The sweetest, most down to earth, good people making music just like that. Their roots run deep and sprout the most fragrant flowers.

- Dave Way, Three-Time Grammy-Winning Producer, Mixer, & Engineer

Jeni Hankins makes quilts. She finds the peculiar value in scraps of fabric and combines them into fabulously beautiful pieces of art. But quilt-making is not just an exercise in self expression. Quilts are functional. Quilts make an empty room homey.
A quilt will …
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You have to watch where you sit at a Jeni & Billy concert, because that ordinary-looking folding chair might just turn into the back seat of a big ole Buick hurtling down the switchback of a coal truck road.

That barstool might turn out to be the rock-hard sinners pew of a white-washed mountain church. That couch might be a marble stoop on a gritty street in Baltimore, and that velvet theater cushion could just be …
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Jewell Ridge Coal is the new record from acoustic duo Jeni Hankins and Billy Kemp. Drawing from Traditional Country, Appalachian, Old-time, Country Blues, Bluegrass and Folk music to create their original songs, Jeni & Billy have crafted a unique sound that is truly their own. With their sparse sound and absorbing lyrics, they have caught the attention of Americana greats Jim Lauderdale and Buddy Miller and folk-rock artist Jim Reilley of the New Dylans. Yet one …
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“Jeni & Billy’s Longing For Heaven plopping on my doormat this morning has given me more joy than I can express, and if I seem hyperbolic it’s because That’s What They Do To You . . . The original tracks, such as the deliriously catchy ‘If I Ever Get Ten Dollars’ and ‘While I Stay At Home And Weep’ (replete with my new favourite word “prayhaps”) blend effortlessly with the traditional numbers (their arrangement of the …
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Billy and I met in the spring of 2005 while I was recording Jewell Ridge Girl. One of the songs cut for Jewell Ridge Girl, “Back Then,” caught Billy’s attention and he suggested that we consider a songwriting collaboration. We found that writing together came easy for us. We also started playing out together. We were getting a good response from audiences and loved performing as a duo. We wanted a CD for shows, but …
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Pretty Fair Miss was created for The Great Fabric Exchange.

This year Jeni & Billy are remembering old-time barter days on their tour by trading a three song EP, Pretty Fair Miss, for a piece of fabric. At the end of their tour in November, Jeni will be using the fabric to make a Trip Around the World Quilt at the John C. Campbell Folk School.

To learn more about the fabric exchange and how to …
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