One of the most exciting times in American vernacular music (a term I’m preferring to “American roots music”) was the early 1950’s when bluegrass was in its early years. No one probably thought about it much in terms of categories in those days, but in retrospect its intriguing to listen to young Jim and Jesse McReynolds of Coburn, Virginia participate in the development of the bluegrass genre. In a sense, Jim and Jesse were influenced by Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass, in two ways: as fans of his brother duets with brother Charlie aka The Monroe Brothers; and of course as disciples of bluegrass, the hot, new offshoot of country music created by Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs and others.
Air Mail Special Early Recordings 1952-1955 (on the Rebel Records of Canada label) covers the McReynolds boys earliest sides. Jim and Jesse had an arresting vocal blend. Jesse would become a respectable, underrated country vocalist, comfortable with the high lonesome songs, as well as straight up c&w. Jim was a haunting, high tenor harmony singer. On these early recordings the youth of Jim and Jesse is evident. They sound soulful but at times a little tentative. Over the years, their vocals would grow in confidence as their music became more powerful and driving. The other notable element of early Jim and Jesse is Jesse’s unique cross-picking mandolin style, a rolling sound influenced by the a banjo. Listen to him go to town on the opening track, “Air Mail Special.”
Now let’s pick up Jim and Jesse a decade on in their career with Jim and Jesse The Epic Bluegrass Hits (compiled on Rounder Records). By the mid-sixties, the Jim and Jesse sound is a well-oiled machine, a machine with soul, that is. Jesse’s voice has deepened, he sings with more authority. Jim’s high harmony cuts like a knife while sounding eternally youthful. The band plays with confidence, drive and swing. Everyone’s a pro.
Most of the tracks on this compilation were taken from two albums—Bluegrass Special and Bluegrass Classics—that I’ll discuss in more detail in the next entry. These were songs that they’d been playing for years or had recently been playing as part of their live show or their TV show. Thus the confidence and assurance. The material runs the gamut from the Louvin Brothers (“Are You Missing Me?; “I Wish You Knew”–Jim and Jesse were great interpreters of the Louvins and other country duo acts, such as the aforementioned Monroe Brothers, The Blue Sky Boys, and the Delmore Brothers), straight up country (“It’s a Long, Long Way to the Top of the World”) to fiddle tunes (“Stoney Creek”) to protest-style folk (“Cotton Mill Man”) to gospel numbers (“It’s a Long and Lonesome Road”). It tells you a lot about the place of bluegrass pros like Jim and Jesse in the mid-sixties: playing a smooth style of bluegrass that doesn’t move boffo units in the country music biz, but being invited to become members of the Grand Ol’ Opry. Yet their best selling single is “Cotton Mill Man,” which doubtless sold to many in the college folk protest crowd—not your usual Opry denizens. A wonderful compilation of “commercial” bluegrass from the mid-sixties.
