Cumberland Gap (2:18)

Contact: Audrey Molsky
audrey@brucemolsky.com (914) 489-9961

All tunes Traditional, arranged by Molsky’s Mountain Drifters Publishing & PRO Dielectric Music / ASCAP

The band:
Fiddle: Bruce Molsky
Banjo: Allison de Groot
Guitar: Stash Wyslouch

Cumberland Gap (2:18)
If you’re a mountain music aficionado, then a computer search of Cumberland Gap in your digital library will reveal many pages to scroll through, and so many interpretations that it must be one strong-**** essence of a melody to hang together through all of that. When George Marion Reece of North Carolina recorded this for the Library of Congress in the 1930’s, it sounded as if someone wrote the tune all down in sheet music, cut the paper into little pieces, threw them into the air and then played what he saw when they all landed. And it was still Cumberland Gap, soulful and intact even in that crazy configuration. We added a few chords but tried not to mess with a good thing.