Singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist John McCutcheon has stood at the leading edge of American folk since the closing years of the 1970s, embracing an expansive range of traditions that stretch from Appalachian dulcimer and fiddle styles to topical protest material and collections aimed at young listeners on esteemed imprints such as June Appal, Red House, and Rounder Records. He secured his reputation as a hammered-dulcimer virtuoso with the pioneering 1977 album The Wind That Shakes the Barley; after that breakthrough the Wisconsin-born artist shifted toward children’s repertoire in the opening years of the 1980s via releases including Howjadoo and Mail Myself to You. Equally skilled on hammered and mountain dulcimer, fiddle, guitar, banjo, and jawharp, McCutcheon has also toured extensively as a narrator, authored multiple volumes, engaged in social and labor advocacy, and overseen recording projects for fellow performers such as Holly Near, establishing him as a broadly accomplished figure. He has sustained a high output into the present century both live and on record, issuing reflective, meticulously shaped collections such as the 2006 literary undertaking Mightier Than the Sword and 2013’s varied 22 Days, recorded with Bosnian cellist Vedran Smailovic. Entering the early 2020s he maintained a steady pace of roughly one album annually, among them the 2023 joint effort Together with Tom Paxton.
Thousands of others in the 1960s likewise acquired their first guitar through mail order and entered the local folk circuit; McCutcheon’s pursuit deepened once he began tracing the music to its origins. He traveled to Appalachia and studied under revered traditional masters, acquiring facility on fiddle, banjo, guitar, autoharp, jaw harp, and, above all, hammered dulcimer. Widely acknowledged as one of the instrument’s foremost exponents, he has centered much of his work around it.
Becoming a father in the early 1980s prompted McCutcheon’s initial foray into children’s music with 1983’s Howjadoo, his debut on Rounder; expecting a singular effort, he encountered sufficient critical enthusiasm to continue the approach across further recordings. His 1988 release Mail Myself to You incorporated compositions by established folk writers including Woody Guthrie and Malvina Reynolds, which acquired fresh vitality under his treatment. Family Garden appeared in 1993 and contained original pieces such as the evocative “Baseball on the Block.” He also moved into production on the Rounder label, urging additional folk and world artists to create material addressed to younger listeners; the 1992 compilation Rainbow Sign supported Grassroots Leadership, a Southern community-organizing nonprofit, and in 1997 he helmed two further storytelling anthologies for the same cause.
A fresh sequence of children’s albums commenced in 1995 with Summersongs, whose tracks depicted ordinary childhood experiences through numbers such as “Power Mower” and “Haircut.” Rounder issued the follow-up Wintersongs later that year, highlighting seasonal pleasures in cuts including “Soup” and “Hot Chocolate”; the standout track “Tommy Don’t Lick That Pipe,” co-written with longtime associate Si Kahn, proved especially popular, and the album received a Grammy nomination in 1996. Storied Ground arrived three years afterward. The interval between projects refreshed the artist, leading in 2001 to Supper’s on the Table..., whose socially aware lyrics evoked the atmosphere of vintage folk recordings.
The subsequent year brought the more present-day-oriented The Greatest Story Never Told on Red House Records. Self-released in 2003, Hail to the Chief! adopted an overtly political and topical stance, as did its 2004 successor Stand Up! Broadsides for Our Times. Mightier Than the Sword, issued in 2006, took a literary direction through partnerships with contemporary poets and fiction writers such as Wendell Berry, Rita Dove, and Barbara Kingsolver. That same year McCutcheon also released the children’s audio book Christmas in the Trenches, which earned a Grammy nomination in the spoken-word category for young audiences. Maintaining a consistent touring schedule, he nevertheless managed to deliver a new album each year through the close of the decade, among them the baseball-themed Sermon on the Mound (2008) and the double-disc Untold (2009), one disc of which consisted entirely of spoken narratives.
Reconnecting with his foundational influences, McCutcheon assembled an all-star folk ensemble featuring mandolinist Tim O’Brien, fiddler Stuart Duncan, bassist Bryn Davies, and vocalists Kathy Mattea, Suzy Bogguss, and Mollie O’Brien for the 2010 Appalachian collection Passage. 22 Days, released in 2013, paired him once more with cellist Vedran Smailovic, while 2015’s Joe Hill’s Last Will honored the early-twentieth-century labor activist and songwriter. Between the subsequent pair of albums, Trolling for Dreams (2017) and Ghost Light (2018), he published the children’s book Flowers for Sarajevo.
Amid the worldwide pandemic that opened the new decade, McCutcheon entered a period of exceptional productivity, composing nearly one hundred songs whose initial selections appeared in 2020 as Cabin Fever: Songs from the Quarantine. Recorded at home and performed entirely alone, that project was followed by the more collaborative Bucket List (2021) and Leap! (2022). In the following year he joined folk legend Tom Paxton for the shared album Together.
