The Deep Pickin’ of
Jim & Jesse

How's this for roots? Jim & Jesse's grandfather, fiddler Charles McReynolds, fronted a Southwest Virginia string band (the Bull Mountain Moonshiners) that began in the 1890s and lasted long enough to record for Victor at the legendary 1927 Bristol sessions — on the same day as the Carter Family.

Joe Wilson, director for the National Council for the Traditional Arts, has described the long-successful duo this way: "Jim and Jesse are more than technicians, more than another first generation bluegrass band, more than keepers of a rich family tradition. They are the band that has closely held to the traditional audience for [bluegrass] music."

Born into a family of farmers and coal miners, Jim McReynolds and his brother Jesse were born two years apart in the community of Coeburn. They grew up in the '30s singing close-harmony duets, a technique taught to them by their banjo-playing, hymn-singing mother, Savannah. Like many in the clan, dad Claude played the fiddle and frequently joined his father Charles in the Moonshiners.

For 20 years beginning in the mid-'40s, the respective careers of Jim & Jesse and Dickenson County's Stanley Brothers would follow oddly similar paths. Both Virginia acts featured brothers born two years apart, from music-making families; both acts got early breaks by playing on Norton, Va.'s WNVA. Each recorded early for major labels; both led crackerjack traditional bluegrass bands (J&J: The Virginia Boys; Stanleys: The Clinch Mountain Boys), featuring a guitar-playing older brother renowned for vocal skills (Jim McReynolds/Carter Stanley) alongside a younger brother cited for instrumental prowess (Jesse McReynolds on mandolin/Ralph Carter on banjo). Both experimented with straight country music and electric instruments but always returned home to bluegrass. Lastly, both the McReynolds' and the Stanleys benefited from having prominent sponsors (J&J: Martha White; Stanleys: Jim Walter Homes) for their live appearances.

The similarities stop at the music, however. While the Stanley Brothers specialized in a deep river sadness, Jim & Jesse's music has always been one of breathless escape (one of their trademark ditties is called "Better Times a Coming"); bitter lyrics like "Hard Hearted" can even end up sounding winsome and carefree in the revved-up hands of the duo's backup outfit, the Virginia Boys, whose ranks have included legendary fiddler Vassar Clements.

Their flighty, weightless feel owes much to Jesse's unique and much-copied crosspicking style of mandolin playing, which he developed at roughly the same time Capitol signed the duo in the early '50s. His stint in the Army from 1952-1954 stalled progress, but steady work was waiting when he came home from Korea — including a Jim & Jesse Show on Florida television and numerous radio shows across the south. In 1964, the well-traveled Jim & Jesse were invited to join Nashville's Grand Ole Opry (this, despite less-than-traditional LP experiments like Berry Pickin' in the Country, a bluegrass tribute to Chuck Berry) and scored their first hit single on the country charts with "Cotton Mill Man."

The grandsons of Charles McReynolds have been Opry regulars for over 35 years, and bluegrass standard-bearers for over a half-century. Call it a family tradition.

— Don Harrison

Recommended on CD:
Y'all Come: The Essential Jim & Jesse (Pinecastle)
Jim & Jesse: 1952-1955 (Bear Family {import})
In the Tradition (Rounder)
Music Among Friends (Rounder)

--- Originally published in 64 Magazine, Jan.-Feb. 2001. For more information, log on at www.64magazine.org