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News has spread and poignant tributes have been shared over the last two days. Gordon McCann has died (7.17.2026).
For the last forty of his ninety-plus years, Gordon made the Ozarks and its traditions–especially the music–his passion project. He was widely respected and sought for expertise derived from his field collection and for his artistry as rhythm guitarist, especially in accompaniment to his late friend, fiddler Art Galbraith.
Gordon’s renown reaches beyond the Ozarks. He was a living encyclopedia of Ozarks folklife and delivered that wisdom in publications, recordings, and archival collections, from stages, classrooms, and music parties. What he collected, he shared generously in person and now, for posterity through archived materials at the Special Collections & Archives, Missouri State University Libraries.
Journalist Mike O’Brien published a thoughtful tribute overnight in the Springfield Daily Citizen. In that piece, O’Brien covers most, if not all, of Gordon’s accomplishments and awards, which include Missouri Arts Council‘s Leadership in the Arts award (2002) and, more recently, a 2024 Living Traditions Fellowship from Missouri Folk Arts that acknowledges his vast contributions to the traditional arts of the Show Me State. Gordon, too, was a past nominee for the highly competitive National Endowment for the Arts’ Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellowship.
Folk Arts Specialist Deb Bailey comments that Gordon’s work was “a labor of love” and a “treasure trove” for generations to come.
Photo credit: Mike O’Brien. Mike snapped this photo of Gordon McCann at Missouri Folk Arts Program’s celebration honoring the 2024 Living Traditions Fellows at Compass, Inc. in Columbia, Mo, May 2024. Gordon is seated on the front row, and an image of him used in our PowerPoint, courtesy of Kaitlyn McConnell, is visible over his left shoulder.