Jim & Jesse – First Sounds: The Capitol Years
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Posted On January 1, 2003
There’s a thin, blurry line between bluegrass and country music, and Jim & Jesse McReynolds are among a handful of artists to find success on both sides of that line. They became members of the Grand Ole Opry — along with the Osborne Brothers — in 1964. No other bluegrass act received that honor until Alison Krauss in 1993.
Jim & Jesse have never seemed bound by any particular musical tradition. Indeed, two of their biggest albums were collections of Chuck Berry covers (Berry Pickin’ In The Country, 1965) and truck-driving tunes (Diesel On My Tail, 1967). They toyed with drums and electric instruments throughout the 1960s. And after a half-century of performing, they still take to the stage with flashy sport coats, well-oiled pompadours, and a Canadian harmonica player. Not exactly your run-of-the-mill bluegrass act.
Still, these early Columbia recordings are far more interesting than Jim & Jesse’s later — and more popular — work with Epic. In the tradition of the Monroe Brothers, the Blue Sky Boys and the Louvins, Jesse’s rich lead and Jim’s tight-lipped tenor create potent brother harmonies. The McReynolds brothers are also fine songwriters, contributing eleven of the sixteen tracks recorded here.
The real highlight, though, is Jesse’s cross-picked mandolin. Jesse McReynolds has long been recognized as an important mandolin stylist; that’s no revelation. But these recordings made me reconsider his work with a new ear, as if hearing it for the first time on a jukebox in 1953. Songs such as “I Will Always Be Waiting For You” and “Virginia Waltz” could have been standards performed by any of a half-dozen bluegrass groups — except that McReynolds ornaments them with a flurry of syncopated notes sounding totally unlike anything you’d associate with Bill Monroe.
Some would have us believe that bluegrass music emerged fully developed in the 1940s. But bluegrass itself was an innovation. Monroe and his contemporaries didn’t just permit change — they demanded it. I can’t help thinking that Jesse McReynolds was the Chris Thile of his day. And a little experimentation seems to have served his career quite well.
