John McCutcheon has a thing for centennial celebrations. He’s issued albums past albums commemorating the centennial birthdays of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seger, one marking the 100 years that had passed since the execution of protest songster Joe Hill and now, one marking an historic fiddle convention in Mountain City, Tennessee.
McCutcheon first learned of Mountain City via a Folkways record titled Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley’s, which became a deep enough inspiration that he set his sights on visiting the town at some point. It was, after all, the site of that aforementioned fiddle convention in 1925 which drew some of the most prominent names in country music at the time, all of them captured in a legendary photo taken in Mountain City 100 years ago. Excited about the upcoming anniversary, McCutcheon recruited a wide range of collaborator for the project, including Old Crow Medicine Show (who donated studio time), Molly Tuttle, Stuart Duncan, and more.
The result is the album from McCutcheon and Friends titled Long Journey Home: a Century after the Mountain City Fiddlers Convention. Participants in the project chose to donate any profits from the release to the Arts Center in Mountain City, a place that McCutcheon says is deeply in touch with its past and hopeful for its future.
McCutcheon performs at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas on Friday, September 19 and Saturday, September 20.
Host/Producer: Jedd Beaudoin
Theme Music: Torin Andersen
