The Circus and Cueball's Pool Hall

Jeni Hankins Appalachian-Grown Country Folk Music 1500 Words on the Circus, Cueball's Pool Hall, and Hearing Yourself Sing. On Friday, the Englishman and I were waiting on the roofer to give forth on the water trickling down our upstairs bedroom wall. While we waited, we played three games of pool – I lost all the games – and listened to the soundtrack for “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” on vinyl. It turned out the roofer liked that soundtrack too, and this gave us confidence in him despite the shocking revelations about our chimney pots and cowls. After he left, I continued to loose at pool and we switched to Bruce Springsteen. I said, “Do we have that record with that circus song?” And the Englishman rustled around in our vinyl collection and put the record on our hi-fi which is not only a hi-fi system, but “a nice piece of furniture,” according to the late sixties brochure which came with it at the auction.  “That circus song.” Do you remember Bruce Springsteen’s circus song? Though I’d been listening to Bruce via my parents since I was a toddler, I’d never heard his circus song until last year. It was then that a long-time fan made a disparaging remark about “The Oxygen Girl” and the “novelty song” – meaning my circus song. I personally don’t have a problem with novelty songs and I know all of the words to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Punky’s Dilemma.”What’s wrong with “Wish I was an English muffin, ‘bout to make the most out of a toaster. I’d ease myself down, coming up brown.” I never would have wondered so much about boysenberries without that song in my childhood and boysenberries seem a tame obsession for a thirteen year old girl given the other options . . . In fact, I may just make buttons that say, "Citizens for Boysenberry Jam" which perfectly defines the political chaos . . . . back to circuses. But there I was, last year, confronted with a fan who regarded “The Oxygen Girl” as a frivolous and annoying novelty song. What did circuses have to do with Jewell Ridge anyway? So, I was feeling a bit raw when the Englishman said, “All the great songwriters have circus songs. Do you know this one?” And then he queued up Bruce Springsteen singing “Wild Billy’s Circus Story” which begins, “The machinist climbs his ferris wheel like a brave.” Since that night, this has become my favorite Bruce Springsteen song. This is not only because this song was played for me in a gesture of romantic heroism, but also because there’s a tuba and an accordion in the arrangement – two of my favorite instruments. And it’s about the circus. When I was a kid I loved the circus. Even though Mom and Dad were broke, they somehow got tickets through their offices or cereal box tops or radio contests, I don’t know. And there we were, eating cotton candy, watching women in sequined dresses spin from ropes of silk between their teeth. All of the animal stuff has changed at circuses now and that’s how the world spins, but that’s where we saw elephants and tigers and bears. The trapeze. The trapeze. The trapeze. Women with feathers in their hair, balancing on the backs of horses. The knife-thrower. The fire-eaters.  My great-great grandmother’s sister ran away with the circus. I’ve been trying to write a song about her for years. I woke up at 4:30 last night with some new version of that song about her in my head again.  Maybe it’s a thing with us performing songwriters – that yen for the big-top moment. Isn’t that what we want our audiences to feel – the way that I did at the circus when I was ten – transfixed, transformed, jubilant, and defiantly hopeful? When I started performing professionally, I had been singing all of my life, but suddenly I worried that I was meant to have some kind of distinctive voice – some kind of tone. This resulted in some odd unreleased recordings of me sounding like Ralph Stanley. But little by little, I let go of this worry and just sang – sang like I was sitting next to Mawmaw at the Friendly Chapel Church or next to my Dad when he got out his harmonica and guitar at Christmas. But even after making eight records, I couldn’t say what my personal distinctive Jeni “sound” was. You all have kindly described my voice to me in terrific comments and questions after concerts, but I couldn’t quite hear “the Jeni voice” in my own head. That changed the other night when I sang “Wild Billy’s Circus Story.” The Englishman, being a longtime Bruce Springsteen fanatic knew the melody far better than I did, so he began teaching it to me. After singing along with him, and the both of us singing along with Bruce, I said, “Let me see if I can do this first verse on my own.” So, I started singing and maybe because Bruce’s voice is so different than mine, maybe because it’s normally a rock song, maybe because I’ve been doing more sewing than singing over the last few weeks, my voice announced itself distinctively as my own – a little folk, a little mountain country, certain words that slide here and there, notes between notes, and a wrapping of words around lines. The Englishman laughed with astonishment to hear one of his longtime favorite songs sung in an entirely un-Springsteen voice. He loved it. I surprised myself. We sang it again and again until our stomachs reminded us that some supper would be nice. Dad always heard my voice. He made a study of it which wasn’t difficult for him since my voice is part his voice. The last time he saw me perform – at Merlefestin North Carolina – which was the first place I felt being a singer-songwriter was the life for me, he mouthed all of the words to the songs AND the stories in exactly my rhythm. He knew what I was going to say before I did.  I think a lot of you heard my voice before I did and so many of you have encouraged and galvanized me over the last ten years of my professional touring career. You’ve done this through coming to shows, buying CDs, hosting shows, sending me cards, letters, emails, Facebook messages, calling on the telephone, and being a group of a few thousand people who together make an audience, a fan club, a family, and a congregation of sorts. I used to talk with my Dad nearly every day. When I called him, our conversation would go like this: Hello? Hi Dad. Hi Kid. How are you? I’m so good I can hardly stand myself. That was Dad. Other times he would pretend that he was a guy named Cueball who ran a pool hall and then he would pretend that he would have to go look for my father. My point is that it’s been a really crazy year in the world. Things seem very hard and confusing and downright mean sometimes. I rarely comment on any of this in these newsletters or on social media because what can I say but that the world seems to be falling apart a lot of the time. On the other hand, I have felt tremendously loved this year. I’ve made some extremely talented and some truly good friends. I’ve traveled and returned home safely. I can still hear the voice of my grandmother in Jewell Ridge on the other end of the phone. My sister is making theater. My Mom sent me a photo of our family cat talking on FaceTime with me. Sometimes, I just feel like making politicians learn the banjo to distract them from messing up the world, and other times, at the end of the day, I feel so good I can hardly stand myself. I hope that you will give yourself a chance to hear your own voice, to sing a new song, to laugh in the face of chaos, to show kindness, to dare to write a circus song, and to pretend you are in Cueball’s pool hall with Dad, eating peanuts and drinking Rolling Rock Beer. I’m going to head over there now, order a tonic water and some salt & vinegar crisps, and put “Wild Billy’s Circus Story” on the jukebox. I hope in 2019 you will feel transfixed, transformed, jubilant, and defiantly hopeful – like I felt at the circus when I was ten. Thank you for ten years of touring! Here’s to the next ten!  See you in 2019! Happy Christmas and a Bright New Year! Jeni www.jenihankins.com Next year, 2019, will mark my second decade as a touring artist! If you’d like to see me in concert next year, please write to me with your house concert or local venue or festival ideas!   First Concert of 2019 I'll be in the states for the first part of 2019 and I'm tickled that the folks from the Huntsville Assistance Program (HAP) in Huntsville, Alabama, have asked me along to play a benefit concert. Saturday, January 26, at 3pm in the afternoon at United Church of Huntsville. Tickets are $20 at the venue on the day of the show. HAP is supported by 60 churches and provides vital assistance to family through food banks and utilities. Second Show of the Year I'll play my second show of the year at the Hope and Anchor Pub  on Upper Street, Islington, London. This promises to be a terrific evening of variety for the performers and audiences alike with poets Kevin Reinhardt and Cathy Flower, strummy folkie Adrian R Shaw, electro pop band Parenthesis Dot Dot, and yours truly. It's all put together by master of ceremonies, comedian and songwriter, Hank Osasuna! I'll be playing somewhere in the middle of the evening. Tuesday, February 26, Doors at 7:30 pm. Copyright © 2018 Jeni Hankins, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Our mailing address is: Jeni Hankins 500 Westover Dr #13373 Sanford, North Carolina  27330 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Florida, Alabama, and Davidson College! November tour!

Hello from Nashville!

That’s a new photo of me from a photo shoot at my great-grandfather, John Rufus Smith's, cabin. He built the cabin in the late 1800s and generations of Smiths lived there until the 1960s. Now, the cabin and the land around it is owned by the gas company who have sunk a gas well nearby. But the intrepid Smith can still get there with dresses in her backpack! Photo by Graham Frear.

It's been great to be in Nashville after more than a year away! At first, I felt a bit overwhelmed seeing all of my old things. I wrote an essay about that and you can read it on my blog at Little Yellow Sewing Box. But now, my journey ahead seems a bit clearer and I am brimming with ideas about the future! But, first, time for a tour! 

Tomorrow, I begin my journey by heading further south to Florida! First stop is Gainesville for a house concert on Saturday night, Nov. 4th, at the home of banjo aficionado Chuck Levy and his lovely wife, Sandy. If you’d like to come, just write to Chuck: levyce@aol.com. 

On, Sunday, Nov. 5th, I’ll make my way down to Lakeland for a 2pm concert at the Lakeland Public Library. I haven’t been there in several years and I remember when I played there last, a woman wrote a beautiful poem based on my singing! Who knows what will happen this time around. 

Then, I am heading down to the greater Tampa area for four concerts: 

Tues, Nov 7, Jan Kaminis Platt Library, Tampa, 7pm

Thurs, Nov 9, New Port Richey Library, New Port Richey, 6pm

Sun, Nov 12, Lake Echo House Concert, Odessa, 3:30pm

Thurs, Nov 16, Hugh Embry Library, Dade City, 1pm

 And before I head back to Nashville, I will be stopping in Huntsville, AL, for a benefit concert for NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI supports thousands of families struggling with mental illness. They do vital work that saves lives and I am very honored to be playing for them. That concert will take place on Friday, Nov 17th, at United Church. Doors open at 6:30, concert at 7. Tickets are only $10.

I am thrilled to say that the last concert of my tour here in the USA will be held at my alma mater, Davidson College! Please join Professor Randy Ingram and the students of English 240 for an hour-long performance on Thursday, Nov 30, followed by a Q&A at the Carolina Inn. Doors open at 6:30, and the concert will begin at 7pm. I will also be available on campus throughout the day, so, if you’d like to have a cup of tea or lunch, let me know! I will be meeting with students at the career center from 1pm to 3pm on the 30th. So, if you know any current Davidson students who would like to talk with me about a career in the arts, I would love to meet them!

You can always find details of my concerts on my tour page. And you can buys CDs at bandcamp, cdbaby, and iTunes!

Thank you to all of you who came out to the concerts in MD, PA, and VA! I had such a great time seeing old friends and making new ones. If I missed you, I’ll hope to see you in 2018! 

Happiness, peace, and kindness to you all,

Jeni

Nashville, it's been a while

Back home in Nashville for just a day or two before our Jonesborough and Johnson City, TN, concerts this weekend. The first time I've set foot in the house in four months and two days. First time coming home and seeing Dad in everything. Taking refuge in laundry and unpacking. Wrote a new song this morning. And I'm remembering that Dad being in everything means that he's right here wherever I am, always. 

Scraps of words and cloth

Report from Nashville, Tennessee, where Billy is mixing songs upstairs and I am mixing words and cloth downstairs; our work on the new record and CD packaging continues. I wrote this a week or so ago when it snowed:

Yesterday afternoon, I was walking around in our house, trying to get some exercise because it was bitterly cold outside and snowing a little. Sometimes, I sing old ballads while doing my indoor walking. Sometimes, I listen to music or call Mawmaw. But yesterday, after I sang a few ballads, I got to thinking about a song that I’m writing. I am in the tinkering stage. Most of the time, I write a whole lyric all at once. I really feel annoyed if I write a verse and nothing else. I am a bit compulsive about getting down at least two verses and a chorus, otherwise I’ll probably never come back to that writing fragment. It’s just a personal tick. I don’t have a rational explanation for it.

But once I have those two verses and a chorus, I can convince myself the song is finished and I feel accomplished . . . for a night or a day or two. Then I tiptoe back over to my piece of paper and acknowledge all of the little things that don’t satisfy me. I start to identify the tin words and irritating parts, the jagged un-singable things, the obvious cliched blunders.

You may have noticed that I’ve been sewing a lot lately. Sewing, like songwriting, is a compulsion of mine, too. I am thankful to be making some income from it because I feel I have to sew and, if I don’t sew for a few days, I feel very strange and slightly sick. I am like this about writing and singing, too. It’s a good thing all of this is part of my job or I’d be very cranky at my work as an astronaut or a book editor.

While I was walking around our furniture, I was thinking how my sewing works quite a lot like my songwriting. When making a patchwork piece I start with this bag of scraps which is like my vocabulary and the storehouse of all that I’ve read and heard. I start the patchwork with a central piece, usually pictorial, like the idea of my song – an image, a title, a phrase, a rhyme. Then I start building blocks of color around my pictorial center. Before I sew a strip or block of color, I test it against what I’ve already sewn, like testing words against each other. Some fabrics just seem to jump and pulse with resonance when put next to each other, just like words that seem to fit so rightly into my meter and rhyme. Some fabrics are quiet and give the eye a rest, just like quiet words, little important joining words. Some fabrics are beautiful, but all wrong for that particular spot in the patchwork and I have to set them aside. Words are like that, too; so gorgeous, but jarring in the song.

I can see how these two of my favorite things to do are both puzzle-like, but also full of freedom and possibilities. They aren’t like puzzles that are already solved, broken, and then my work is to put them back together (I like those, too, sometimes). Patchwork and song poems are the kinds of puzzles I make and solve at the same time. I am the author, the rule-maker, the rule-bender, and for a little while, as I sew or write, the queen of my own colorful labyrinth.

Rehearsal

Packing, haircut, rehearsal!

Sunday Ambling

Got out of the house for a few hours on Sunday to go ambling around the Museum of American Cultural Artifacts, also known as the Antique Mall. Billy got a book for $2 and I had a chance to take the skirt I made on a little outing. Just two more days of rehearsal and packing up and off we go to Florida!

Brown's Diner and we are on our way

Report from Nashville, Tennessee: We're getting everything packed up in Mr Tomato to head out west. Bebe the Jeep is retiring from cross country trips. So, no Airstream this fall, but there will still be lots of reports out there waiting to be whisked from the wind. I'll do my best to have my antenna up and ready. Here's a parting shot from Brown's Diner in Nashville. I am sure the waitress thought I was crazy when I kept trying to snap a photo of her, but I loved the way the little frame in the bar made her into a picture every time she came up to shout, "Pabst Blue Ribbon, Miller Light, and a Coke."

Washing the blues away

Report from 8th Avenue in Nashville: Just in case you thought being a roots-rock legend was all about playing exquisite guitar solos, signing autographs, and wearing spiffy shirts.....and I've spared you a photo of me scrubbing and vacuuming our vehicles. On the road again on Thursday and looking forward to Airstreaming again.....after we clean the dead ants and spider webs out of the inside!

Flower Cocoon

Last night, I dreamed that a single flower was trying to bud on a very tiny tree in our yard and I went up and talked to it. I said not to worry and that I would sew it a little quilted cocoon to get it through tonight. It was anxious, but grateful. Getting ready for an ice storm here in Nashville. Billy is getting groceries and I am writing about it. He's a good fella.

Genius in the living room

Report from a very roky Nashville, Tennessee: It's rather handy to have a guitar virtuoso in your living room 24/7. Ah, ain't true love grand? Yes, indeedy. Hugs and hot cocoa to all of our friends.

Anchored down in Tennessee

Report from under a layer cake of quilts in Nashville, TN: When we are on tour people really can't believe that it gets cold in Nashville because it's in "The South." Even though I went to high school here and have lived here for nine years as an adult, they will truly act like I am delusional when I say it gets very cold here. I've had a couple of people tell me I'm just plain wrong and shout me down -- people who've never been here! I wish they could see this. Ha! Thanks to our friend, Annie, for pointing out that we might as well be in Alaska. :) The good news is that I wrote a new song and as soon as we can get the studio computer to quit acting up, we'll record a demo of it. Maybe the computer needs a quilt too.

Ice on the pagoda

We got home safely and woke up to snow on the ground and ice on the squirrel pagoda. Our incredible neighbors had groceries for us along with our mail, so it seems like we have a free pass to stay inside, go through our mail and unpack. I've just put biscuits in the oven. Thanks to MaryRita for the book in the mail and to Jen Lange and Susan for the cards. It's always great to get personal mail along with the bills and offers for gutter cleaning. I think hot cocoa, laundry, playing some songs, and a movie are on the agenda for later. Wishing warmth to our friends.

Sending LOVE

Sending LOVE to all of our friends for the busy weekend ahead!

Placemat Hijinks

Report from JeniandBillyLand in Nashville, Tennesse: Even our placemats are feeling creative today. This one bloomed two eyes and a smile -- a happy accident.

Arms around the world

Went to Allison's awesome Red Barn Yard Sale today & got the globe I always wanted, and in French, no less! Thanks to Billy for literally giving me the world...pretty globe is already in situ in the living room soaking up the sounds of our new record! Almost finished!