Weaving together bluegrass and Southern rock styles, the Pinetops ease into a shadowy new space, twisting a vivid scene where pain and peace co-exist in a wild but comforting place.
Rivers Roll On By, their first CD on Bloodshot Records , will please fans who have come to know them as a bluegrass unit, revealing a new sense of experimentation that raises them to a unique new standard. Collaborating with some of western North Carolina's finest musicians, fans of the group may be surprised to hear some drums, washboard and the Banjocaster - a secret new weapon capable of sounding like a pedal steel, organ, or electric guitar.
This album has the special quality of tapping into the primal kind of sadness and spookiness that hangs in the clouds, that seeps into the trees, the hills, the seas and the bars; there is the desperation and celebration that vibrates through all times. Adding to this stark framework, Jennie sings with a voice as fragile and powerful as a Walker Evans dustbowl photograph, and her harmonies with Jim echo to times long past.
Rivers Roll On By is a daring record. Respectful of tradition but not restrained by it, Jim and Jennie and the Pinetops are lyrically and sonically unafraid to carry it to fascinating new places.
Visit the official website at www.jimandjennie.com .
