Search - John Mccutcheon :: Sprout Wings and Fly

John McCutcheon is the '90s' Willie Nelson of folk music. In the '80s, it seemed every few months Nelson would release a new album, each with a different theme, audience, or duet partner. In 1997, McCutcheon released three titles--his first all-acoustic studio album in more than a decade, yet another album for children, and a live album with frequent duo partner Tom Chapin. The most ambitious of the three is Sprout Wings and Fly, which draws on the Virginia picker's many years of travel to mix and match different types of acoustic music with an reinvigorating inventiveness. McCutcheon blends the sustaining buzz of his banjo and mountain dulcimer with the reverberating drone of African log drums and the Australian wind instrument, the didgeridoo, on two old American tunes, "Oh Death" and "Reuben." On "Jack of Diamonds," McCutcheon contrasts the Smokey Mountain style of his fiddling with the Louisiana swamp style of accordionist Steve Riley. The Carter Family's "Over the Garden Wall" is given an Ozark accent by singer Iris DeMent, while Tim & Mollie O'Brien and Robin & Linda Williams join McCutcheon for five-part harmonies on the old hymn, "Time Has Made a Change in Me." --Geoffrey Himes