Wisconsin native John McCutcheon (born August 14, 1952) is an American folk music singer and multi-instrumentalist who has produced 34 albums since the 1970s. He is regarded as a master of the hammer dulcimer, and is also proficient on many other instruments including guitar, banjo, autoharp, mountain dulcimer, fiddle, and jawharp.
McCutcheon is a graduate of Saint John's University in Minnesota. While in his 20s, he travelled to Appalachia and learned from some of the legendary greats of traditional folk music, such as Roscoe Holcomb, I.D. Stamper, and Tommy Hunter. His vast repertoire also includes songs from contemporary writers like Si Kahn (e.g. Gone Gonna Rise Again, Rubber Blubber Whale) 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 several additional children's albums. 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" (from his 1984 album Winter Solstice) tells the story of the Christmas truce of 1914.
It is easy to miss what a profoundly influential and important folk artist John McCutcheon has been over the past three decades. He is, in fact, one of the most influential folk musicians of our time; and the giant shadows cast by the trees of his many talents can obscure the forest of his total impact on the modern folk world. McCutcheon is almost unique in his ability to straddle the many branches of the modern folk tree. He is regarded among the preeminent exponents of traditional Appalachian music, and no artist has done more to popularize the ancient and very American sounds of the hammer dulcimer. He helped revolutionize the children's music market, bringing a state-of-the-art production and compositional sophistication to the acclaimed family recordings that have earned him five Grammy nominations. He is equally esteemed as a topical songwriter; his vivid ballads of real-life triumphs and travails are as much a template to political songwriters of his generation as the songs of Woody Guthrie or Phil Ochs were to theirs.
For more about John, visit his web site at
<http://www.folkmusic.com/>.
