Album Review: Various Artists, ‘Long Journey Home: A Century After the 1925 Mountain City Fiddlers Convention’

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a number of fiddlers’ contests in Tennessee and North Carolina gave old-time fiddlers a chance to compete with one another. Their popularity grew, showcasing old-time fiddling and old-time music. In 1925, Mountain City, Tennessee, hosted close to 100 fiddlers at its convention. In attendance was Fiddlin’ John Carson, who had sold a million 78’s in 1923, as well as other now well-known fiddlers such as the Hill Billies, Charlie Bowman, and Uncle Am Stuart, among others.

To celebrate the centenary of the 1925 Mountain City Fiddlers Convention, John McCutcheon gathered a stellar cast of bluegrass and old-time musicians, inviting them to render their own versions of the songs and tunes featured at the convention.

The album kicks off with Stuart Duncan’s spry fiddling on his take on the reel “Cumberland Gap”; the song opens with slow and stately rhythms before flying into a high octane foot stomper just right for a hoe down. Molly Tuttle and Ketch Secor deliver a bright version of the minor chord ballad of sorrow, “I’ve Always Been a Gambler,” with Secor’s spiraling fiddling weaving under and around Tuttle’s layered rhythms and cascading lead runs. Tim O’Brien jumps up and leads off “Old Molly Hare” with sprightly fiddling, providing the thematic melody line that he matches note for note in his vocals, while Becky Buller kicks off the swinging square dance song “Rocky Road to Dinah’s House” a cappella before bowing her instrument and bringing in a chorus that include O’Brien and McCutcheon, with Missy Raines on bass. McCutcheon’s circling banjo picking lays the rhythmic and melodic foundation for his vocals on the high lonesome “Carpenter,” while fiddler Bruce Molsky turns in a lilting version of “Bachelor’s Hall.” Banjoists Tray Wellington and Victor Furtado circle around each other with their fingerpicking on the tune “Cluck Old Hen,” effectively mimicking the sounds a chicken clucking as it struts around the barnyard just before it meets its demise. With its usual high energy, Old Crow Medicine Show’s rollicking take on “What You Gonna Do with the Baby,” featuring Corey Younts on Jew’s harp, gets listeners up and out on the dance hall floor.

On Long Journey Home, every act is a winner in this contest, and listeners are especially fortunate to have the opportunity to listen in on this wide range of musical virtuosity as they deliver innovative takes on these enduring old-time songs and tunes.

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Long Journey Home is available HERE.