastery that each of them brings, was another unexpected joy. Who knows what comes next?”

All the artists are donating all profits of this album to the Arts Center in Mountain City, to encourage them to continue celebrating their musical heritage and build on educating young local musicians to learn to play that music.

www.folkmusic.com

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