Biography
“This is either the most sophisticated simple music or the simplest sophisticated music I’ve ever heard.”
That comment, heard after a Jeni & Billy performance, sums up the appeal of the duo’s “New Old Music.” With exquisitely spare accompaniment and performances that are never rushed, Jeni & Billy’s harmonies harken to a lost time and reverberate with a rare honesty as they inhabit the lives of miners, preachers, ramblers, lovers, and plain-living folks. Their music is quiet enough to be heard and just loud enough to be unforgettable.
Sharing the duties of songwriting, arranging, and performing, Jeni & Billy bring to the work very distinct musical backgrounds that both draw from the deep well of Appalachian roots music.
Jeni learned to sing in church choirs, school musicals, glee clubs, and family sing-a-longs, but traces her vocal style to Virginia Lowe, the blind music minister of the Friendly Chapel Church on Smith Ridge, VA. Watching her lead hymns, Jeni learned to bear witness through song by feeling music bodily and inhabiting the lyric emotionally. A natural storyteller and prolific writer since childhood, Jeni trained formally with Pulitzer Prize winning Northern Irish poet, Paul Muldoon, and earned a Masters in English Literature. While her singing has been compared to the lonesome voices of Maybelle Carter and Iris Dement, her writing has been likened to that of Southerners Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, and Lee Smith.
Billy grew up with the sounds of Tin Pan Alley and his mother’s piano at home in Baltimore, but spent his weekend nights high atop a hill in the nearby community of Oella — the home of Appalachian migrants who came to the city looking for work in the mills. There, among people much like Jeni’s grandparents, Billy fell in love with country music. Fired on by dreams of the Grand Ole Opry and his passion for the sound of Flatt & Scruggs, Billy headed to Nashville and toured with country bands all over the US, Canada, Germany, and right onto the stage of the Opry. He honed and shared his skills as both student and instructor at the University of Maryland, and built a producing career working with roots artists. Billy’s uncanny sense of song, spaces, and timing were gleaned from sources as diverse as Willie Nelson and John Cage. His innate and masterful musicianship lends itself to any instrument he choses to play and any line he sings.
Jeni & Billy met in the spring of 2005 when Jeni recorded at Billy’s Maryland studio. Within months they began writing and performing together. In 2006, they pressed a six-song EP, Sweet & Toxic, which was praised for its pure vocals, excellent instrumental work, and heartbreaking tales of tragic love.
In the fall of 2008, Jeni & Billy released their first full-length recording project, Jewell Ridge Coal -- a love letter to the forgotten coal mining community in Southwest Virginia where Jeni grew up. Debuting at Number 5 on the International Folk & Bluegrass DJ Chart, Jewell Ridge Coal appeared on top ten lists from LA to New York to Belfast. Ralph McLean of BBC Northern Ireland writes, “These guys understand the magic of understatement and the pure, unadulterated simplicity that flows through all great American roots music” -- a sentiment echoed by fans, colleagues, and fellow musicians, from folk icon John McCutcheon to United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts, who asked Jeni & Billy to perform at his inauguration.
With positive reviews in every major folk publication, as well as niche magazines including the United Mine Worker’s Journal and the Journal of Appalachian Culture, Jeni & Billy took their songs and stories of the coalfields on the road, finding devoted fans from Florida to New Mexico, Vermont to England. Of their performance at the Beverley Folk Festival in the UK, Maverick Magazine’s Hazel Davis wrote, “A sweet and surprising high point was the Appalachian duo Jeni & Billy. Singing songs from the Southwest Virginia coal mines, the pair melted hearts.”
Jeni & Billy continue the tradition of the sweetheart duo, winning hearts with their genuine presence on stage and their true to life recordings, while bearing witness to the simple grace of plain folks.
Jeni comes by her mournful, lonesome voice honestly. Born in the coalfields of Southwest Virginia, her singing has been compared to that of Mother Maybelle Carter and Hazel Dickens. A born storyteller, she has been a writer almost since she could put pen to paper, a vocation inherited from her journalist father and grandfather. Jeni honed her powers of observation and turn of phrase as a student of Pulitzer Prize winning Northern Irish poet, Paul Muldoon. She has emerged as a first class song writer and poet with both modes deeply rooted in Appalachian culture.
Billy comes to the duo with a long history of music-making. He has been everywhere from Germany to the Grand Ole Opry playing his guitar and singing. A Baltimore native, he was introduced to the world of country music through the fateful movie house experience of seeing Bonnie & Clyde featuring Flatt &Scruggs's soundtrack, going back just to listen fourteen times. He has played numerous bluegrass festivals sharing stages with Jim & Jesse and Jimmy Martin. Billy has also performed solo at nationally known venues such as the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, the Lonestar Cafe in New York, the Kennedy Center and the Birchmere, opening for Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Kathy Mattea, Janis Ian, and Joe Ely among others. He has leant his talents to the shows of many folk luminaries including Oscar Brand, Christine Lavin, and Tom Paxton, as well as producing and touring with Debi Smith.
Jewell Ridge Coal is the new record from Jeni & Billy. With their sparse sound and absorbing lyrics, they have caught the attention of Americana greats Jim Lauderdale and Buddy Miller and folk-rock artist Jim Reilley of the New Dylans. Yet one of their favorite reviews comes from Asheville, North Carolina, antiquarian map dealer John Ptak who writes, “I knew within 10 seconds that you guys were for real . . . Jeni's voice is that clear Mother-M kind of quality that I love. I like the music you two make – inspired, true-to-your roots, spare (excellent) guitar. I like silent places in music . . . Quiet, silent places give you time to listen, and also time to think – they are vastly underrated.”
Jewell Ridge Coal chronicles the changing fortunes of the Southwest Virginia coal mining community of Jewell Ridge. Though the subject is regional, the songs are meant to present universal themes -- earth & heaven, rich & poor, love & loss, work & rest. Local 6167, named after the UMWA Local in Jewell Ridge follows a laid-off miner as he rambles and reminisces among the places that boomed in big coal’s heyday. In Oxycodone, a song based on a January 2008 Washington Post feature story by Nick Miroff, a miner contemplates the advice of his estranged father after a prescription drug addiction has left his home in shambles. Middle Creek is sung from the perspective of grandchildren trying to braid together the strands of their moonshining grandfather’s life and to understand his hardness and his outsider status in their community.
Though many of the tracks on Jewell Ridge Coal feature Jeni & Billy only, they couldn’t resist inviting a few friends to take part. Grammy award winning artist Jim Lauderdale and his Grammy award winning producer Randy Kohrs sing harmony. Virtuoso fiddler Shad Cobb of the John Cowan Band lends his soulful strokes to a couple of tunes. And singer-songwriter Kim Peery Sherman lends a gorgeous alto harmony and twinkling guitar to the ballad Tazewell Beauty Queen.
Si Kahn calls Jewell Ridge Coal "the best CD by new folk/edge of bluegrass artists I’ve heard in a long time. Jeni’s singing sounds to me like a cross between the young Hazel Dickens and the young Iris DeMent. The songs range from raw and powerful to sweet and funny. The instrumental work is excellent; the harmony singing is just what you’d want it to be."
Instrumentation
Jeni Hankins: Vocals, Guitar, Autoharp, Banjo, Mandolin
Billy Kemp: Vocals, Guitar, Harmonica, Banjo
Discography
Jewell Ridge Coal
Sweet & Toxic
Awake My Soul/Help Me to Sing, appearance with Jim Lauderdale on this two CD tribute to Sacred Harp Music
Links
| Jeni and Billy's Website |
| Exclusively Represented by Real People's Music |
| Jeni & Billy on YouTube |
| MySpace |