From Jewell Ridge to Burbank and back again

Report from Jewell Ridge, Virginia and Burbank, California: "What do the people up on Jewell Ridge think about what you're doing?" I get that question from time to time after our concerts. 

For one thing, they probably think it's a bit funny how I have become the Jewell Ridge Girl, but I actually grew up on Smith Ridge, which is named after my great great great grandmother whose parents owned the ridge. The coal company was called the Jewell Coal Company, thus Jewell Ridge, thus the song "Jewell Ridge Coal." But Smith Ridge is in the Jewell Ridge zip code as are a lot of obscure hills and hollers up on that mountain. In fact, where Chicken Ridge is now was the original Jewell Ridge, but when the coal company built their rows of coal camp houses on over from the originialJewell Ridge, they did not pause to call the new community Jewell Ridge and rename the old Jewell Ridge, Chicken Ridge.

I have a lot of cousins in southwest Virginia, Florida, and east Tennessee. We don't see much of each other though we share the common experience of watching Days of Our Lives or Another World with our grandparents and hearing the obituaries read out on WRIC in Richlands. We went to the rec park to swim and we at Fruity Pebbles for dinner if we wanted.

Facebook keeps all of us cousins in touch with each others lives – the babies, the fireworks, the day in and day out – and when they comment on our travels or our music, I feel a sense of elation because they are, in some ways, the people who know most whether I am telling the truth of where we come from. We all had our different raisings (Facebook doesn't think that's a word, but I will argue for it), but there's no getting around that these are real people and real places I've chosen to share with our listeners from Los Angeles, California, to Scarborough, England. I am a storyteller, but the stories have roots in flesh and blood, dirt and coal.

When I wrote about the Little Drum Majorette for a week, my cousin Camie wrote me back to say that her older boy had been reading the stories to her younger boy every day. This, my friends, was one of the greatest compliments I have ever received. She said they had all kinds of questions they wanted to ask the Little Drum Majorette about the parade and her life! 

And now, Camie and her sister Annie helped their children, James, Blake, Briar, and Sadie, make birthday cards for Don, the World War II vet I posted about. Camie said that this was an important opportunity to teach them a life lesson about Veterans and the meaning of Veterans day.

So, when people ask me what my travels and songs about Jewell Ridge mean to the people up on Jewell Ridge, and, in particular, my family, I think about James, Blake, Briar, Sadie, Camie, and Annie and I feel like they are proud of me, their wandering cousin, because they know that I take them and all of my family and the spirit of our mountain wherever I go. 

Cards by James, Blake, Briar, and Sadie. Photo of Jeni by Billy Kemp.

Hebejebes

Report from Burbank, California: You know you are writing a southern novel when you have to verify the spelling of hebejebe. And you feel you've arrived as a southerner, when you see that you've spelled it right.

This is a photo from my great-grandmother's photo box which furnished most of the pictures for our CD covers and booklets. I've always loved this lady, but her name is not on the back of the photo and no one in my family seems to know who she is. 

But for right now, she's standing in for Charlene, the mother in my novel. That's the great joy of making things up.

Time for bed!

NaNoWriMo, time to write a novel

Report from Atascadero, California: Call me crazy, but I have started a new novel even though I didn't finish the first one, yet! It's national novel writing month. Yes, there is such a thing! And though I was tempted to revise and complete the novel that I started last November, I just had the faintest idea for a new one and decided to go for it. 

So, even though we are on tour, and my days are wild already, I am going to do this thing because I am already enjoying it. 

NaNoWriMo, the folks that put these strange novel-writing notions into the heads of thousands of people each year, has a term for people like me. I am a "pantser." This means that I am writing the novel by the seat of my pants. Well, I am literally, because novel writing involves a lot of sitting still and concentrating on one task - not checking facebook, not checking email, not making a tea, not wandering into the kitchen for a lovely piece of Irish soda bread made by Anet . . . no, no, no (to quote Ringo Starr). Pantsers made no plans, did no research, outlines, flow charts, before November 1. We just sat down and wrote the first sentence and then, like someone pacing off for a duel, we put another sentence after the first and prayed that we would not be vanquished by the third sentence, and so on. 

Even though we had two concerts this past weekend, I have managed to eek out 2007 words of the 50,000 word goal which means I am behind, but not desperately so. 

As a pantser, I find great solace in this quote by E.L. Doctorow: “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” I once had to do this kind of driving for my Mawmaw Ann up on Smith Ridge. She has a large buick; we did not go off a cliff; we got home and ate some sherbet cake to calm our nerves.

This gives me courage to keep on going and see where Chip leads me. Chip is the name of my protagonist and she will be my companion for the next month. 

Winnie-the-Pooh has also agreed to help out. He's very quiet and doesn't mind when I talk to myself.

It's not too late to go ahead and sign up to write a novel, too. We can be writing buddies! I know you'll write something wonderful, come along!

http://nanowrimo.org 

Don is a Veteran of World War II, kept bees, and chased wild horses

I thrilled to say that I have just received permission from the VA to re-post my report about Don, the 95 year old WWII veteran who will be celebrating his 96th birthday on Armistice Day, November, 11, at the VA Hospital. If you would like to send this wonderful and kind man a birthday card, please send me a private message and I will reply with his address. Let’s make this birthday extra extra beautiful for him.

Report from a Veteran’s Affairs Hospital in California: He likes green and yellow and country western music. He grew up in Utah and Nevada and loved to chase wild horses when he was a kid. He was drafted into the 27th infantry division in 1942. He was 23 years old. He fought at Okinawa, the bloodiest battle of the Pacific theater, and survived. He came home to Utah and followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and his father to become a commercial beekeeper. He worked in the bee-yard his whole life. He is nearly blind. He held my hand tightly. When I asked him if we could have a hug, he smiled widely and his eyes lit up. This is Don and when he turns 96 on November 11th, he said that no one will be coming to see him. And on his birthday, he may not remember that his wife came to see him, because he often forgets people and things.

The staff at the VA tell me that forgetfulness is much more common in vets than other people because of the physical and emotional trauma they experienced in combat.

So, I sat with him a bit longer. I found out he loves watermelon, corn on the cob, biscuits, and gravy. I sang to him to him a capella -- The Tennessee Waltz and Gold Watch and Chain -- and he never let go of my hand. I am honored that we got to play country music for Don today, and Mr. J who did four tours in Vietnam and showed me how to two step, and Mr. M who was a paratrooper in Korea and requested rock-n-roll -- Billy was happy to oblige with a rendition of Nadine.

We had a beautiful afternoon with a group of music-loving veterans because of Bread & Roses and Marian Hubler. Thank you, Marian, for this opportunity, and thank you Don, for keeping me company today.

Blabber & Smoke on Picnic in the Sky

How wonderful to get a spot-on review of Picnic in the Sky from the fine ears and able pen of Paul Kerr up at Blabber & Smoke in Scotland. He completely "got" our aim.

"This is as fine a slice of delicate, bruised, and uplifting roots music you'll hear in a while."

http://paulkerr.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/jeni-billy-s-big-picnic-band-picnic-in-the-sky/

A ghost song from Jeni & Billy

Special Musical Report from Atascadero, California: To celebrate Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and All Saints Day, you can hear our ghost song, The Dominecker Hen, streaming free on Bandcamp for the next week!

This is the first song that Billy and I ever recorded together on our own in his former studio in rural Maryland. After this, we knew that we wanted to work with each other from then on.

I wrote "The Dominecker Hen" after watching the film Wisconsin Death Trip. The imagery in the film is so evocative and much of it comes from the historical photographs of small town photographer Charles van Schaick who took the photo I'm featuring.

The filmmakers also highlight the tremendous struggle faced by immigrants who chose to settle in Wisconsin without being prepared for the harsh climate.

There were also a lot of unexplained phenomena in the late 1800s in Wisconsin, if we are to believe the film.

All of this combined with my great grandmother's statement that a crowing hen meant a death coming in the family, moved me to write a ghost song.

We don't often perform this song because a lot of audience members have felt a bit un-nerved by it when we do perform it. It's a ghost tale, after all. 'Tis the season. Boo!

Historical photo by Charles van Schaick.

http://jeniandbilly.bandcamp.com/track/the-dominecker-hen

Passing the prison in Salinas

Report from Soledad, California, outside the Correctional Training Center: When I was a kid, I was very determined to be good. Nearly all of the time I did the chores I was asked to do. I finished my homework each night. I practiced my trombone most of the time. I didn't like disappointing my parents and they expected me to work hard at everything that I did. And they were always there to help with homework and ferry me and my sister around to our extra-curricular activities. I was very lucky.

If I unwittingly made friends with kids at school who wanted to wreck things, steal things, or cheat, I found a way not to be around them. And, eventually, they found someone else to help them set books on fire in the teacher's yard (yes, that really did happen!).

But sometimes I wonder if I wanted to be good because my parents were very good. They read to us. They sang to us. They colored in coloring books with us. Even though they were broke college students, they took us to art museums, concerts, and movies. I distinctly remember going to see a claymation movie festival when I was eight with my Dad in Harvard Square. Mom & Dad encouraged us to think we could do anything and everything -- piano, children's theater, choir, dance, and on and on.

If I wanted to make a replica of a Swiss village out of clay, my Dad was in. If I wanted sew my own clothes, my mom got out her machine. We had good teachers and bad teachers. We went to excellent schools and some that were considered poor. But my parents were always our first teachers.

My sister and I argued, we threw tantrums, we were cranky, and we went through growing pains many times over. We weren't perfect, but we did try to be our best, all of us, as much as we could.

So when Billy and I rode by one of the nation's most famous overpopulated prisons (at 170% of capacity), I couldn't help wondering what kind of person I would have been if I didn't know where my next meal was coming from, if I'd never had anyone read to me, if I couldn't read, if my neighborhood was full of gangs and my parents were working three jobs each, never home. What if I was threatened every day of my life? What if my childhood had been full of guns, drugs, and fear, instead of ballet shoes, pizza night, and laughter. Would I be the same me? Or would I be one of the 200,000 women in federal prison in this country or one of the 1 million women on probation or parole. 

Or would I, like the girl I saw on McHenry Street in West Baltimore, have been able to find my way in the other America, the invisible America, to making flags out of a trash heap and a color guard out of a bunch of girls just as vulnerable as myself? 

Most of us will never be tested in this way.