Winner of the National Heritage Fellowship, the most prestigious honor in folk and traditional arts awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

“Bending the Rules” is a final nominee for the IBMA Instrumental Album of the Year.  Read more about it here.

Grand Ole Opry member since1964

Jesse McReynolds is universally considered one of the finest instrumentalists in bluegrass music. Along with his brother, they formed the duo Jim & Jesse, and with their band The Virginia Boys they recorded dozens of albums including several top-ten country singles.  Jim and Jesse became members of the Grand Ole Opry in 1964, and Jesse remains a member since Jim’s death in 2003.

Jesse McReynolds developed a unique “crosspicking,” mandolin style based, in part, on the bluegrass banjo sound of Earl Scruggs. This and his other instrumental innovations have placed him among the great traditional musicians of our time. Crosspicking is just one of the techniques he has developed to make the instrument sound the way he wants it to sound. With crosspicking he created the technique of playing “melodically”, using scales across the strings by playing individual strings in patterned rolls.

Much of Jesse’s playing is so uniquely technical and demanding that he has no real rivals among his imitators. While many mandolinists have worked a number of cross-picked pieces into their repertoire, there is no-one who uses crosspicking as frequently as Jesse has same degree of complexity and sophistication.

On this recording Jesse is joined by a true fiddle genius, young Travis Wetzel. Travis pushes Jesse to new heights and together the two create exciting arrangements of eight original Jesse McReynolds compositions, and four other traditional songs.

Ed Morris names Jesse McReynolds’ OMS Release “Bending The Rules” as one of the “TOP 10 Country Albums of 2004″:

“Jesse McReynolds With Travis Wetzel, ‘Bending the Rules’ (OMS):  Since his brother’s death, the surviving half of Jim & Jesse has continued to turn out inspired music.  Here the trailblazing mandolinist teams up with “the mad fiddler” Wetzel for a romp through such finger-twisters as “El Cumbanchero,” “Limehouse Blues” and “Sweet Georgia Brown.”

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Coming Soon

A New Bluegrass Record
by Jesse McReynolds

In late February, work began on the new bluegrass recording by mandolin legend Jesse McReynolds.

In 2004 OMS Records released, “Bending The Rules” by Jesse McReynolds and fiddler Travis Wetzel. It was the first solo album since the death of Jim McReynolds on New Years Eve in 2002. This recording showed the contemporary side of Jesse McReynolds, and Jesse indeed bends the rules at every opportunity.

With the upcoming, and as yet untitled Bluegrass release, Jesse records traditional Bluegrass with singing reminiscent of the Jim and Jesse days. Singer Donny Catron, a member of the current Virginia Boys band provides the tenor vocal punch.

Not only is this a Bluegrass record, it shines in the light of the twin fiddle combination of two of the all time greats, Buddy Spicher and Bobby Hicks. The results are spine-chilling as one would expect, especially when you throw in the work of banjo veteran JD Crowe and Blue Highway’s Tim Stafford.

Produced by Hugh Moore and Billy Troy, this all-star release features Jesse’s powerful mandolin playing and smooth Bluegrass singing in a setting familiar to longtime fans of the music of Jim and Jesse.

Albums by Jesse McReynolds

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  Bending the Rules