Singer-storyteller John McCutcheon will bring musical stylings to East Brunswick.
By: John Saccenti
It was a few years ago, and musician John McCutcheon was performing in a fishing village "More like a town, actually" in Prince William Sound, Alaska.
The guitarist, folklore singer and teller of stories had been there a few times before and, being more traveler than tourist, had spent much of his free time meeting people, talking to them and finding out who they are. As a result, his visits had produced songs.
"I’m playing this song, and it’s in the high school gymnasium, and when you play in Alaska, everyone goes to the show, because it’s what’s happening that night," says Mr. McCutcheon. "I’m singing about salmon fishing in Cordova and this little girl turns to her mother and in a stage whisper says, ‘Mom, he’s singing about us.’ "
While he may indeed have been singing about "us," Mr. McCutcheon says that the little girl’s reaction is something he’s not surprised at.
"It’s a cliché, but people are basically the same, and if I happen to play a particular character in a given geographical locale, or gender or age or setting, often it’s allegorical," he says.
Mr. McCutcheon has been a musician for 40 years, 35 as a professional. On Nov. 18 and 19, he’ll bring his musical stylings to the 14th Annual James Hess Folklore and Storytelling Festival at the East Brunswick Public Library.
While he can’t meet everyone beforehand, and doesn’t craft new songs on the spot, he does find ways to get to know his audience, a process that begins before he even walks in the door.
"The first thing I do in a town is pick up a local paper and see what’s going on in town. What are people, walking into this little darkened theater, sitting shoulder to shoulder, what are they bringing in with them?"
Mr. McCutcheon has performed with artists such as Pete Seeger and Nancy Griffith. His 2005 album, Mightier Than the Sword, includes collaborations with authors Barbara Kingsolver, Lee Smith and Wendell Berry, former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, children’s author Carmen Agra Deedy, and musical arrangements of poetry by Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda and Cuba’s national poet, Jose Martí. It also includes two newly discovered and completed Woody Guthrie songs. Mr. McCutcheon has recorded more than 20 albums, earned four Grammy nominations and is the author of Christmas in the Trenches, a retelling of the 1914 Christmas Eve Truce in Flanders Field, illustrated by Henri Sorensen. The story is based on a song Mr. McCutcheon wrote 21 years ago.
While Mr. McCutcheon weaves stories through music, he also takes advantage of the spoken word during his performances.
"I’ve been a huge reader, a great lover of language," he says. "I take particular care with how I put song introductions together. So when I perform, I’ll do a combination of music and storytelling, but it will not be entirely one. I guess that’s pretty unique, or so people tell me."
Mr. McCutcheon began playing as a young boy. And while his first chords were plucked on a mail-order guitar, his music soon evolved.
"I didn’t set out to be a storyteller at all, but when I was young I was primarily doing music that I collected in the field, in the southern Appalachia area where I was living," he says.
Things changed for him when he decided to take his show on the road. What he found was that, while his songs were based on different people and experiences he met, his new audiences could still relate to them.
At the time he thought, "This is more than people just being nice to me. They’re diggin’ what I’m doing, and I’m diggin’ what I’m doing," he says. "Even now, after 35 years as a professional, I will still drift off and, in this third person, think, ‘Damn, I can’t believe I can do this. I can’t believe I can play banjo, or guitar. I can’t believe that this is my job.’ "
Perhaps storytelling came so naturally to Mr. McCutcheon because he was exposed to it so much as a young man during lessons many might throw away as meaningless experiences.
"I learned about storytelling from sitting at family gatherings and paying attention to language," he says.
He remembers an uncle who, during those gatherings, would tell the same story over and over again.
"People have their stories that they tell. And at first, I thought he repeated them every time just because he was boring, that he had no other stories to tell. Then I realized what he was doing, I realized that he wanted to make sure that we remembered. They weren’t just his stories, they were our stories," says Mr. McCutcheon.
And that’s the essence of storytelling, he says, bridging the gap between audience and entertainer, realizing that it’s not just one person telling their story, they are telling everyone’s story. "I want the listener to crawl inside the music, experience what I’m telling about."
The James Hess Folklore and Storytelling Festival will be held at the East Brunswick Public Library, 2 Jean Walling Civic Center, East Brunswick, Nov. 18-19. John McCutcheon will perform for adults and older teens Nov. 18, 8 p.m.; tickets cost $15 and include dessert buffet; and Nov. 19, 2 p.m., for families with children 7 and older; tickets cost $3, $7 families. For information, call (732) 390-6789 or (732) 390-6783.

