Days of the Week

Things from my room at home: A tea towel embroidered and cross-stitched by Mawmaw Margie. I still love days-of-the-week tea towels and I use a set at home. Yes, and when I was a kid I was crazy about days of the week underoos (or smalls, as you might say, if hanging them on the airer in Britain). I suppose some candidates are wearing their lucky Tuessday underoos today and hoping for a Happy Tuesday!

Jeni & Billy are Featured Artists on UNKOVR today!

Normally, I would be grumpy about waking up at 4:30 am, but I wrote a new song and there’s a bunny rabbit being irresistibly picturesque in the fresh snow in our yard. Plus, this wonderful thing happened. We woke up to find that we’ve been FEATURED ON Unkovr Music​ as the ARTISTS OF THE DAY! We would be so GLAD and 

GRATEFUL if you would just simply CLICK over there and VOTE for us. You don’t even have to sign up! 

This is actually a big deal for a ROOTS duo . . . So GIVE ROOTS MUSIC a BOOST by VOTING and SHARING. I don’t think we get a prize like a homemade pie on account of the voting, but even if we get 100 votes, we’ll go WAY up on the unkovr site! How can we ever do that? If you SHARE this and VOTE, it just might happen or it will be fun trying. You all did great with sharing that whole Grammy chance that happened, so let’s do it again!

If you LEAVE A COMMENT or you share from the website, that makes our ranking go up up up! And then more people will find out about Jeni & Billy and we’ll be able to take our fans wherever we go, and start a utopian community on Jewell Ridge . . . wait a minute. That may be sleep deprivation talking :) But more people will find out about our music and that is GOOD.

Are you snowbound today and have you eaten all of the coffee cake you baked yesterday? Then make SHARING this post your sitting-around-in-pajamas-watching Silver Linings Playbook on Netflix project today. Am I in my pajamas? Yes, that’s what’s great about being a songwriter home from touring in a snowbound southern city with no plows or salt trucks :)

Also to improve our ranking, you can sign up on unkovr for free, make us a FAVORITE (if you are so inclined), and hear a whole bunch of other curated music. Hmm, I feel like I’m in a museum now that I’ve been curated. I hope it’s one of those fun museums with crocheted alligators and a frying pan collection.

Thanks to Dave Way​ for recommending us for this honor and for saying this nice thing, “Jeni Hankins has been called 'the new queen of Appalachia.' Her voice carries generations of joy and misery from her small town family life in mining country. And with the help of her true love, Billy Kemp, they tell vivid stories of these people, places, and time, always with a fine poetic flair and genuine heart.”

I am going to need a nap today, can you tell? Yep, I’m what Mawmaw Margie called slap happy. That’s what happens when you go to bed at 1:30 and wake up at 4:30. Thanks for humoring me and VOTING :)

Hugs and Love to all of our friends and fans!

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

Luggage and travel between grandmothers

TBT from Smith Ridge, Virginia: I can't imagine what caused our sour puss expressions except that Sarah​ and I may have been interrupted during a Days of our Lives, Another World, Santa Barbara marathon with a topping of Bewitched and The Andy Griffith show. Or maybe we are on the verge of leaving to go to Mawmaw Margie's in town – Richlands – where we would have to take a bath and then would be vulnerable to the sensitive noses of the Witches, if Roald Dahl was to be believed. We may be worried about being eaten by those Seymour-esque plants. But I am glad we have a record of our suitcases, which we carried on a daily basis from one grandmother's house to the other's. This began our lifelong dedication to taking as much luggage as possible for the shortest trip. I would later parlay this skill into getting a sewing machine home from England. So, as usual, our Mawmaw Ann​, slyly taught us life skills that would easily compete with and possibly vanquish anything we learned in trigonometry.

Remembering Mawmaw Margie in collage, a lesson with Sally Haig

Report from Pleasanton, California: Sometimes being a traveling musician means that I get to make art with one of my favorite artists! Last night, Sally Haig showed me how to do gel transfer and collage with this photograph of Mawmaw Margie and my Mom, Marcella Hankins. 

It think it was fitting that we worked on the collage after watching the World Series -- Mawmaw Margie was such a baseball nut. Though, she wouldn't have had much truck with this series, since she was only interested in rooting against the Yankees in their pin-striped uniforms.

Mawmaw Margie loved Jim Reeves, Andy Griffith, and alyssum flowers. She let us eat as much Booberry and Honeycomb cereal as we wanted. She had a vinyl floor in her kitchen that looked just like bricks and I thought the wooden post that held up her laundry line looked just like a cross. Since she didn't go to church like my other grandmothers, my little self thought that she just chose to have church outside with the laundry. And though, people at the church talked about being "washed," Mawmaw Margie got right down and scrubbed. Sarah and I chased each other in and out, out and in, through the sheets and blue jeans -- Mawmaw Margie with clothes pins in her mouth and a pink hairnet on her head, laughing, laughing, laughing.