Support Jim & Jesse McReynolds' Homeplace Restoration

Hello! This fundraiser is to help the McReynolds family raise money to restore Jim & Jesse's Homeplace.

I'd like to take the old homeplace and fix it up once more

Put new shingles on the roof, new carpet on the floors

To relive the past would be a pleasure there's no doubt

But the law of average tells me that my time is running out...

As I type these words I still hear my Daddy and Uncle Jesse's voices echoing through my mind.

The Homeplace. That was simply what they both called it. The place they both loved and revered.

The place they both were born and raised. The place they learned to pick and sing. The place they

came back to every time they had to start over.

I don't believe I can adequately put into words what The Homeplace meant to both of them.

How often they spoke of it. How it was the focus of the last conversations I had with each of them.

I spent much of my childhood at this magical place. Walking alongside my Daddy we explored every

nook and cranny of those majestic mountains. Stacking firewood in the wood shed as he split it.

Helping carry fence posts so he could mend broken fences. Walking up to the mountain cemetery to

pay our respects to those family members gone on before. Accompanying my dear Aunt Stella as we

walked down the mountain path to a nearby cousin's house to pick up the mail...all the while praying

she wouldn't have to use that hoe she always carried to kill copperheads.

Rocking in the old rocking chair in front of the kitchen fireplace. Helping my Aunt Stella prepare apple

slices to hang on a drying rack over the old Warm Morning wood stove in the bedroom. Drinking ice

cold mountain spring water from the old metal dipper hanging on the dairy porch. Gently swinging on

the old red porch swing while listening to the water trickle down the creek.

These are just a few of my fondest memories there. Now my Daddy rests in that mountain cemetery up

above the old homeplace. The house has sat empty and quiet for many years. The paint quietly fading.

The roof quietly leaking. The vines quietly growing into the walls. The basement quietly flooding. The

wood quietly rotting.

Until now. Our family has already begun the restoration process. We have set into motion the dreams

both Jim & Jesse pictured in their minds as they sang those words with their beautiful harmony. We

envision a day when once again those walls will ring with music. A day people can visit to experience

the beauty and magic of the place of Jim & Jesse's humble beginnings. The place they called home.

The Homeplace.

Will you help us?

Janeen McReynolds-Reynolds

Jim and Jesse McReynolds' impact on bluegrass and country music can't be understated. Southwest

Virginia natives, the two grew up in the rich tradition of Appalachian mountain music and took the

skills they learned to Nashville and beyond. Jesse McReynolds changed the world of mandolin playing

forever with his self-invented cross-picking method. With a 55-year long career, Jim & Jesse hold the

record for the longest running brother duet career in country music. Their musical talent earned them

spots as members of the Grand Ole Opry, the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in Owensboro, Ky, the Virginia

Country Music Hall of Fame, and the International Bluegrass Music Association's Hall of Honor. They

were also recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship presented by the National Endowment for

the Arts in 1997.

Tyler Hughes

The Crooked Road