Jim & Jesse

One of the great bluegrass bands in history, brothers Jim (born 1927) and Jesse (born 1929) McReynolds and their Virginia Boys remained at the top by changing with the times. Starting as a traditional brothers duet, Jim on guitar and Jesse on mandolin showed their versatility by following country's changing tastes, moving to country/folk when necessary to keep a road band going. Whatever style they played (including Berry Pickin' in the Country, an album of bluegrass versions of Chuck Berry tunes), they retained a pure country core, due in no small part to Jim's pure, high tenor and Jesse's virtuoso, cross-picking mandolin playing. Raised in Virginia, Jim & Jesse were born into a musical family. Their grandfather Charles McReynolds was a fiddler that had recorded a single for Victor in 1927 with the Bull Mountain Moonshiners. The brothers learned to play a number of stringed instruments while they were children, occasionally playing local dances and events as teenagers. However, the duo didn't begin playing professionally until they were in their 20s and Jim left the Army -- by this point, Jim was playing guitar and Jesse played mandolin. In 1947, they landed a daily 15-minute spot on a local Norton radio station. For the next few years, they played on a variety of Southern radio stations, securing a regular spot on Augusta, GA's WGAC in 1949. After staying at the station for a year, they moved to the Midwest, where they played stations in Iowa and Kansas without gaining much of a following. In 1951, they relocated to Middletown, OH, where they had a regular spot at WPFB. While they were at the station they cut ten songs with vocalist Larry Roll under the name the Virginian Trio; the records didn't gain much attention. For the remainder of 1951 and much of 1952, Jim &...