Tag: Tim O’Brien

It’s a century since an iconic fiddle contest was held in Mountain City, a small Appalachian town in Tennessee, bringing together some of the era’s most prominent country musicians, competing for a $10 gold piece. McCutcheon was introduced to Mountain City as an 18-year-old via an old Folkways recordings, further fuelling his ambitions as a banjo player. Described by McCutcheon as the Woodstock of early country music, he’s now honouring the event with an assemblage of some of the most notable talents in the field, offering new interpretations of these 17 traditional tunes. Proceedings kick off with Stuart Duncan on vocal and fiddle, Russell Carson on banjo and guitarist Jeremy Stephens for a scurrying romp through ‘Cumberland Gap’, the laughter at the end capturing the spirit of the occasion, before Molly Tuttle takes her turn on the bluesily choppy ‘I’ve Always Been A Rambler’ accompanied by Ketch Secor on fiddle.

On fiddle and vocals, Tim O’Brien puts in the first of several appearances with ‘Old Molly Hare’, which, while American in origin is a descendant of 19th century Scottish fiddler-composer Nathaniel Gow’s reel ‘Largo’s Fairy Dance’, composed for the Fife Hunt Ball in 1802 and known as ‘Fisher Laddie’ in northern England, here accompanied by Nat Smith on cello, mandolinist Harry Clark, guitarist P.J. George and Dennis Crouch on bass.

Joined by Missy Raines on bass, McCutcheon makes his bow alongside O’Brien, George and Becky Buller on fiddle and lead but all three contributing vocals to ‘Rocky Road To Dinah’s House’, a breakdown number and originally recorded by the Fiddlin’ Powers Family as a 1925 wax cylinder. Jake Blunt than takes the solo spotlight on banjo with ‘House Carpenter’ perhaps better known as ‘The Demon Lover ‘wherein a woman abandoned her lowly husband and baby and takes off with her former lover, only to end up drowned at sea.

The first of several instrumentals, Bruce Molsky and Stash Wyslough trade fiddle and guitar licks on the sprightly ‘Tennessee Breakdown’, staying in the state for a second with Dudley Vance’s 1927 reel ‘Tennessee Mountain Fox Chase’ featuring Cathy Fink on banjo, guitarist Marcy Marxer, Racel Eddy on fiddle, bassist Em Hammond with Becky Hill on step dancing duties,

Playing a nimbly picked fretless banjo, McCutcheon gets his solo spot with a suitably dark take on Clarence Ashley’s British traditional folk evergreen ‘Cuckoo’ (aka ‘Jack Of Diamonds’), the song that first captured his attention back in the day, the version here following the patriotic American lyric in that the bird “never sings ‘cuckoo’ till the fourth of July“.

Released by Fiddlin’ John Carson in 1924 as the B side to ‘You Will Never Miss Your Mother Until She Is Gone’, ‘Pap’s Billy Goat’ (more accurately Papa’s) is a nonsense song that sounds like something for Appalachian children, the version here by singer and guitarist Kody Norris, Josiah Tyree on banjo, Mary Rachel Nalley-Norris on fiddle and mandolin and Charles Lowman on bass far faster than Carson’s original recording.

A dark truth about the 1925 convention is that it was co-sponsored by the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, hence on the photograph of the assembled musicians there’s no black faces. A hundred years on and it’s a different picture, embodied here by Sparky, on slide, and white wife Rhonda Butler, who plays harmonica and banjo and sings counterpoint backing, with their raw acoustic blues reading of ‘Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down’, a song about a travelling musician and the girl left behind, which, back in 1925, was Charlie Poole’s first commercial recording, selling some 100,000 copies.

Another instrumental follows, Earl White on fiddle, Mark Olitsky on banjo, guitarist Adrian Davis and Lars Swanson on bass for ‘Boatin’ Up Sandy’, a modal tune from West Virginia, before Molksy and Wyslouch put in a second showing for the swayalong Kentucky classic ‘Bachelor’s Hall’ (perhaps best known via Steeleye Span), the former, though not credited as such in the booklet, handling vocals as well as fiddle. Secor’s also back, this time with the rest of Old Crow Medicine Show, Corey Young giving it some Jew’s harp stick, for a yee-hawing, hayride romp through ‘What You Gonna Do With The Baby?’, a play-party song from the upland South the version here shadowing that G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter from 1929.

Two further instrumentals head towards the end, first, another familiar tune, ‘Cluck Old Hen’ a banjo duet by Tray Wellington (bluegrass) and Victor Furtado (old time), with Fink and co back for Charlie Bowman’s ‘Hickman’s Rag’. The penultimate track is another much covered number, first recorded by Fiddlin’ John Carson in 1924, but it’s G.B.Grayson’s revised version that informs the steady stamp walking rhythm, of ‘900 Miles’ here featuring the same line up as ‘Old Molly Hare’ just as the same musicians from ‘Rocky Road’ return to close proceedings with one last instrumental, ‘Forked Deer’, an Appalachian reel on which McCutcheon’s banjo and Buller’s fiddle lead a merry dance.

Very much an album aimed at the diehard bluegrass community but with enough familiar names to attract interest beyond the genre’s borders, putting it all together was clearly a labour of love for McCutcheon and the musicians he assembled, drawing on the past but with its heart and soul very much in the present.

Mike Davies

Project website: www.longjourneyhome.net

Original old-timers – ‘Highway Blues’ with Pete Seeger showing admirable restraint.