Little Birdy

Editor's Info:
"If you think Jim and Jennie are weird, and they are, in a good, way, then check this stuff out."
-Philadelphia Weekly, referring to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, Volume Four.

The association is fitting: Jim and Jennie and the Pinetops are a bluegrass band with pre-bluegrass sensibilities. Their distinct sound and personality strike some as unusual in its intensity, in a way that Harry Smith would have appreciated. They perform around a single or clustered microphone setup, building everything around their very distinct and beautiful vocal harmonies. They use standard four-piece bluegrass instrumentation: banjo [Brad Hutchinson], mandolin [Jennie Benford], guitar [Jim Krewson] and upright bass [Brendan Skwire]. They write timeless songs, which sound traditional but are rooted in the present. They play carefully chosen old-time songs and fit them to bluegrass, much the way Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers did. Besides those two, their influences include the Louvin Brothers, Mainer's Mountaineers, Carter Family, Jimmy Martin, Hazel & Alice and the Del McCoury Band.

Little Birdie is the band's second album and centers around Jim and Jennie's vocal harmonies, which range from high & soaring on faster tunes in a classic bluegrass style, to sad & beautiful on the slower ones, which harken back to more of a Carter Family-style. The recording, which was handled by Thom Monahan of Chappaquidick Skyline/The Scud Mountain Boys, was done in a manner to replicate the sound as if it was recorded half a century ago while keeping in tact the clarity and freshness of today's music. On the band's first self-titled record the idea was to emulate much of early bluegrass recordings by, setting up a few mics and playing non-stop for a weekend, with no overdubbing and a minimum of takes. However with Little Birdie the band afforded themselves not only more time, but also the use of some overdubbing in an effort to make a more full sounding and finished recording. The resulting record captured the band's level of intensity and accomplishment in both playing and writing. It is most evident on traditional tracks like "Little Birdie" and "Cannonball", while both Jim and Jennie self-penned originals "Sing from the Back of the Church" and "The Old Wood Mill" come across as timeless as those written years before. Little Birdie is a healthy dose of white lightnin' and we're all invited to come in and have a sip.

Magnet [1-2/01, p.97] - "...Bluegrass fundamentalists who avoid that newfangled stuff like Southern Baptists avoid liquor and dancing....playing everything with an enthusiastic drive..."

CMJ [12/00, p.62] - "...The spirit of the straight-on stuff: Fingers fly across banjo, mandolin, guitar and bass-fiddle strings while the leaders chase each other around with wild-eyed, dizzy 2-part harmonies on religious, mountain and traveler's tales..."

Dirty Linen [8-9/01, p.81] - "...There's depth and warmth to the playing here which belies their young years..."