Jim and Jesse McReynolds

Jim & Jesse provide sweet memories (Jun 2003)

Way back when Carter Stanley died, his brother Ralph could easily have retired to something other than the music business. But Ralph paused, gathered his senses and did the sensible thing. Gone were the Stanley Brothers, enter Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys. We live, we die. Either way the show must go on. On Dec. 31, 2002, the elder half of another bluegrass brothers group, Jim & Jesse's Jim McReynolds, died at 75. Given a gradual decline in health while waging battle with cancer, his death came as no great surprise.  ...

Jim and Jesse play their brand of country (May 2001)

Jim and Jesse McReynolds have been mainstays of the country music business since 1947, and the lineage goes back even farther than that. Their grandfather, Charles McReynolds, was among the musicians recorded by Victor Records executive Ralph Peer during the summer of 1927 in the sleepy Virginia-Tennessee border town of Bristol during a series of sessions that rocketed "Pop" Stoneman, the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers to fame on the Victrolas of post-Lindbergh, pre-Depression America.  ...

Bluegrass masters do it again (Mar 1999)

Jim McReynolds is so soft-spoken and modest that it's easy to forget that he and brother Jesse have been recognized by peers, fans and critics alike as two of the best and most influential musicians in country music for half a century. Indeed, even though the duo is celebrating the 35th anniversary of their induction into the Grand Ole Opry and the release of an important new box set ("The Old Dominion Masters" on Pinecastle), the gentlemanly Virginian seemed content to reminisce about their early days and the growth of the bluegrass style to which they have contributed so much.  ...