Bathroom Lightbox

Sometimes, I work in odd spaces to get the best light!
Wow, after five days of admin, I spent most of yesterday drawing, which was thrilling. And I was reminded of why the admin is important. Because all of that organizing means that I can bring these drawings to life in song for an actual group of folks who are curious to hear. I am feeling very happy!

Crazy #6 on UNKOVR everyone! THANK YOU!

GUESS WHAT??? We are #6 on UNKOVR. YES! YOU DID IT! THANK YOU!

Not bad for an obscure folk duo and a bunch of very devoted fans.

Here’s a wish for you: I wish you all could go with us to Mawmaw’s right now. We would have homemade biscuits with butter and honey and then go over to the church and have a big ole sing! And then we’d get in our cars and go down Chicken Ridge together across the Dismal River into Jewell Valley where we would have our pictures made at the old scale house. Then we’d go over to Richlands and see my Aunt Princess for some homemade potato bread and dinner. And at night we’d go back up on Smith Ridge where there are no lights on the road and watch the stars and see the space station zoom overhead. And in the morning, we’d all walk down to our family cabin and read from the newspapers on the wall to each other. Then we’d sing as we walked on home.

Let’s have a huge hug when we see each other next time. OK? Or, if you’re not a hugger, let’s do a high five. OK?

You are THE BEST. LOVE and HAPPINESS all day again.

If you missed all of the excitement because you were on an internet break, just mosey on down to the previous posts or follow this link to VOTE for us (under our photo to the left, those little square boxes). http://unkovr.com/artist/jeni-billy/

#8 in 12 hours! Yes!

WOW EVERYONE! I said that we’d LOVE to get to #10 on Unkovr Musicand we got to #8. IN 12 HOURS. Not because it’s easy to do that, it’s actually crazy. But YOU MADE THAT HAPPEN. What???!!!!!! WAY to GO! Thank you SO MUCH for VOTING and SHARING smile emoticon None of it would have happened without you! And you signed up and made COMMENTS, too – 28 of them! If you go to anyone else’s page and look, that is an extraordinary number of comments! It was an extraordinary amount of everything.

YOU MADE OUR DAY.

If you’d like to roll up your sleeves and help us MOVE HIGHER on the UNKOVR rankings (should we try for #%5?), then there are a couple of MORE WAYS TO VOTE. You can click on the title of any of our songs to the righthand side on our main page. That will take you to a new screen. There you will see a photo and a player button for that song. Under the photo, there are little square boxes where you can VOTE. Then you can click on the other song titles in that same window and vote for those. If you feel like listening and enjoying, playing the songs is also considered an interaction smile emoticon

You can also JOIN UNKOVR for FREE and make us a FAVORITE and leave a COMMENT. This helps a lot!

THIS UNKOVR thing MATTERS because it’s great way to show support for our music and get the word out about Jeni & Billy. It’s like you are putting up posters all around town about something you love and the town just happens to be cyberspace . . . pretty big town! And it didn’t even involve a staple gun or duct tape. Neat.

LOVE TO YOU ALL and thank you for being part of the story of Jeni & Billy. We are honored to be part of your story through our music. Off to work on the new song we wrote yesterday!

http://unkovr.com/artist/jeni-billy/

Happy New Year, New Newsletter

Our newest newsletter is heading out to emails inboxes everywhere (read it below)! If you don't get one, it might be that I have an old address for you, or I couldn't read your handwriting when you signed up, or a space alien is at fault. You can make it all better by going to our website and signing up in that little white box on the righthand side. It would be so nice. www.jeniandbilly.com

Here we go, 2015! Let's make it wonderful!

  

We are thrilled to announce that we will be touring far and wide again this year! 2014 was one our of our busiest years of touring since we put our toe in the traveling troubadour waters back in summer of 2008. Thank you to all of YOU for making our winding ways that much more joyous.

Our goal for this year is to bring happiness and kindness wherever we go. Life is short and sometimes plain fierce. Let's all create a world full of freedom, understanding, and compassion.

This year, we will be releasing at least one, and possibly a few, live CDs from our touring last year -- and rumor has it we'll be heading back into the studio with the Big Picnic Band in the fall!

Next week, we begin our touring year in sunny Florida -- and none too soon given the arctic temperatures here in Nashville.  In March, we'll head up to windy Chicago, Detroit (for the first time), and Bloomington (IN). In late April, we'll be flying over to Britain for all of May, June, and part of July! Seventy-three days of toast and tea with our friends across the pond. In August, we'll visit our home states of Virginia and Maryland as well as making an annual stop in NJ. We'll finish out our touring for the year in California via Arkansas and Texas.

That's the plan so far! I have most of the concerts for the first half of the year up on the website and I'll be adding more as the year rolls on, so stay tuned and check back frequently!

If you are on Facebook, let's be friends, if you are inclined. Facebook controls who sees posts from our Jeni & Billy page, but you control how many posts you see from me, Jeni Hankins. So, your best bet for getting day to day news from us is to befriend me. OR, if you aren't keen on Facebook, you can visit my blog. Nearly every one of my Facebook posts ends up there.

If you are looking at our calendar and feeling dismayed that we don't seem to be coming your way, how about hosting a house, church, synagogue, garden, barn, or community center concert? Some areas are hard for acts to crack and sometimes it works better to buck the system and make your own event! Lots of our friends have done it and most of them had never done anything like that before! And it turned out a lot better than a noisy cafe or rowdy brew pub. Just write to us.

Well, I had better sign off since the pre-tour checklist list still has a lot of unchecked boxes!

Billy and I wish you all lightness, kindness, and understanding in the year to come. We wish you laughter and love. And we wish you peace.

Many smiles, see you soon,

Jeni & Billy too

  

Haircut Nirvana, just down the street at the Chop Shop!

Celebrating haircut happiness! Back to my short locks, courtesy of hair magician and style guru, Sara Plambeck, at the Chop Shop! Soooooooooo thrilled! Now, if it weren't so cold here, I could take off this wool hat I am wearing in the house! Good thing we are headed to Florida next week :) Red face courtesy of wind chill and Dutch heritage!