John McCutcheon


John McCutcheon is an American folk music singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who has produced 45 albums since the 1970s. He is regarded as a master of the hammered dulcimer, and is also proficient on many other instruments including guitar, banjo, autoharp, mountain dulcimer, fiddle, and jaw harp. He has received six Grammy Award nominations.

Career

McCutcheon was born to Roman Catholic parents in Wausau, Wisconsin. He attended Saint James Grade School, Newman Catholic High School, and Saint John's University.
While in his 20s, he travelled to Appalachia and learned from some of the legendary greats of traditional folk music, including Roscoe Holcomb and Tommy Hunter. His repertoire includes songs from contemporary writers like Si Kahn as well as a large body of his own music.
When McCutcheon became a father in the early 1980s he found most children's music "unmusical and condescending", and sought to change the situation by releasing a children's album, Howjadoo, in 1983. Originally, he had only intended to do one children's record, but the popularity of this first effort led to the production of seven additional children's albums. He has written three children's books. Much of his work, however, continues to focus on writing politically and socially conscious songs for adult audiences. One of his most successful songs, "Christmas in the Trenches", tells the story of the Christmas truce of 1914.
In his performances, McCutcheon often introduces his music with a story. He has become known as a storyteller, and has made multiple appearances at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. He is married to children's author and storyteller, Carmen Agra Deedy, and the two live in Smoke Rise, Georgia.
McCutcheon's music has, since the 1990s, increasingly evolved into heartland rock-influenced ballads, while he still occasionally performs purer folk music. In 2011, he portrayed IWW organizer and songwriter Joe Hill in Si Kahn's one-man play Joe Hill's Last Will, produced by Main Stage West in Sebastopol, California.

Discography

How Can I Keep from Singing? Brown Lung Cotton Mills Blues The Wind That Shakes the Barley *From Earth To Heaven Barefoot Boy with Boots On Fine Times at Our House Howjadoo Winter Solstice Signs of the Times Step By Step: Hammer Dulcimer Duets, Trios and Quartets Gonna Rise Again Mail Myself to You Water from Another Time: A Retrospective What It's Like Live at Wolf Trap Family Garden Between the Eclipse Summersongs Wintersongs Nothing to Lose Sprout Wings and Fly Bigger Than Yourself Doing Our Job Autumnsongs Springsongs Storied Ground Supper's on the Table The Greatest Story Never Told Hail to the Chief Hammer Dulcimer Repertoire Stand Up! Broadsides for Our Time Welcome the Traveler Home: The Winfield Songs Mightier Than the Sword This Fire The Hammer Dulcimer Sermon on the Mound Untold Passage This Land: Woody Guthrie's America 22 Days Joe Hill's Last Will Trolling for Dreams Ghost Light To Everyone in All the World: A Celebration of Pete Seeger Cabin Fever: Songs from the Quarantine Bucket List Leap! Together Field of Stars
With others
  • Si Kahn: New Wood
  • Tommy Hunter: Deep In Tradition
  • Betty Smith: For My Friends Of Song
  • Jean Ritchie: The Most Dulcimer
  • Various artists: ''Grandma’s Patchwork Quilt''

Videography

Hammer Dulcimer Instruction John McCutcheon LIVE!
  • ''Joe Hill's Last Will''

Books

Happy Adoption Day Christmas in the Trenches
  • ''Flowers for Sarajevo''

Grammy Award nominations

John McCutcheon has received six Grammy nominations.
The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the
National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.