Jenny's recently released "Learning to Fiddle" is a great way to learn and is available from www.learnrootsmusic.com
Learn the Lyrics and Chords
Jenny with Hungry Hill in 2006
Jenny Lester is a dynamic bluegrass performer and recording artist who has established herself as an important singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Jenny's prodigious talent is superbly displayed on her debut CD, Friends Like You, of critical and popular acclaim. Again living back in her home town, Smithers, British Columbia, Canada, the recent story unfolds in her own words…
“ I enjoyed living in Vancouver for five years. Settling back in Canada after experiencing twelve different countries was more exciting than black water rafting 300 feet underground. North America is where bluegrass is most alive.
The homeland journey began in Vancouver where I musically connected with the innovative and pure mandolinist, John Reischman. With our bandmates of Bluegrass Signal we created my debut album, Friends Like You, under the skillfully guided producing of John and the brilliant psychology and engineering of Bob Hamilton. Please check out the credits of FLY so you don’t miss any of the names so important to the timeless sound of this project.
For several years I had the pleasure of creating the Jenny Lester Show from an astounding pool of musicianship: Bill Lopushinsky, Byron Myhre, Craig Korth, Rich Jones, Chris Stevens, Trisha Gagnon, John Reischman, Paul Bergman, Scott Atchison, Mark Thibeault, Val Bailey, and Jim McNulty. We could be seen anywhere, in any configuration, at any time.
In the mean time I met my husband-to-be through an ad in the Georgia Straight. “Western Swing band looking for fiddle player.” I joined the Ploughboys and two years later Mark Thibeault and I were married on the beach at English Bay during gale-force winds, sunset and a double rainbow. We have since moved back into the mountains where it is possible to purchase a home instead of renting. In the winter I teach private music lessons up to sixty students a week and Mark builds Rayco Resophonic Guitars with his Burnaby-based partner Jason Friesen. In the summer we tour together, promoting Rayco and the new band, and I am back in God’s Country training horses on the Kerr Ranch.
Mark and I have rejoined forces with Bob Hamilton and have started the new bluegrass band, Hungry Hill, with Matt King and Gary Markley.”
Jenny’s original songs are carefully crafted in the bluegrass tradition while at the same time displaying a contemporary freshness and vitality that breathes new life into the fabled "high lonesome" sound. The River, Mother Nature and Me is a lyrical and melodic gem, a gentle but powerful exploration of the interaction between people and nature. The title track offers a heartwarming generosity of spirit apparent throughout the album. For pure bluegrass roots, The Vancouver Sun's Anne McIntyre notes that Jenny's Send Down An Angel "is as traditional in words and music as Bill Monroe himself." A new tradition is starting as her original material is found in most jammers’ songbooks across Western Canada. Awarded glowing four-star reviews by both the Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province, the album showcases Jenny's powerful, soaring vocals and impressive songwriting skills.
Jenny is a veteran stage performer, beginning on the fiddle at age eight with her family's Driftwood Canyon Family Band out of Smithers, B.C. After nearly a decade of touring West Coast festivals, Jenny won a musical scholarship to South Plains College in Texas, graduating with honors and three Golden Reel awards. She then joined Dark Horse out of Colorado, completing her first recording project with the band and touring throughout North America and in Japan, Korea, Guam, and the Marshall Islands.
Jenny then spent many months performing in Taiwan, New Zealand and Australia and recorded a gospel album with the 3-D Project back in B.C
Says John P. McLaughlin of the Vancouver Province: "She has Kentucky bluegrass growing up and down her spine. An amazing singer, writer and player, she really, truly gets it."
