[Cover photo credit to Michael G. Stewart]
In early August 2021, John McCutcheon reached out to his longtime friend Tom Paxton with a simple idea to use the new tool of Zoom to break through the isolation of COVID, and maybe write a few songs together. That following Monday at 2:00 PM Eastern, they logged in. One Monday led to the next, and soon the weekly sessions became a ritual.
More than four years later, they’re still at it. Their collaboration resulted in the album Together, and now they have announced a second volume, titled Together Again. It arrives in January 2026 and John McCutcheon will also be on tour in January.
Paxton said during one of their sessions:
I think we have enough for another album.
McCutcheon responded to his friend:
Tom, as keeper of the demos, I can tell you that we have enough for ten more albums.
Neither man, with already monumental catalogs of modern folk music, could have predicted the creative flood that they were to unleash together. There have been nearly two hundred songs born from their virtual meetings.
The new album opens with a song “The Future”, inspired by McCutcheon’s many appearances at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. He recalls seeing Alison Krauss as a teenager and Molly Tuttle in her early twenties, recognizing in both the promise of a bright future. For Paxton and McCutcheon, artists whose careers span over half a century, the song “feels like a joyful passing of the torch.”
For a full list of John McCutcheon tour dates, please visit this link. The California tour routing is as follows:
1/9/2026 Sofia Center for the Arts Sacramento, CA
1/10/2026 Center for the Arts Grass Valley, CA
1/11/2026 Sebastiani Theatre Sonoma, CA
1/12/2026 Church of the Bretheren Modesto, CA
1/14/2026 Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno Fresno, CA
1/15/2026 Freight and Salvage Berkeley, CA
1/16/2026 Felton Music Hall Felton, CA
1/17/2026 Devil Mountain Coffeehouse Walnut Creek, CA
