Jeanne Jolly

“Her accomplished musicality, intimate lyrics, and passion and respect for the heritage of country, folk, and soul music smoothly blend together with elegant earthiness.” - No Depression

“Whether or not her writing is autobiographical, Jolly’s songs of rekindled memories (“Matches and Gasoline” “Circles in the Sky”), rediscovery (“Without You”) and admiration (“Good Man”) ring true. It’s rare to hear someone with such technical control turn notes blue without feeling as if they’re calibrating just how blue to let them turn. But Jolly sings from an emotional place and her voice responds to what she’s seeking to express; it’s the sort of connection between soul and voice you hear in the singing of Patty Loveless, Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell, and well worth hearing for yourself.” - Hyperbolium

"If you are a fan of the strong adult country music from the likes of Striking Matches, Joy Williams and Holly Williams, you’re sure to dig Jeanne Jolly’s A Place To Run. The 8 track album features strong opener “Matches And Gasoline (which showcases her Emily West-like vocals), single “California” and the stunning “The Dreamer.” These are songs that linger longer than the mainstream songs but the talent here is as good as anything on the mainstream and the songs may be even better (see “Circles In The Sky”)" - Rough stock.com Review

The former Angeleno’s second full-length album since returning to her native North Carolina is an aural feast of melody and rootsy textures. Props to guitarist/producer Chris Boerner for sympatico, R&B-dappled arrangements that burnish the Americana songstress’s instinct for groove (the earthy “Boundless Love,” “Gypsy Skin”) and powerfully expressive soprano, which spins from the sensual poetry of “Matches and Gasoline” (“Whiskey kisses lit up like fireflies”) to breathy sweetness (“Good Man”) and righteous indignation (“Without You”). Jolly harnesses all that vocal firepower to piercing effect for “California,” which becomes a revelatory symbol for loss and life-transforming change. A gem.” - Pasadena Weekly

"A classically trained vocalist, Jolly’s new record, A Place to Run, takes her deep into country music territory. And while the Raleigh native may look like a composed Southern Grace Kelly, on stage, she gets down, with powerhouse vocals evocative of Linda Ronstadt and the ethereal harmonies of Alison Krauss." - Walter Magazine

Jeanne Jolly was a sight unseen, a voice unheard to many in the audience when one of her recent concerts began.

After just a few songs, a buzz in the crowd was fairly audible. The overheard, hushed conversation between a 30-something couple seated in the second row was typical. She: “This woman’s voice is so good, how come we’d never heard her before?” He: “I don’t know. Her music is really, really good, and her band is dynamite. You’re right. I don’t know why she’s not more famous.”

Once seen and heard, singer-songwriter Jeanne Jolly from Raleigh, N.C., is hard to forget, her songs easy to remember — especially if you have her debut, “Angels,” and have the habit of playing over and over the 10-track collection released last October. One of contemporary music’s best-kept secrets, she is a revelation when you sit in on one of her concerts.

Classically trained at the New England Conservatory in Boston — where she received a master’s degree in vocal performance in 2003 — her voice wraps around folk, country, pop, Southern roots, jazz, blues, you name it. All of those genres are showcased on the CD and complemented marvelously on the majority of the cuts by eight-string guitarist Chris Boerner and set to the beat of drummer-percussionist Nick Baglio.

JEANNE JOLLY
Amazing Things Arts Center, 160 Hollis St. , Framingham 508-405-2787. http://www.amazingthings.org
Date of concert:
Saturday, 8 p.m.
Ticket price:
$9-$18

Boerner, who has known Jolly since kindergarten and considers her a “world-class singer,” produced “Angels.” He and Baglio will appear with Jolly when she performs Saturday night at the Amazing Things Art Center in Framingham. It’s part of an extensive national tour that Jolly has embarked on to promote the recording and, perhaps, make her “more famous” after all.

“This is the most I’ve been out with my music, and that was the goal,” Jolly said in a phone conversation from her home in Raleigh. “We’re accomplishing our goal of staying busy and getting to see the country. The point is to get the music to as many people who don’t know who you are as you can.”

Released on, and financed and distributed by, the independent Foreign Exchange Music label, “Angels” is “going well,” Jolly said. The international crowd has been fed and apparently likes the taste; “Angels” debuted in the top 15 on iTunes in the singer-songwriter category.

“We’re excited about that,” said Jolly. “I know it’s kind of an eclectic record, but it’s been received well. It’s been played by jazz, country, folk stations. . . . Different songs have different places for different people, so it’s interesting to see how that’s unfolded.”

What she hopes unfolds is that her fame (if not fortune) spreads and her fan base expands accordingly.

“I have people around me who are supporting me in any way they can,” Jolly said. “This is an age of DIY, and we do the best we can. I don’t know what will come. I know what I dream about, that I would like to continue to play before bigger and bigger audiences and have more and more people inspired by my music.”

It’s not that good audience numbers have not caught Jolly’s act. The Red Ants Pants Music Festival in Montana last year welcomed her along with such staples as Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Some 4,000 people cheered them on. Jolly has also opened for Irish folk singer Maura O’Connell.

Another major feather in her cap was when Jolly played Carnegie Hall during her year-plus as lead vocalist touring with Grammy Award-winning jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, stemming from her 5½ years (2004-09) in Los Angeles.

Jolly’s career got a jump-start in Boston. After studying as a vocal performance major as an undergraduate at Western Carolina University, she came to the Hub in pursuit of her master’s at the Conservatory. She was in Boston from 2001 to 2004, got the degree she sought, worked at the Museum of Fine Arts, caught some Red Sox games as a Boston fan at Fenway Park, then headed to LA before the World Series began (though she watched the Sox sweep St. Louis on a little TV with rabbit ears).

Jolly left the West Coast in 2009 when her mother was fighting ovarian cancer. Mrs. Jolly lost her battle, and in 2010 Jeanne released “Falling in Carolina,” a six-song EP tribute to her mom.

“Angels” followed in 2012, and the rest is becoming history.

“I guess it depends on how you define success and how you define famous,” said Jolly, whose gorgeous version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” can be downloaded for $1.29 online (it’s available at www.jeannejolly.com), all proceeds donated to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.

“But, right now, without talking about the money aspect, we’re on a steady climb and I feel like that’s successful. We continue to grow. I’m proud of us. I feel like we’ve had a really good year. It certainly has exceeded my expectations.”
- The Boston Globe

North Carolina Americana singer/bandleader Jeanne Jolly liked Drom the minute she walked into the venue, she told the crowd there Friday night. She was onto something – it’s a very welcoming venue, something she knows about from her days waitressing in her home state. She’s come a long way since then; New York was a stop on the southbound stretch of her latest East Coast tour. There are plenty of singers with pretty voices, but Jolly is special. She can move from a gentle murmur to a gale-force wail in a split second and make it look easy; she has homegrown country charm but just as much urbane sophistication. Alongside her, eight-string guitarist Chris Boerner did the seemingly impossible task of playing nimble, climbing basslines on the low strings while jangling and sometimes burning his way through leads higher up the fretboard while drummer Nick Baglio also did double duty, playing piano and organ on a handful of tunes, sometimes one-handed, sometimes keeping time with just his feet.

Jolly’s songs reflect her eclectic background; much as she fits in with the Americana rock crowd, she’s both more oldschool and new, incorporating elements of jazz and Brazilian music as well as classic bluegrass and the occasional detour toward honkytonk. She opened with the swaying Long Way Home: when Jolly’s voice resisted an easy resolution and rose, wounded and full of angst as the verse turned around, it was a dead ringer for Mary Lee Kortes. That the set the stage for the rest of the evening. Boerner opened the second number, Angels on Hayworth Street, with an eerily starlit solo intro before the bluegrass beat kicked in. It’s an escape anthem, Jolly’s voice channeling equal parts determination and dread.

Happy Days Cafe, inspired by her days waiting tables, set a mysterious, enigmatic, possibly ghostly narrative to pensive, fingerpicked guitar, rising to a jangly, clanging chorus. “We would have a lot of deep conversations,” she explained: her customers were a pretty entertaining bunch. She hit a big, fiery peak on the next song and then slowly made her way into the most spine-tingling number of the night, Round and Round Again. She started it as a gentle waltz, dedicated, she said, to her grandparents, who were married 65 years. “I remember when you swung me around,” Jolly sang, reaching to the rafters for high notes, but with a tenderness that suddenly went very sad and nostalgic: “That was a long time ago.” So when she hit the final chorus so hard she pulled back off the mic, the contrast was visceral.

An earlier song in the set explored more upbeat emotional turf, Boerner’s couple of solos echoing Jerry Garcia in “on” mode. Boerner took the energy up even further on an unselfconsciously imploring take of the highway rock anthem Hard Way while Jolly matched him, leaping and bending her notes with a raw intensity. Baglio also provided elegant piano intros on a couple of quieter numbers. Jolly wound up the set with a bossa-tinged tune, the more traditional, country-flavored Good Man and then went back to rock, belting out a long, sustained note for what seemed like ages while the band hit a big crescendo behind her…and then faked the crowd out with a trick ending.

Offstage, Jolly is exactly the same as she is on: disarmingly personable and full of stories. Raised on Motown and bluegrass, she went deep into jazz as a teenager…only to go off to New England Conservatory, where she studied opera. By the time she’d hit her mid-twenties, she was touring the world with a jazz outfit. All that experience factors into how much she defies convention, not to mention how subtly she wields that shattering voice. Jolly makes frequent stops here in town; watch this space for the next one. - New York Music Daily

North Carolina singer-songwriter Jeanne Jolly may be on the road – and you know you’re on the road when you’re playing eight dates across Montana, and two more in Idaho, in 11 days – but she’s really back home again.

Musically speaking, that is.

Trained in opera, and having broken onto the national music scene singing jazz as featured vocalist for Grammy-winning trumpeter Chris Botti, Jolly was about to embark on a 900-mile drive from Kansas to her next gig this week when she spoke to the Missoulian.

Her travels will bring her to Missoula on Tuesday night for a performance at Stage 112. Prior to that, she’ll be in Thompson Falls at the Rex Theatre on Saturday night.

But first things first.

Jolly, who performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City while with Botti, was kicking off the Montana portion of her tour in Broadus, on the Powder River County Courthouse lawn.

And she couldn’t be happier.

“Our music goes over well in small towns,” Jolly says, and it’s not a big leap to assume she’s no longer singing opera or jazz.

It’s Appalachian-influenced country.

“I know it’s not a genre you’ll find on iTunes, but I’d call it soulful country, some of it soulful folk pop,” Jolly says. “There’s even a little jazz influence sometimes, and some of it’s more straight-up country.”

How, exactly, does someone who headed off to college to become an opera singer – Jolly earned a master’s degree in vocal performance from the New England Conservatory – wind up singing country music on a courthouse lawn in the wide-open spaces of southeast Montana?

***

Well, it starts with a mother who probably knew what would make her daughter happiest.

“I spent many years in classical music, auditioning for and singing opera,” Jolly said. “But I became uninspired after a while.”

The move to jazz, and her stint with Botti, opened up new and exciting doors.

“We spent 1 1/2 years touring the U.S. and Canada,” she says. “I mean, we played Carnegie Hall, places I’d only dreamed of performing. It was amazing. But it still wasn’t quite it.”

Along the way, Jolly had moved to Los Angeles. She was in a music store one day, and was talking to her mother on her cellphone when she picked up a baritone ukulele and started plucking on it.

Her mom called her back not long after and told Jolly to go back to the store.

“Your father and I want to buy it for you,” she told her daughter.

“I took it home and played it till my fingers hurt,” Jolly says.

“I started tinkering around with words from my journal.”

She’s sure her mother – also named Jeanne – figured the instrument would lead her daughter back to country music.

“She knew the music I loved,” Jolly says. “She knew I was a creative, free spirit, and she knew I was frustrated. The structure of opera had always been a little much for me.”

***

It was another phone call, later, that took her home, literally.

Her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. Jolly moved back to Raleigh, N.C., as fast as she could to be with her mom, and still only got five weeks with her before she died.

There Jolly was, back where she’d grown up, now with no mother or a job.

“I knew I wanted to do some songwriting,” Jolly says. “Actually, I’d always wanted to, I just didn’t have the courage.”

She took guitar lessons – it’s hard to write country music if you don’t play guitar, she explains – and a few months later booked her first show.

“I had like two songs,” she says with laugh, but within a year she released her first album, and within two years her second, “Angels,” was out.

“Angels” is what Jolly is promoting on this tour. She sings and plays acoustic guitar and baritone ukulele, and brings with her Chris Boerner on eight-string guitar – it’s both guitar and bass – and Nick Baglio on drums and keyboard.

“We’re a three-piece band that sounds like five,” Jolly says.

The Boston Globe calls Jolly “one of contemporary music’s best-kept secrets” and “a revelation when you sit in on one of her concerts.”

Jeanne Jolly, the Globe said, is “hard to forget, her songs easy to remember.”

Which should come as no surprise. After years of performing opera and jazz, Jolly has returned to her Southern roots, and – finally – is playing the music she writes and wants to sing. - Missoulian

LIVE Interview and Performance on NBC 17's My Carolina Today - NBC 17 My Carolina Today

Jeanne Jolly performed at the Palace theater in Crossville TN on Friday night July 5th. The seats were filled with over one hundred adults and children eager to hear this rising sensation.

She and her band performed several songs from her newest CD Angels . Every song was filled with powerful lyrics, emotion and rhythm which moved the soul. It was an amazing concert performed by three talented artists.
The band consisted of Jeanne Jolly on Lead Vocals and Guitar, Chris Boerner on his eight string Guitar and Nick Baglio on Drums and Keyboards. The crowd was mesmerized and engulfed with home grown music dipped in a Soulful style performance. It was a great show. For more information on Touring dates visit JeanneJolly.com

Cumberland Insider would like to say Thanks to Jeanne Jolly, Chris Boerner and Nick Baglio for coming to Crossville TN and giving us your best.
- Cumberland Insider (Tennessee)

“This Jeanne Jolly deserves a place among the great names of the 21st century female singer songwriters and they should, in our opinion, have a very worth successor to this handsome debut album, ‘Angels’.” -

Tot voor kort tourde zangeres Jeanne Jolly met jazztrompettist en winnaar van een ‘Grammy Award’ Chris Botti om de door hem gespeelde nummers van vocalen te voorzien. Daarbij stond ze op alle grote podia ter wereld in concertzalen en op festivals waar deze jazzmuziek werd gespeeld. Zij wist al sinds geruime tijd dat ze zelf ook over het talent beschikte om eigen liedjes te componeren.

Dat waren geen jazzliedjes maar eerder moderne folk-, country- en popliedjes. Nadat ze in 2008 een ep-tje met enkele Americananummers had uitgebracht verhuisde Jeanne Jolly terug naar haar thuisbasis in North Carolina om er intensief te gaan werken aan nieuwe eigen composities die ze in 2009 op een tweede ep “Falling In Carolina” verzamelde. Haar warme stemgeluid wordt in de pers vergeleken met Linda Ronstadt en Alison Krauss, toch twee dames die kunnen bogen op een geweldig succesrijke internationale carrière in de muziek.

Of dat ook weggelegd zal zijn voor Jeanne Jolly, zal voor een groot stuk afhangen van het succes dat ze weet te realiseren met de release van haar eerste volwaardige debuutalbum “Angels” waarop ze tien van haar meest recente composities heeft samengebracht. Eind vorig jaar presenteerde ze haar liedjes op dit album voor het eerst aan het grote publiek toen ze mocht optreden als voorprogramma van Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell.

De grootste kracht van Jeanne Jolly ligt in haar loepzuivere stem die de liedjes op haar album telkens weer sterker maken. Vanaf het eerste nummer “Angels On Hayworth St.” tot slotsong “Good Man” leidt de zangeres ons rond in haar wereld van liefde, relaties, positieve en minder leuke levenservaringen, spijt en verdriet.

Op deze gevarieerde levenslijn houden we even halt bij enkele van de meest attractieve songs uit “Angels”, zoals daar zijn het Sheryl Crow-achtige “Happy Days Café”, de ritmische en door pedal steelgitaar gedomineerde countryrocker “The Hard Way”, country tearjerkers “Tear Soup”, “Long Way Home” en “Round And Round Again”, naast de zeer emotievol gezongen liedjes “All Is Not Lost” en het akoestische “The Kiss”.

Deze Jeanne Jolly verdient zeker een plaatsje tussen de grote namen van de 21e eeuwse vrouwelijke singer-songwriters en ze mag wat ons betreft heel snel met een waardige opvolger voor deze knappe debuutplaat “Angels” op de proppen komen.

(valsam) - Rootstime Belgium

Damn, that Jeanne Jolly can sing. All those metaphors comparing her voice to a songbird, an angel, a summer’s breeze, they just don’t cut it. Jolly’s voice is the first day of spring, after the grey dirty snow has melted and the sun beams down on the crocuses that begin to bloom. The birds sing while you sit on a porch swing with your new lover, a glass of wine in hand, gazing at the rainbow out west.

No, that doesn’t cut it either.




Imagine Joni Mitchell with Billie Holiday’s stylings. You’re getting warmer.

The Raleigh, North Carolina native received her Master’s in classical voice performance from the New England Conservatory and also served as vocalist for jazz trumpeter, Chris Botti. But she’s a southern girl at heart, and her first, self-titled, EP, released in 2008, had a strong country/Americana feel to it. She boned up on her guitar and ukulele (and even some piano) skills for her 2010 release, Falling in Carolina, which she dedicated to her mother, who had just lost her battle with ovarian cancer. It is an album that demonstrates great openness and personal realizations without appearing maudlin or naval gazing.

Last year’s Angels, her first full-length album, showcases her vocal prowess in full force. The album is produced by her friend, Chris Boerner, who also plays eight-string guitar on it. Nick Baglio handles the percussion duties. They help flesh out the feel of the songs. Listen to the wistful guitar and happy wood block and triangle on “Sweet Love.” You can almost feel the waves curling up on the beach. It’s sweet, happy and sunny. It’s the perfect summer love song.

Jolly took some time from her recent tour to talk about that voice of hers, what songs mean to her, and why you will never see her on American Idol.

When did you realize your voice was special?

I have always loved to sing so it’s tough for me to name a specific moment in time when it all clicked, because I’ve always wanted to sing and perform. My parents told me I used to stand in front of the T.V. watching Star Search singing into my rattle. I started begging my parents for voice lessons when I was 10 and was told to wait for a couple years since I was taking piano. When I was 12, I asked again and we found a great teacher who asked me to come in and sing the national anthem. I just did the best I could with it and after I was done, she told my mom that I had a gift. She encouraged me to audition to sing the national anthem at the Carolina Mudcats baseball game. I did and I got it. That was my first huge thrill of singing in front of really big crowd. I sprinted off the field from all of the adrenalin. I ran back to my family in the stands saying “I can’t wait to do that again!”

You have remarkable jazz-like phrasings in your singing. Did you listen to a lot of jazz growing up? What did you listen to?

Thank you. I listened to a ton of jazz actually. Ella Fitzgerald was my favorite jazz vocalist to listen to…still is. I also loved to listen to Billie Holiday and the way she would slide around with such ease. Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson, Julie London, Dusty Springfield, Frank Sinatra, Eva Cassidy, Joni Mitchell, Louis Armstrong, Peggy Lee; the list goes on but I played those the most.

As someone who has a Master’s in classical voice performance from the New England Conservatory, what do you think of shows like American Idol and The Voice? Could you win those without even trying?

Don’t you have to wait in line for three days without a shower to make it into one of those? I don’t know about the winning part, but people tell me all the time I should try out for one of those shows, or they ask me why I haven’t already. I take that as a compliment. In today’s pop culture, success is often defined by the instantaneous fame that comes from advancing in those shows. I expect those kinds of questions. Success to me is defined more by the journey. I’m very busy making the music that I feel connected to. I want a career with longevity. I want to grow a business in which I have creative input and am surrounded by people I trust. I have been in a lot of high pressure vocal competitions (mostly in the classical realm) and I worked really hard to excel in them. I found myself totally uninspired after a while, and it’s because I wasn’t able to choose what to sing. I had to fulfill the requirements to advance in the auditions. That kind of platform is just not for me. I made a conscious decision to put all of my energy into singing and performing songs that speak to my heart. I’m grateful for having more control of my own destiny.

Concerning songs that speak to the heart, you, like just about every other great singer with good taste, cover Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” That song means different things to different people. What does it mean to you?

I have always loved that song. Jeff Buckley’s rendition is my favorite. Everyone that gets into the poetry of this song has a favorite verse that touches t - Atlanta Music Guide

video feature - WRAL- Scott Mason

“Angels” is a compilation of original songs that dig deep into the roots of folk and Americana music. The music, the lyrics and Jolly’s unmistakable signature voice places the 33-year-old in a category with the likes of Emmylou Harris or Mary Chapin Carpenter… - Daily Advance, Elizabeth City, NC

Jeanne Jolly loves old-time over-the-top country heartbreakers; the bigger the break, the better. So when it came time for her to write a tribute to honky-tonk humdingers like “Stand by Your Man,” she naturally poured on the pity. She made “Tear Soup” a spicy stew of he-done-me-wrong retaliations (reversing his pictures on the wall, trashing his records), a deliciously crooked waltz where a quick yodel of grief slides into an instant aria of anguish.

“Tear Soup” is a packed track on “Angels” (+FE Music), the first CD from Jolly, who grew up in Raleigh, N.C., on the magnetic melodrama of Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn. The record showcases her vibrant, versatile, operatically trained voice, her playfulness, her fondness for edgy textures. She’ll display these dynamic qualities on Feb. 23 at the Mauch Chunk Opera House when she performs with guitarist-producer Chris Boerner, an old friend who helped make “Angels” devilishly adventurous.
Jolly has made the last seven years a true-blue odyssey. She’s sung stardust standards with trumpeter Chris Botti and hip-hopped R&B with The Foreign Exchange, a partnership between American rapper Phonte and Dutch producer Nicolay. She’s written songs to cope with her mother’s death from ovarian cancer and bonded with listeners who have lost loved ones prematurely. In the interview below she discusses turning pain into poetry, the natural paradox of falling down to get up, and the biggest accomplishment of all: making the mawkishly lite-metal hit “Here I Go Again” not only listenable but enjoyable. - Geoff Gehman

There is a little bit of jazz, a little bit of roots rock, and a whole lot of straight ahead country music. The opening track, "Angels of Hayward Street", seemingly sets an early, dark tone for the album, but Jolly then takes us over to a beautiful love song with the second track "Sweet Love." A class of lost souls has their story told on "Happy Days Cafe." One of the best aspects of this album is that it's tough to categorize, which makes it a perfect Americana record.

Trained in opera, Jolly really demonstrates her incredible diversity on several of the tracks on this album, but none more so than on "Tear Soup", a story song about trying to get past total and complete heartbreak ... to varying degrees of non-success. It takes a special talent to be able to weave in a classic country sound with opera, and Jolly pulls it off in spades. In fact, I would suspect this task has never been attempted before now.
- Americana Review

Raleigh, North Carolina country singer Jeanne Jolly’s latest album Angels has a lot of great tunes and great stories. Jolly is conservatory trained, with a jazz background: she had a money gig singing in a well-known pop-jazz band for awhile. In the last couple of years, she’s honed her chops on her home turf, embracing the country styles she grew up with there. Much as the album blends oldschool country with rock, it’s a million miles from New Nashville. Although Jolly’s voice can give you goosebumps, she saves the pyrotechnics for when she really wants to nail a lyric or drive a chorus home. Her songs usually follow a narrative: she’s got an eye for detail, likes to work the suspense for all it’s worth, and her band is sensational. She’s at the big room at the Rockwood on March 1 at 7 PM with eight-string guitarist Chris Boerner and drummer/keyboardist Nick Baglio.
- New York Music Daily

In a time when a one-hit wonder creates instantaneous fame, it’s refreshing when you find an artist that has been secretly developing a treasure trove of very beautiful, honest and satisfying music. Friday, April 5 at the Hawley Silk Mill, Harmony Presents Jeanne Jolly, an old school country singer blending Nashville roots with rock, jazz and even a bit of classical.

The result is a solid, warm and varied performance that will satisfy virtually all who are fortunate enough to listen.

Jeanne’s unmistakable signature voice easily shifts between belting Americana and lilting golden croons. - Wayne Independent, PA

Jeanne Jolly has accumulated a rather cosmopolitan resume; classical voice training at school, touring vocalist for a well-known jazz trumpeter. Her heart lies, however, with country music, and the Raleigh, North Carolina singer-songwriter hones her twangy chops well on her full-length debut, Angels. Jolly’s ten songs do not hew to the conventional country sound, but incorporate her varied sensibilities. Now, this reviewer fancies himself an aficionado of the rough-hewn and acoustic in both his old-timey and contemporary musical preferences, so Angels has proven to be something of an unexpected surprise… - Ear To The Ground Music

Her influences—like Alison Krauss, The Judds, Tammy Wynette—shine through in her folk-style ballads, yet her classical schooling lends hints of jazz and bossa nova to a few tunes as well. Jolly’s tone is exceptionally warm and clear, the gift of many years’ diligence in opera. Not one of the songs on “Angels” should be considered filler. Every lyric is bona fide. Every verse is something she’s felt.
- Southport Magazine

One track sounds like Sade accompanied by shuffling beats and pedal steel twang; another like she’s out to embarrass all the pop-country poseurs on CMT. She can even cover that beautiful voice in grit and go all Lone Justice/Maria McKee for a guitar-fueled tearjerker, and there’s even a waltz where that opera training kicks in and knocks your socks off. This is a promising start for a talented singer and songwriter. - Creative Loafing

One track sounds like Sade accompanied by shuffling beats and pedal steel twang; another like she’s out to embarrass all the pop-country poseurs on CMT. She can even cover that beautiful voice in grit and go all Lone Justice/Maria McKee for a guitar-fueled tearjerker, and there’s even a waltz where that opera training kicks in and knocks your socks off. This is a promising start for a talented singer and songwriter. - Creative Loafing

“Jolly is the rare soul who can appease hip-hop heads, highbrow theater aficionados and hardcore country fans alike” - Indy Weekly

I have to begin with an admission. When I heard that Raleigh folk musician Jeanne Jolly's new album was called "Angels," I was skeptical. I thought it was too easy. Like a new jangly folk record being called "Devil On a Train" or an indie pop record being called "Water Bottle Ninja Kitten" or the electronica record called "I Wanna Make You Dance with Glowsticks." But when I signed on to write something about "Angels," I had some alternative theories that made me a believer. Angels are supposed to be messengers, right? They can be messengers of truth and life, but they can also be messengers of death and darkness. They can guide you to the narrowest of paths, but they can also tempt you to make the most questionable of decisions. It's been written that the closest angels to God are like fire; always rising towards the heavens, shaping the world with their heat, and using their light to guide. To me, this means that Angels carry all the weight of hope and possibility, but also the weight of remorse.



There is a dichotomous nature to this record. Good choices versus bad choices. The seizing-of-the-day versus regrets of the past. The way the world contracts and expands around you when you don't have a choice, versus our inability to let go of the idea that we can control it. "All Is Not Lost" is a great discourse on that very contradiction. "Leaves will turn when it's time…" With all of the ways we have to gather and process information, we distance ourselves from certain experiences, which can give us a false sense of control. Maybe it can be broken down to an oversimplified deciphering: It's Fall when the leaves change color. The leaves don't change color because we say that it's Fall.

Jeanne Jolly's voice is a frustrating actuality. When she digs in and detonates her powerful vocals, like on "Long Way Home" or "Angels On Hayworth St." in the spirit of Loretta Lynn or Dolly Parton or even Linda Ronstadt, you never want to hear her do anything but that. Then you hear her crooning on "Sweet Love" and you've thought that Rickie Lee Jones and Anita Baker made a baby that went to New England Conservatory, figured out it was all bullshit, and started singing folk songs. And now that's all you want to hear her sing. The result is a staying moment of satisfaction at the fading out of each track, leaving you waiting and wondering which of your favorite sides of Jeanne Jolly will be presenting itself next.

"Round and Round Again" uses the imagery of a young girl getting playfully swung around in the grass to express the cyclical nature of life and death, separation and reunion. The eloquent pedal steel of Allyn Love sets the tone, and is reminiscent of an antique carousel, lamenting the past but eagerly awaiting what's on the other side. "The Hard Way" is a wonderfully ironic lead-in to "Tear Soup." The first is a powerful big-country song, complete with an unapologetically Brad Paisley-esque guitar solo from Chris Boerner, where Jolly has escaped from under the costume cowboy hat that shades the shit-eating grin of a harlequin, seen the red flags, and moved on. But like every other person in the world who has completely given themselves to love and tribulations at the hand of impulse, we all end up in a puddle of tears on the floor.

"Happy Days Cafe" tells the story of a waitress that sees the same older gentleman everyday sitting and waiting. She finally asks him who he's waiting for. He tells her of a woman he fell in love with over many days of expected chance meetings in that very cafe. He was never able to tell her how much she meant to him. That she had saved him. Saved him from his life of being closed off to love. Saved him from his emptiness. A year has passed since she last came in, but he's there everyday waiting for her.

But that's the tricky thing about angels: Sometimes their gifts leave scars. But alongside those scars are the unyielding powers of love, art, music, fathers, mothers, time, the healing power of self-destruction, and an eternally forgiving place called home.

Matt Douglas: How did you think differently about making this record versus making your first EP?

Jeanne Jolly: I had to learn how to write from a different place for this record. My first EP was born out of a tough time in my life and songwriting became my release, expression, escape, and confrontation of that time. Songwriting quickly became my joy but I think every artist has their whole life to prepare (whether they know they are preparing or not) to write and record their first record, write their first book, shape their first clay pot. After that, your first work is done and you go about your craft differently from that point forward. …I made a choice with Falling In Carolina to not have any vocal harmonies. I felt like it was important, in creating my first EP, to be more raw, stripped down, spacious. This time, I did everything I wanted to without limiting myself…

MD: A lot of people talk about - New Raleigh

If there has ever been a person who truly deserves her last name, it’s Jeanne Jolly.

The Raleigh native shows up for this interview bubbly and upbeat, beaming enough sunshine to make curmudgeons crack a begrudging smile. Jolly has good reason to beam: Her new album, “Angels,” was released on Tuesday. And Friday, she’s performing at her album release party at Lincoln Theatre.

“The performing thing has always been something I’ve wanted to do,” says Jolly, 33, during sips of French press coffee. From the way she speaks of her musical journey, that’s pretty much an understatement. She studied classical music at St. Mary’s School, did community theater musicals, sang the national anthem at Carolina Mudcats games, majored in vocal performance at Western Carolina University, even getting her master’s degree in classical voice (which she considered “more of a challenge”) at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music.


Jolly moved to Los Angeles in 2004 and got a gig touring and performing with jazz trumpeter Chris Botti for a year and a half. After the Botti stint ended, she went through a bad breakup.

As she sat alone in her apartment, she discovered her true musical calling. “I realized what I really wanted to listen to and what most of my records that I already owned were,” she says. “I mean, I have classical records, R&B records, hip-hop records. But I mostly had, you know, folk. I had a lot of bluegrass, a lot of country – old country.”

She recalls working at a sushi bar and spending all of her tip money one night buying old country records at L.A. record mecca Amoeba Music. “I basically listened for a week in my kitchen and fell back in love with what I listened to,” she says.

Even though she knew what she wanted to do as an artist, she had to go back home when her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. “She passed away five weeks after I arrived,” she remembers. “It happened very fast.”

After her passing, Jolly concentrated more on studying guitar and working on songs. “It was a gift, I guess, in a dark time.”

She began working on her 2010 EP, “Falling in Carolina,” with childhood friend The Hot at Nights guitarist Chris Boerner. “He was really supportive in helping me express the music that I was starting to create on my own,” she says. “Well, that was a true blessing, obviously, from the start.”

Boerner was also a guitarist for the Foreign Exchange, the Triangle’s Grammy-nominated R&B collective led by rapper/singer Phonte Coleman and producer/instrumentalist Nicolay Rook. “He had the rough mixes and was in the van with the Foreign Exchange, driving around Texas somewhere, and popped it in,” she says. “And it was before I was in the band. And Phonte & Nicolay dug it.”

Joining Foreign Exchange

When Coleman and Rook needed another background vocalist to perform with the Exchange on their “Dear Friends: An Evening with the Foreign Exchange” live album, they called on Jolly.

And even though the Exchange is known for their R&B melodies, she was well-versed enough in soul to go with the flow. “A good song is a good song,” she says. “Good music is good music. So I’m not really into classifying genres and saying, ‘Oh, I’m just gonna be involved in these certain projects.’ And I like their music, you know. The energy of their fans is something I’ve never experienced before. And so after I did it the first time, I needed more, because it was truly a high.”

Jolly eventually became a full-fledged member of the Exchange, touring with them and performing on certain members’ side projects, such as Coleman’s “Charity Starts at Home” album.

Songs on ‘Angels’

“Angels” is being released on the band’s Foreign Exchange Music label. “Every single song on this record is influenced by an angelic, ethereal existence of some sort,” she says of the album, which has her working again with Boerner.

“Angels” certainly has Jolly melding folksy, soulful country with heavenly, heartfelt lyricism. For her debut single “Sweet Love,” parts came from a poem she wrote about meeting her mom in the afterlife. “When I finally finished the song,” she says, “it was more about someone that I loved very much. Just about love, true love – but more eternal love.”

Jolly hopes that the same audience that got to know and appreciate her when she performed with the Exchange will appreciate what she offers up on “Angels.” “If the music that we’ve created inspires anything from someone, takes them away from the craziness of the world for 4 1/2 minutes, then I felt like I’ve done my part,” she says.

And that’s Jeanne Jolly for you – making the family name proud in more ways than one.

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- News & Observer

Jeanne Jolly in Concert
with full band
Friday April 27
6:30 to 9:30
It’s said that Singer/songwriter Jeanne Jolly broke onto the music scene as the featured vocalist for Grammy Award nominated jazz trumpeter Chris Botti. However, Jolly is in fact a formally trained vocalist…she was a Fletcher Music Scholar at Western Carolina University before going on to earn a Masters in Vocal Performance from The New England Conservatory.
She made a home in LA and paid her dues doing studio and commercial work for movies and television. It was this work that led to Grammy nominated Chris Botti hearing her on a demo and asking her to be his featured touring vocalist. This gave Jolly the opportunity to tour and perform with Botti and his Quintet throughout North America and to sing with world renowned symphonies, performing at venues like the Monterey Jazz Festival and playing to a sold out crowd at Carnegie Hall.
How do you top that? Jolly chose to leave the limelight to follow her heart and her muse to pursue a solo career as a singer songwriter. In her Bio she states that she felt herself "being pulled back to her Southern roots".
She subsequently co-wrote, co-produced, and recorded her first country/Americana EP in January, 2008 and started a band in Los Angeles.
In 2009, Jolly moved back to North Carolina where she began to focus on developing her guitar skills, sharpening her solo performance, and focusing on writing more of her own songs.
It wasn’t long until she once again found herself in the company of Grammy nominated artists, opening up for Sam Bush, Maura O’Connell, Chuck Mead, and many more.
In October 2010 Jolly released her acclaimed new EP, 'Falling In Carolina'.
Jeanne Jolly's straightforward style belies an extraordinary musicality delivered with seeming ease. At once both bright and warm, Jolly's vocal renderings can range from a full power delivery to a song full of tenderness, sublimely sweet without being saccharine. In 'Falling in Carolina, her voice floats effortlessly above the strings. This is songwriting that holds you close with it's emotional musical story. Her voice will resonate not just with your ears... but with your heart.
In the song 'Falling in Carolina she writes:
"......with the leaves we fell in Carolina
as the wind shook the truth from the trees
with the leaves we fell in Carolina
and time stood still
We watched them fall one by one
Home in Carolina..."
If you listen to this rendition of Hallelujah recorded at the Southland Ballroom I trust you'll agree that we're fortunate indeed to have this very talented artist "Home in Carolina". - Mark Donley
“Succinctly, her vocals are a knockout. Wrap all of her talents together and she attains one of the most challenging goals of a performing artist: to have the public actually care about the singer. It’s a beautiful marriage and everybody wins; the audience entrusting the artist to take them on a journey that is emotionally fulfilling. That comes with responsibility and Miss Jolly seems more than capable of accepting and nurturing it.”
John Fonvielle - The Beat Magazine

We hope you'll support this artist by purchasing her critically acclaimed CD... copies of the CD are available at the Hillsborough Arts Council office and Eno Gallery in Hillsborough. All proceeds go directly to the artist. You can also purchase CDs at Jeanne Jolly's website.

- Hillsborough Arts Council

North Carolina-born, singer-songwriter Jeanne Jolly broke onto the music scene as the featured vocalist for Grammy Award winning jazz trumpeter Chris Botti. While with Botti, she toured throughout North America which afforded her the opportunity to sing with world renowned symphonies and at venues such as Carnegie Hall and events like the Monterey Jazz Festival.

After her time with Botti came to an end, Jolly fell back on her Southern roots – co-writing, co-producing, and recording her first country/Americana EP in January of 2008. Later that year, she was the 2008 finalist in The Next Big Country Star, an LA talent search. She then moved back to North Carolina in 2009 to hone her talents and solo performance as well as focusing on songwriting. Soon after she again found herself working with Grammy nominees, opening for such artists as Sam Bush, Maura O'Connell, and more.

In October 2010, Jolly released her new EP Falling in Carolina. It's a great collection of songs she has written since moving back home to North Carolina. Featuring Jolly's beautifully strong and soulful vocals which immediately engage the listener. She is undeniably a versatile singer with an amazing and rare ability to sing with the sophistication of modern jazz and the simple passion of an Appalachian Americana. Jolly has a gorgeous voice that isn't something you hear or happen upon everyday, therefore with pure talent like this, Jolly is destined to have a successful career.
- Common Folk Music Review

A couple of years ago, the band I’m in was playing a wedding gig when we were asked if a “young lady” could come up and sing with us. The gentleman requesting assured us that she was really, really good. Often these moments can be less than productive (I’m recalling the gig I did years ago where the by then drunk bride sang “Proud Mary” completely out of tune – three times!). This time, however, proved to be a magic moment as the aforementioned singer slayed us with her talent. We did five or six songs and had a blast. She had a name that was hard to forget: Jeanne Jolly. And she was really, really good.

Ms. Jolly will be gracing the gallery of WHQR for a Soup to Nuts Live on April 14th. It promises to be a special night.

Jolly already has a storied career. She has a master’s degree from the New England Conservatory in vocal performance, toured extensively as the featured vocalist for trumpeter Chris Botti, has performed in Carnegie Hall, and has opened for such musical luminaries as Sam Bush and Maura O’Connell. After living in L.A. and exploring further collaborations, including country artist Bob Woodruff, Jolly moved back to North Carolina to pursue her own music.

“I’ve been pursuing a solo career my whole life and have been lucky enough to have some successful and amazing performance platforms, such as touring with Chris Botti, that have helped me learn and grow stronger as a musician, person, vocalist and artist,” says Jolly. “I learned so much being surrounded by established musicians whose performance experience and perseverance way surpassed mine. In fact, I was handed a piece of paper on a flight once, while on a tour, by one of the band members who had been on the road for a long time and also had a solo career of his own and all it said was ‘Perseverance’. I still have that piece of paper and have been reminded of its importance many times over the past few years.”

To date, she has two EPs: the self-titled Jeanne Jolly and her 2010 release, Falling in Carolina.

Being both classically trained and jazz driven, one could wonder which way she would turn. When she came south to return to her roots, she began to hone her guitar playing and song writing skills.

“Since I have moved back here to NC, the open doors welcoming me back have been a beautiful thing. I’m blown away by it really. It feels so good to be back here.”

Now playing original and collaborative music, Jolly is residing in the country/pop camp. Her songs are personal, direct, and emotional. Her musical training comes through in her melodies and chord choices, but it’s her voice that holds it all together. Her vocals are so versatile that she takes the listener on a journey of moods and perspectives; not easy to do song after song. She transforms from a belting Linda Ronstadt to a plaintive Margo Timmins of The Cowboy Junkies to a defiant Patsy Cline. She displays changing textures and timbres throughout her album.

From a touching song like “Falling In Carolina”, where she shows a vulnerable softness, to the easy country rock “In Between” in which she shows confidence and maturity, her voice soaring and holding pure note after pure note.

“I moved back here to NC to be close to my mother who died of ovarian cancer five weeks after I arrived. The title track, ‘Falling In Carolina’, kept me up for almost three days,” explained Jolly. “I felt like my mom was helping me along with that one. It is really about all of us, our family, friends, neighbors all fell together when she passed.”

Succinctly, her vocals are a knockout. Wrap all of her talents together and she attains one of the most challenging goals of a performing artist: to have the public actually care about the singer. It’s a beautiful marriage and everybody wins; the audience entrusting the artist to take them on a journey that is emotionally fulfilling. That comes with responsibility and Miss Jolly seems more than capable of accepting and nurturing it.

She explains, “I absolutely love playing live. I love the exchange between me and the band on stage and between the band and the audience. I love meeting new folks and sharing my music with them. I want to share this music with as many people as I can. If they can take something from it, well, that’s just wonderful.”

You can feel the momentum, sense the success. She has the talent, the songs, and the audience’s ear. Catch her while you can.
- The Beat Magazine

Raleigh - What genre do you lump someone like Jeanne Jolly into? “Singer/songwriter” seems so blue collar, yet “folk singer” hints at a social agenda, of which she has none. The Raleigh-born and raised songstress isn’t quite jazz, definitely isn’t bluegrass, and is far too educated to be a simple “roots” musician.
Jolly admits to struggling with this herself. She has a formal music education and weaves all of the above and a few others (like opera) into her live shows. There aren’t many rooms she can walk into and not be the most talented person in the conversation.
Yet these days she admits to being humbled, vulnerable, and even self-conscious.
Jolly called Magazine33 from the Café Carolina at Cameron Village in Raleigh one afternoon last month. After finishing her masters degree at the New England Conservatory and beginning a career in Los Angeles, Jolly has returned home to Carolina. Initially, she returned to be with her mother who was battling ovarian cancer. Mom lost that battle five weeks after her daughter moved home, an event that set the stage for the current phase of Jolly’s career.
“The sense of loss, but also the sense of grace and beauty from witnessing something like that, changed my life,” she said, adding that she felt a strong need to begin songwriting. “I immediately starting taking guitar lessons.”
The title-track of her latest album Falling in Carolina is specifically about her mother’s passing. “I felt like, to do a song like that justice, it had to be perfect, and I didn’t sleep for almost three days,” she said during the phone call. “It kept me up, and I feel like she actually wrote that for me.”
Others on the EP, such as “All Is Not Lost”, also came in the wake of the battle. Last month at a show at Joyner Park in Wake Forest, Jolly described how that song sprouted from a brilliant truth her father spoke after listening to his daughter worry on him. “And he just said, ‘All that’s lost is really only in your mind.’ So I heard one phrase, and in an hour I finished a song.”
“All that’s lost is in your mind / The leaves will turn when it’s time,” she sings.
Songwriting is very new to Jolly, and she admitted to still being a novice. Every time an audience claps after something she’s written, she feels satisfaction and relief. Her goal is to get to a point where she doesn’t have to be riding along emotional edges to make great music.
“So far I’ve been inspired by life, like life is happening, and I’m writing about it. They’re very personal and vulnerable songs, but just when I think I’m sharing too much, I take the song a little further.” The loss of Jolly’s mother was a watershed moment in her life, partly because she had been so supportive of Jolly since elementary school. Her’s wasn’t a family of musicians, but somehow they understood the artist soul that was crying out inside her.
“I know they definitely had some friends that were saying, ‘Don’t let her go major in music,’ but I had been performing for so long and they knew how passionate I was about it.”
Dolly Parton, Ella Fitzgerald and Emmylou Harris were early influences. Jolly’s mother loved 1990s country radio, and the two would sing along to those songs, as well as legends like Patsy Cline and Tammy Wynette. Mom worked at Jeanne’s middle school, and there were a few mornings that both arrived glassy-eyed because rehearsal the night before went past midnight.
Her first vocal performance was the National Anthem at a Carolina Mudcats baseball game. She remembers there being about 25 people in the minor league stadium on that cold, early spring night. Jolly was eleven, and terrified, but after she nailed the song she described running off the field with so much adrenaline the Mudcats almost gave her a contract. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but the performance did hook her on a career in music.
Jolly hesitantly labels her music “southern roots” music. During the Joyner Park show, she playfully sampled songs by Gillian Welch, Lynn Miles and Leonard Cohen. With her twang and a band with country cred, these artists fall into that genre. It feels like she’s choosing her covers because they’re the songs she hasn’t found words to write yet.
“I wish I had a fearless heart / I wish I wouldn’t fall apart,” she sings on Miles’ “Fearless Heart.” On the self-penned “Tear Soup”, Jolly showcases her opera chops. It’s the most frolicsome opera one will ever hear, and the audience cheers and laughs each time she finishes holding on to the note. Jolly finds similarities between the classical styles and folk-based styles. Both rely on strong melodies.
Judging from the appreciative fans at Joyner Park, Jolly’s songwriting chops are plenty ready to be showcased nationally. She described in stages the satisfaction of a finished song. It begins with a private performance for her father. If he approves – and he usually does – she’ll bring it to the band.
“And then when I bring it to band rehearsal and - Magazine 33 by Nicolas J. Stephenson