Summer Tour in Britain! Plus notes on my newsletter privacy!

Jeni Hankins: Born-the-bone twang Summer Tour in Britain starts this weekend!   First, let me say THANK YOU to all of my hosts, friends, and fans who made my tour in the USA completely wonderful. I came away with so much inspiration for new songs about my home state and the SOUTH which was my secret hope when I flew across the ocean. Let's see what happens!  My summer tour in Britain starts on Saturday with a concert in Crystal Palace (London) and ends with a concert in Carnforth at the end of July. All of the dates are listed on the flyer above and you can find all of the details on my website. This year, I am playing far fewer dates than usual because I have lots of other projects going and I am trying to strike a balance between performing, which I love so much, and the new work I am creating. So, if I'm not coming to your area this time around, how about a mini-break to Liverpool or the Yorkshre Moors? OR we could plan something for late fall or next year? You can always write to me and we can dream up a concert together! jeniannhankins@gmail.com When I was visiting Mawmaw on Smith Ridge, I went to see our old family cabin – a pilgrimmage that I have made for many years now. You can see the cabin it in its heyday in the photo at the top of this letter. The man in the photo, John Rufus Smith, built it. He was my great great grandfather, killed in cold blood in the line of duty as Justice of the Peace at the age of 60. He's the fella I sing about in the song "Aunt Erma" on Heart of the Mountain, which you can order directly from me by email, if you'd like. I have been looking after the cabin in my own quiet way over the last five or six years and was shocked to find that, since last November, vandals had cut five large timbers out of a wall of the cabin. After getting my wits about me, talking to the sheriff's office, and the fella who checks the gas well near the cabin, I went and spoke to the gas company about my concerns. And you know what? They were kind, helpful, efficient, and started an inquiry into the vandalism since their well is near the cabin.  I'm not saying that I support hydro-fracking, so hang on there in case you are getting any ideas. Anyhow, the Englishman and I spent a big long and beautiful day working on the cabin and shoring up the damage as best we could. Mawmaw's trusty dog, Rusty, was a big help. Joe, from the gas company, said something to me when we were talking about the cabin. He said, "We build roads into places here that have been forgotten about for a long time, maybe fifty, sixty, even a hundred years. Things that were hidden are exposed and then they become vulnerable. It's our job to protect them as best we can." I think there's a song in there. I also went to our family reunion which was rained out and a bit of a comedy, but I met some relatives I'd never met before including Aunt Ada who was completely glamorous and told me a story about having only two outfits during her last year of high school – two skirts and two short-sleeved sweaters. So, she and my Aunt Princess and Aunt Katherine and their friend Ellen from down the ridge all traded clothes around to look like they each had more outfits than they did. I've been working on a song about that! Here I am with glamorous Aunt Ada! For a long time I've heard about the legendary sewing skills of my Aunt Fanny who also kept a general store, but I actually got to meet her daughter Geneva, who told me about regularly pointing to a skirt in a catalog before school and asking her mother to hurry up and make it before the school bus arrived. She would put the skirt on right there at the sewing machine and run out the door to catch the bus. These are the kinds of things I love to hear about and I hope I will be equal to writing songs about them. Below, I have written about how this email list works because it's privacy awareness time in the cyberworld, so give that a look, if you don't mind. But, always, if you don't want to get my emails anymore, just "Unsubscribe" at the bottom. I look forward to seeing you or hearing from you. If you're on Facebook (I know, Cambridge Analytica, oy, but I have chosen to remain -ha- since it's the only way I can reach some friends), Instagram (owned by Facebook, you know, oy again), or Twitter, then you can find me there, too. Or occasionally, I will post on my blog, but am a little miffed that the blogspot app seems to have disappeared and am at a loss about how to update it using my phone, therefore it's a bit moribund right now . . . ahh, technology. Back to the autoharp! Hugs! Jeni I started this email list back in 2005. When Billy and I started touring together in 2008, we combined our email lists. You are on this list because you signed up at a Jeni or a Billy or a Jeni & Billy show over the years. Or you put your email in the sign-up box on the home page of the Jeni & Billy or Jeni Hankins website. Or, on rare occasions, you gave me your business card or wrote a note on a piece of paper and asked me to add you to this list. No one has ever been added to this list without their permission. I will never share this list or your contact details with anyone else. And Hostbaby, who host this list on their server, cannot share your information either. This email list is a simple one. If you are subscribed, you will get all of my newsletters. I don't have software for sending newsletters to specific geographic regions, dog-lovers, onion-avoiders, or fans of Strictly Come Dancing. So, if you are in Bora Bora and this email is about a tour in Greenland, you will get it anyway. But when I play in Bora Bora, the Greenlanders will have to hear about the upcoming Bora Bora shows and see the photos of warm sandy beaches and grass-roofed huts while they sit over a fire in their down jackets. I cannot exempt people from getting certain emails, etc. So, you are all in or out. If you get this newsletter at an email address that's old and smells of socks, you can always update your profile using the button at the bottom, and add your new shiny email wearing it's bow-tie or best hat. Thanks for reading and for being interested in what I make! You are receiving this because you (or someone you know) subscribed the email "bkjh1743@gmail.com" to the "Jeni Hankins" mailing list. Not interested anymore? Unsubscribe. For a more pleasant email experience, complete your profile.

Back Home Tour, May 2018, VA, NC, & DC

Hello music-lovers!

Nearly half the year has run ahead of me before this first newsletter of 2018. But the touring season is coming along in a matter of three weeks, so here’s the scoop on the concerts ahead. If you want to read a bit more about what I’ve been doing this spring, then mosey on down to the end.

Back Home Tour, USA, May 2018. In May, I’ll be flying over to Washington DC for a five-stop mini-tour in Virginia, North Carolina, and DC. Everything begins on Cinco de Mayo (5 May) at Alex Roth & Peter Overby’s house in Falls Church, VA. Doors will open at 2pm, concert starts around 2:30, and tickets are $20. If you’d like to come along, you’d be welcome. Just write to Alex and Peter for their address at overroth2@gmail.com. This concert was SO much fun last year and their house is the PERFECT setting for my music. The following evening, on May 6th, my terrific Davidson College pals, Mary Clare Jalonick and Katie McKelvie, are hosting a concert upstairs at the Tenley Bar in the heart of Washinton DC. Tickets are $10, Doors open at 7, Concert starts at 7:30pm. Here’s a link to the show.

From DC, I will be zooming on down to Abingdon, Virginia, in the Southwest part of Virginia to join the super cool kids from the Junior Appalachian Musicians at the 4-H Center’s Ratliff Hall to celebrate their hard work this year learning traditional mountain music! After their recital, I will give a concert and then strum the ole guitar for the the cake walk! This is going to be a blast. Tuesday, May 8, Doors 6pm. 

After a little visit to my house in the Guitar-town, I will head over to Charlotte, North Carolina, to play a house concert at the home of my friend and fellow songwriter DeWitt Crosby and her husband. Tickets are $15 and you can email DeWitt for more information! dewitt.crosby@gmail.com ALL are Welcome. Thursday, May 17, doors open at 7pm. Music will start at 7:45. 

Then, I’ll finish up the singing part of the tour on Saturday, May 19, at the Appalachian Arts Center in Cedar Bluff playing for my hometown crowd! This place is gorgeous and full of treasures made by local artisans. At the time of the concert, the exhibit of Goodwin Family Textiles will still be on display! Tickets are $10. Doors open at 6:30, Concert starts at 7pm.

After that, I’ll be visiting with Mawmaw and getting ready for the umpteenth Smith-Joyce Reunion where I plan to set up a table and collect stories from my relatives. I’ll visit the family cabin and take walks with Rusty-the-dog.

And, don’t fret, my sturdy Englishman will be traveling with me to the USA, so those of you who met him last year, will get to say hello again!

This year, I have been writing songs, as always! You can hear one of my new songs and play along with me in this YouTube video on my new YouTube Channel.

I've also been taking dance and performance classes focusing on confidence, flexibility, strength, and agility. I’ve made a great bunch of girlfriends in London and I’m on my way to dance with them as I write to you!

This summer, I will be touring in the UK. I’ve already added most of the dates to my website, so I hope you will make plans to come along and sing with me!

In the fall, I will be heading back to the USA for two dates in the Los Angeles area – Fiddler’s Crossing in Tehachapi on Sept. 29th, and Pasadena Folk Music Society on October 6th. These concerts are both on Saturdays. I am afraid these are the only shows I will be playing out west this year because of my residency requirements in the UK, and I don’t know when I will make it out west next . . . so, perhaps you might fancy an excursion and make your way down from Davis, San Francisco, or the Central Coast for a long weekend? If not, I hope that music will bring us together in the future!

If you want to know more about any of the upcoming shows, visit my website or write to me at jeniannhankins@gmail.com. As always, if you'd like to host a concert or you'd like me to come to your school or library, write to me as well! 

Time to kick up my heels with my dancing gals!

I hope to see you soon!

Jeni

Thanks to the folks at Dreamer's Folk in Cornwall for hosting my first concert of 2018!

 

www.jenihankins.com

www.facebook.com/jenihankinssinger

@jenihankins on instagram and twitter

At the cabin

Photo from a recent shoot at my family's cabin. My great grandfather, John Rufus Smith, built this cabin in the late 1800's. Smiths inhabited it until sometime in the 1960's. It's now owned by the gas company who are fracking nearby.

Hanover Tavern

Getting ready for our concert at Hanover Tavern as part of their Virginia Heritage Music Series! Music from 7-8. Come along. P.S. We have tea towels from Britain, while supplies last, as well as tote bags and t-shirts! Tea towels and tote bags are $10 each. T-shirts are $20. Add $4 postage if you'd like me to mail one to you. Pay by PayPal to jeniandbilly@gmail.com or by check (write me for the address). 

Mid-Atlantic Tour

Please join us for our mid-Atlantic tour which starts tonight in Marriottsville, Maryland. We have a new record and many new songs to share with you. And I will be honoring my Dad and all that he did to inspire me to find my calling.

07/30, Marriottsville, MD, Soup & Song
08/01, Fredericksburg, VA, Music on the Steps at the Library
8/03, Hanover, VA, The Hanover Tavern Viriginia Heritage Music Series
8/06, Kennett Square, PA, Private House Concert
8/14, Arlington, VA, Private House Concert
8/15, Richmond, VA, Private Event
8/19, Jonesborough, TN, Music on the Square
8/21, Johnson City, TN, Bluegrass & Bayou, Saint John's Episcopal Church

Picnic time

It's an honor to be part of Herb and Bev's family reunion and church picnic every year! 

Library Concert, Chesterfield, VA, on Thursday

Hey! Guess what? We are playing a concert at the Chesterfield County Public Library, just west of Richmond on Thursday night at 7pm. Free concert sponsored by the friends of the library. Main branch. Part of their acoustic music series! We love playing at this library and we get to do that every other year or so. How about coming along and helping us kick off our seven month tour of the USA, Canada (Ontario, really), and Britain!

Holding fast to what she taught me – in memory of Virginia Lowe

Special Report from Los Angeles, California, in honor of my mentor, Virginia Lowe: I talk a lot about heaven in our shows and listening to the obituaries on the radio with my great-grandmother, and funeral home tote bags. I know that part of the reason I do is because I grew up with a bunch of women – my grandmother and her sisters – who talked a lot about heaven in the course of just any ole thing like lunch or curling their hair. We once played a concert in Northern California to a mostly Chinese audience and I was never so conscious of how many times I say the word "Heaven" in the course of a show. Afterward, nearly every person in our audience came up and said hello, had a picture made with us, and one woman echoed several others when she said, "I like how you talk about heaven. It's very beautiful. I feel happy."

Virginia Lowe was buried on Friday morning. Some of you who have read my posts or our bio, will know that she was my musical mentor. I grew up listening to her sing and preach at the Friendly Chapel Church on Smith Ridge just across the road from Mawmaw's house.

Mawmaw's church is Pentecostal. When I was a child, people spoke in languages I didn’t understand, they believed in a fire that did not burn, they fell down in the floor with the spirit, and they sang. They sang loudly and passionately. Their singing got under my skin because it wasn’t for prettiness or show – they were hollering their story up to God with every ounce of their being. To me this is singing and this is songwriting – to shout the story of life as an urgent message to the beyond.

The person who embodied this entirely was Virginia Lowe. Her body literally shook and quavered as she sang. She was a short lady with narrow shoulders, but her voice sounded like it came straight from Moses' burning bush. Whether she was preaching or singing, and she went from one to the other constantly, she was like an instrument made of bone, flesh, and hair on which God strummed a mighty chord.

She had no artifice about her. She loved cakes. She was cagey about being recorded because she was suspicious of people making money from her singing, not because she thought her singing was wonderful, but because her singing was a record of the spirit being cut into the grooves of every heart in the congregation.

She was blind since childhood and so was her husband, Jim, who died two years ago. They went to school with Ronnie Milsap and you could hear those same country roots when she played the piano. She was very troubled after Jim's death and never seemed comfortable in the world without him.

Her death was not a shock to me. She had been sick more than she had been well since Jim passed over, but I feel a sadness nevertheless. I did switch on my voice recorder in the service once or twice and I can go back and hear her. But I will miss being in her physical presence because to be so was like being in front of the great riddle of life itself.

The songs she sang at the Friendly Chapel were the ones I distilled into the lyric for our song Made As New. When I sing, it is my aim to honor the fiercely honest way of singing that Virginia taught me. I don't sing to be admired, but to relay a message that I think must be delivered. Our songs are not created to glorify us, but to bring joy, warning, empathy, kindness, and respite to fellow travelers. If I fail at this, then I've no business doing this work and I best just stick to sewing. Life is short and it seems best do what matters and bring love to table.

When I was in school and read about the oracles in Greece or Yeats' mediums, I always thought of Virginia Lowe – a woman sitting with a braille Bible at her side, eating a second piece of cake, about to sing out an urgent message brought out of the mouth of God into a little mountain church to the few that would hear. Those that did hear will not soon forget the message or woman that spoke it.

If you would like to hear Virginia's powerful singing, I invite you to click this link.

https://soundcloud.com/jeniandbilly/virginia-lowe-sings-hold-fast-to-the-right

Warm Morning

I love the name of this stove I found in a disused wash house on Smith Ridge. "Warm Morning." Perfect.

Round up!

Tonight, round yourselves up and come along to the Hanover Tavern in Hanover, Virginia, just north of Richmond for Jeni & Billy music. 7pm. Lovely setting, yummy food, reservations not essential, but recommended (it's small). See you soon!

August Newsletter! Here it is!

Hey Hey! Just in time, hot of the cyber-press, our latest Newsy-letter! Inside: the scoop on our mid-Atlantic tour, a feature on our "house" concerts in Britain, what's coming up in our song of the month fan club (new song going up tomorrow from our recording sessions in Yorkshire), and finally, a photo of Billy eating a giant bowl of trifle and me trying to dance off his desserts! How does that work? Not well, I tell you smile emoticon

Here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/jnbNewsAug2015

If you didn't get it, that means you never signed up on our email list, you did but I couldn't read your handwriting because you had too much falling down water or I was too sleepy, your email changed and (egads!) you didn't let us know, or we are in your spam filter feeling forlorn. If you want to sign up, (and why not, I don't send out that many and I spend a lot of time making them nice and fluffy) you can go to our website and put your email in the tiny white box at the top of the page on the righthand side. That means you will get one next time, not this time, because this one has already flown! www.jeniandbilly.com

Thanks to Nick Rowledge for this swell photo from the North Wales Bluegrass festival! Billy is playing John Les's long neck banjo which we now dream about. Gorgeous ole thing – the banjo, John Les smile emoticon

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.