Nothing to Lose
John McCutcheon made his name as a traditional folk performer--playing banjo, acoustic guitar, fiddle and hammer dulcimer and writing songs of domestic warmth and political protest in the Appalachian mode. He was smart enough, however, to recognize the contradictions of performing rootsy, leftist "people's music" for the mostly middle-aged, highly educated, upper-middle-class audience of modern singer-songwriter folk music. He tried to bust out of that bind with his 1994 album,Between the Eclipse, which set his songs in electrified folk-rock arrangements played by the likes of Nanci Griffith guitarist Pete Kennedy, Bruce Hornsby saxophonist Bobby Read and Mary Chapin Carpenter singer Jon Carroll. Now McCutcheon has followed up that effort withNothing To Lose, a similar project with the same musicians.The irony, of course, is that this old-fashioned, refined brand of roots-rock, with its echoes of Hornsby, Griffith and Bruce Springsteen, merely attracts a slightly larger version of the same audience drawn to singer-songwriter folk. Nonetheless, this audience deserves quality songs as much as any, and McCutcheon delivers the goods.--Geoffrey Himes