I’ll Fly Away · God Put a Rainbow in the Clouds

Jim and Jesse McReynolds were brothers from near Coeburn, in the mining and farming country of southwestern Virginia. Jim was born in 1927 and Jesse in 1929. In their duets Jesse sang lead and Jim the tenor above him. Jesse played mandolin with a right-hand style of his own. In 1949 he began using a flat pick to imitate the backward banjo roll of Hoke Jenkins, and the technique became known as crosspicking. The brothers started on radio in Norton, Virginia, in 1947 and worked stations across the South for years.

Their first records were gospel sides cut in southwestern Ohio in 1951, with Larry Roll on guitar and Dave Woolum on bass. They came out on the small Kentucky and Alcar labels, sometimes under the name the Virginia Trio. “I’ll Fly Away” with “God Put a Rainbow in the Clouds” (Alcar 509) is one of them. Capitol signed them in 1952 and billed them as Jim & Jesse and the Virginia Boys. At their first session, on 13 June 1952 at Castle Studio in Nashville’s Tulane Hotel, they were backed by Curly Seckler on guitar, Hoke Jenkins on banjo, Sonny James on fiddle and Bob Moore on bass. It produced their first Capitol single, “I’ll Wash Your Love from My Heart” with the Louvin Brothers’ “Are You Missing Me?,” issued in September 1952. They held two more sessions on 16 March 1953, during Jesse’s leave between Army basic training and service in Korea. Capitol went on issuing singles until 1956.

In 1958 and 1959 they recorded in Jacksonville, Florida, with Bobby Thompson on banjo and Don McHan on bass, and leased the masters to Starday. BGD adds Vassar Clements on fiddle for the 1958 date. That session produced “Pardon Me” with “Hard Hearted” (Starday 45-412, December 1958). The Columbia contract began in Nashville in December 1960, with Don Law producing and Grady Martin, Allen Shelton and Vassar Clements in the studio. From 1962 their singles came out on Columbia’s Epic label, starting with “Stormy Horizons” with “My Empty Arms” (5-9508). The Epic years brought producers Billy Sherrill and Glenn Sutton, a 1965 album of Chuck Berry songs, and a run of trucking and railroad songs. “Diesel on My Tail” reached No. 18 on the country chart in 1967. They joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1964.

After Epic they returned briefly to Capitol in 1970–71 and later issued records on their own Old Dominion label. Jim died on 31 December 2002, and Jesse on 23 June 2023. The duo was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor in 1993.

Session details drawn in part from the Bluegrass Discography.