Budded Roses · Log Cabin in the Lane

Jim Eanes was born Homer Robert Eanes Jr. in Mountain Valley, Virginia, in 1923, and grew up in Martinsville. Around 1939 he began playing with Roy Hall’s Blue Ridge Entertainers on WDBJ in Roanoke, and took the stage name Smilin’ Jim. His first records were made in March 1947 at Majestic Studios in New York with the Blue Mountain Boys, and one single came out on National in February 1948. In 1948 he worked briefly with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and then with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys.

His Capitol session took place on 21 February 1949 at radio station WBT in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Snuffy Jenkins on banjo and Homer Sherrill on fiddle. It produced “Baby Blue Eyes” with “You Better Wake Up” (Capitol 57-40174), issued that June. In 1951 he formed the Shenandoah Valley Boys and recorded at WPAQ in Mount Airy, North Carolina, for the Blue Ridge label. One of those sides was “Missing in Action,” which he wrote with Arthur Q. Smith. Its success drew offers from several major labels, and he chose Decca. Between January 1952 and October 1955 he held six Decca sessions in Nashville with Paul Cohen producing, using Nashville studio players such as Chet Atkins, Grady Martin and Hank Garland alongside his banjo player Hubert Davis and, from 1953, fiddler Bobby Hicks. The first Decca single paired “I Cried Again” with “They Locked God Outside the Iron Curtain,” and “I Cried Again” and “Wiggle Worm Wiggle” were the two hits of his Decca years.

His Starday singles, issued from 1957 to 1961, were recorded mostly at WHEE in Martinsville, with Allen Shelton on banjo, Roy Russell on fiddle, Arnold Terry on guitar and bass, and Cliff Ragsdale on bass. The first was “Your Old Standby,” which became his signature song. “Budded Roses” with “Log Cabin in the Lane” (Starday 45-456) was cut there in July 1959 and issued that September. In the 1960s he recorded for small Virginia labels, several of them at Don McGraw’s studio in Salem, and worked as a disc jockey. Late in the decade he took over Red Smiley’s former band as the Shenandoah Cutups. He died in Martinsville in 1995.

Session details drawn in part from the Bluegrass Discography.