CUMBERLAND GAP

Created on 04/02/2006
Latest update on 11/09/2023

Artist: Uncle Am Stuart
Author: traditional
Label: Vocalion
Year: 1924

Brother of George R. Stuart who along with Thomas Ryman organized mass revival meetings at the Union Gospel Tabernacle, Nashville's 'Mother Church' renamed Ryman Auditorium after Ryman's death in 1904. This acoustic marvel hosted the Grand Ole' Opry radio shows between 1925 and 1974. Fiddler Uncle Am was the first Tennessean to record country music commercially. He was 73 years old when he recorded this in New York. As a witness of the Civil War, his story was broadcast on radio.

Covers:

1924:

Gid Tanner & Riley Puckett

1924:

Norris Land [on Okeh]

1925:

Allen Sisson [on Edison Bell cylinder as Bonnie George Campbell; same melody but slower]

1927:

Williamson Brothers & Curry [reissued on Document-cd Old Time Music From West Virginia]

1928:

Skillet Lickers

1928:

Burnett & Rutherford

1929:

Frank Hutchison

1939:

Carter Family

1947:

Woody Guthrie [for Moses Asch with Cisco Houston and Sonny Terry; also as End Of My Life]

1949:

Bascom Lamar Lunsford [as Bonnie George Campbell]

1954:

Pete Seeger [on Fronteer Ballads; Dylan's inspiration for Oxford Town]

1957:

Vipers Skiffle Group

1957:

Lonnie Donegan [n°1 UK]

1961:

Flatt & Scruggs

1964:

Dock Boggs

1967:

Buffy Sainte-Marie [as Doggett's Gap, crediting Bascom Lamar Lunsford]

1973:

Ralph Stanley

1986:

Bobby Horton

1992:

Wedding Present

1997:

New Lost City Ramblers

2002:

Hackensaw Boys

2002:

Nic Jones [as Bonny George Campbell]

2017:

Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit

2017:

David Rawlings

In history class all American children learn that in 1773 Daniel Boone led a band of pioneers into Kentucky over the so-called Wilderness Road crossing the fearsome Cumberland Gap. Different variations of this melody circulate. Sounds like an Irish or a Scottish reel, not one in particular though.

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

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