Album Review: Tom Paxton & John McCutcheon, ‘Together Again’
Back in 2021, Tom Paxton and John McCutcheon had stopped touring because of the pandemic, but their ideas for new songs kept flowing. So, the two decided to meet every Monday afternoons at 2pm via Zoom for songwriting sessions. Before long, they had enough songs for an album, and they released Together in 2023. After Together appeared, they continued swapping songs and making music, and when they took stock, they found they had plenty of material for another album, Together Again.
The album’s first track, “The Future,” opens with a melancholic fiddle that evokes the exquisite longing for the past and the poignant yearning for the future. It’s a gorgeous cinematic ballad in which McCutcheon glimpses the musical past in future of young players and recognizes that the future in folk music or bluegrass carries on tradition while adding layer upon layer of innovative material. The twinkling piano chords, swirling guitars and fiddle, and soaring harmonies of “Old Dog” celebrate the faithfulness of a beloved canine companion from his birth until his death: “Though he didn’t have the papers/never knew his pedigree/I knew he had a pure bred heart/and he gave it all to me.” The sonically spacious “Artie’s Last Stand” is both a eulogy and an ode to newspapers, newsstands, and Artie, the newsstand proprietor, and evokes a time when “once the whole world was right there in your hands/in the morning and late afternoon.” The minor chord “Pathfinder,” which features McCutcheon on banjo, is a tribute to Pete Seeger: “He did not go for glory/He was not afraid to fail/Where he did not find a path, he left a trail.” Paxton delivers an a cappella performance on the Celtic jig “Sargeant O’Reilly,” while the country jazz waltz “Cheatin’ When I’m Eatin,” featuring Steve Hinson on jaunty steel guitar, pokes a little fun at our mania with eating healthy: “I was raised on bacon/Everything came chicken-fried/Everybody ate the food I ate/And everybody died.” Both lyrically and musically, the song recalls many of the songs from Jimmy Buffett’s A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, such as “I Have Found Me a Home” and “Grapefruit—Juicy Fruit.” The jaunty country barroom song “Every Monday at Two” rollicks along, celebrating the friendship between the writers and conveying the fun of their weekly songwriting sessions. The album closes with the lively “Lay Down This Old Guitar,” a sad farewell to a career on the road but also a celebration of the memories this old guitar has made.
It’s a treat to have another album from Tom Paxton and John McCutcheon, and the fourteen songs on this new album, Together Again, feature the rich vocals and wry humor of these two iconic singer-songwriters. Here’s to much more new music from these troubadours.
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Together Again is available HERE.
