Carol Elizabeth Jones
Carol Elizabeth Jones (1960–2026) was a singer, songwriter and guitarist from Berea, Kentucky, who worked in traditional Appalachian music. She sang and played with the Wildcats, the Wandering Ramblers and the Renegades, recorded three albums of mostly original songs with James Leva as Jones & Leva, and sang with Hazel Dickens and Ginny Hawker on Heart of a Singer (1998).
She grew up in Berea among traditional music and dance as the daughter of the Appalachian scholar Loyal Jones. A recording of the Coon Creek Girls, friends and the Mount Airy fiddlers convention got her started on music in her late teens, and early on she came to know the traditional singers Lily May Ledford, Berzilla Wallen, Doug Wallen and Dellie Norton.
In the string bands she worked with, she played rhythm guitar and helped bring singing, harmony and strong song choices back into the music. She recorded with the Wildcats on Old-Time Music (Marimac, 1988) and On Our Knees (1992), with the Wandering Ramblers on Rambling & Wandering (Marimac, 1991), and with the Renegades in 1993 and 1995. She was also part of the Hopeful Gospel Quartet with Garrison Keillor and Robin and Linda Williams on A Prairie Home Companion, and she toured Africa and Southeast Asia as a cultural ambassador for the U.S. Information Agency.
With James Leva, her husband at the time, she made Light Enough to Find My Way (Rounder, 1997), Journey Home (Rounder, 1998) and Vertie’s Dream (Copper Creek, 2000). The two produced the records themselves and wrote most of the material. She sang and played rhythm guitar, and Leva sang harmony just below her and played fiddle and guitar. In December 1997 she recorded Heart of a Singer with Hazel Dickens and Ginny Hawker at Lion and Fox Recording in Alexandria, Virginia, with Pete Kennedy, Barry Mitterhoff, Marshall Wilborn and Dudley Connell backing the three voices. Rounder released it in October 1998, and its duets and trios were reissued on O Sister! The Women’s Bluegrass Collection.
Later she recorded Girl from Jericho (Copper Creek, 2003) with Laurel Bliss and Cataloochee (2008), and sang with the Gem Sisters and on Ginny Hawker’s After It’s Gone (Rounder, 2009). She taught and performed at festivals across North America and in the United Kingdom. Away from music she directed the Literacy and Language Center and then Youth Services at the Rockbridge Regional Library in Lexington, Virginia. She died on 12 April 2026, at sixty-five.
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Hazel Dickens, Carol Elizabeth Jones and Ginny HawkerPlayed on recording with Hazel Dickens, Carol Elizabeth Jones and Ginny Hawker
