The Wailin' Jennys
Encyclopedia
The Wailin' Jennys are a Juno Award
-winning Canadian
folk trio from Winnipeg
, Manitoba
, and New York
, and they consist of soprano Ruth Moody
, mezzo Nicky Mehta
and alto Heather Masse
. In previous years, the Jennys have also toured with fiddler
and mandolinist Jeremy Penner, who is from Ruth's former band, Scruj MacDuhk
. As of 2011 he was replaced by Ruth Moody's brother Richard on viola and mandolin. Both Penner and Moody have also appeared on The Wailin' Jennys' recorded albums.
The Wailin' Jennys have released several albums and tour regularly through North America and Europe. The group is also often featured on the American Public Media
program, A Prairie Home Companion
. Their album, Firecracker
, made it to the number two spot on the Billboard
Bluegrass
charts, in 2006.
) - together for a joint performance. The show was well received and the owner scheduled a follow-up, which was also a great success. The owner then "offered that they might go on tour and call themselves the Wailin' Jennys." The group's name is a pun
on the country singer Waylon Jennings
.
Luft left, in 2004, to pursue her solo career and was replaced by Annabelle Chvostek
, a singer/songwriter from Montreal
.
At the 2005 Juno Awards
, the group won Roots and Traditional Album of the Year (Group)
for their 2004 album 40 Days
.
In 2007, Chvostek left the group and was replaced by Heather Masse
, a Maine
-born singer with a background in jazz
and blues
in addition to folk
, who also fronts the Brooklyn
-based Heather & the Barbarians.
All of the members of the Jennys maintain solo careers, in addition to their efforts with the group.
Juno Award
The Juno Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music...
-winning Canadian
Music of Canada
The music of Canada has influences that have shaped the country. Aboriginals, the British, and the French have all made unique contributions to the musical heritage of Canada. The music has subsequently been heavily influenced by American culture because of its proximity and migration between...
folk trio from Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
, Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, and New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, and they consist of soprano Ruth Moody
Ruth Moody
Ruth Moody is an Australian-born soprano singer-songwriter and member of the Canadian folk trio The Wailin' Jennys.-Biography:Moody grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba with her parents, Charles and Marcelline, and three siblings, older brother Richard , older sister Jane and younger sister Rachel...
, mezzo Nicky Mehta
Nicky Mehta
Nicky Mehta is a mezzo singer-songwriter, and member of Canadian folk trio The Wailin' Jennys.-Biography:Before fully entering into a life of music, Mehta attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario where she attained an honours degree in Media Studies. She also has a certificate in...
and alto Heather Masse
Heather Masse
Heather Masse is an American alto singer and member of the Canadian folk trio The Wailin' Jennys. She was born and grew up in Maine, and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. She is currently based in New York City....
. In previous years, the Jennys have also toured with fiddler
Fiddler
A fiddler is a person who plays a fiddle or violin.Fiddler may also refer to:*Fabrangen Fiddlers, an American musical group founded in 1971*Tupolev Tu-28 "Fiddler", a fighter aircraft*Fiddler , a DC Comics villain...
and mandolinist Jeremy Penner, who is from Ruth's former band, Scruj MacDuhk
Scruj macduhk
Scruj MacDuhk was a Juno-nominated folk band that included singer-songwriter Ruth Moody, a current member of the Wailin' Jennys, as lead singer. The band released two albums, Live at the Westend Cultural Centre in 1997 and The Road to Canso, in 1999, and broke up in 2001....
. As of 2011 he was replaced by Ruth Moody's brother Richard on viola and mandolin. Both Penner and Moody have also appeared on The Wailin' Jennys' recorded albums.
The Wailin' Jennys have released several albums and tour regularly through North America and Europe. The group is also often featured on the American Public Media
American Public Media
American Public Media is the second largest producer of public radio programs in the United States of America after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and operates radio stations in Minnesota, California, and Florida. Its station brands are Minnesota Public Radio,...
program, A Prairie Home Companion
A Prairie Home Companion
A Prairie Home Companion is a live radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor. The show runs on Saturdays from 5 to 7 p.m. Central Time, and usually originates from the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, although it is frequently taken on the road...
. Their album, Firecracker
Firecracker (The Wailin' Jennys)
Firecracker is the third album by The Wailin' Jennys.The album was rated the #2 folk album of 2006 in North America by total airplay, and the #1 Canadian album...
, made it to the number two spot on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
charts, in 2006.
History
The group was founded in 2002, when a guitar shop in Winnipeg - called Sled Dog Music - brought three soloists - (Ruth Moody, Nicky Mehta and Cara LuftCara Luft
Cara Luft is a singer-songwriter and founding member of the Canadian folk trio, The Wailin' Jennys. She returned to her solo career in 2004.2009 October Cara Luft play a tour in Europe...
) - together for a joint performance. The show was well received and the owner scheduled a follow-up, which was also a great success. The owner then "offered that they might go on tour and call themselves the Wailin' Jennys." The group's name is a pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
on the country singer Waylon Jennings
Waylon Jennings
Waylon Arnold Jennings was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Jennings began playing at eight. He began performing at twelve, on KVOW radio. Jennings formed a band The Texas Longhorns. Jennings worked as a D.J on KVOW, KDAV and KLLL...
.
Luft left, in 2004, to pursue her solo career and was replaced by Annabelle Chvostek
Annabelle Chvostek
Annabelle Chvostek is a Canadian singer-songwriter based in Montreal. She is known for her rich singing voice, compelling lyrics and genre-spanning musicality, as well as her Juno-nominated work with harmony trio The Wailin' Jennys....
, a singer/songwriter from Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
.
At the 2005 Juno Awards
Juno Awards of 2005
The Juno Awards of 2005 were held April 3 at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba and were hosted by comedian Brent Butt. Avril Lavigne and k-os won three awards each, while Billy Talent and Feist won 2 apiece.Nominations were announced 7 February 2005....
, the group won Roots and Traditional Album of the Year (Group)
Juno Award for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year - Group
The Juno Award for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year - Group is presented annually at Canada's Juno Awards to honour the best album of the year in the roots and/or traditional music genres...
for their 2004 album 40 Days
40 Days
40 Days is the debut full-length album from Canadian folk trio The Wailin' Jennys. The lineup of the group at the time was Ruth Moody, Nicky Mehta, and Cara Luft...
.
In 2007, Chvostek left the group and was replaced by Heather Masse
Heather Masse
Heather Masse is an American alto singer and member of the Canadian folk trio The Wailin' Jennys. She was born and grew up in Maine, and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music. She is currently based in New York City....
, a Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
-born singer with a background in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
in addition to folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, who also fronts the Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
-based Heather & the Barbarians.
All of the members of the Jennys maintain solo careers, in addition to their efforts with the group.
Studio albums
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Grass | US Heat Top Heatseekers Top Heatseekers refers to either of two separate "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by Billboard Magazine: the Heatseekers Albums chart or the Heatseekers Songs chart. They were introduced by Billboard in 1993 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new and developing musical... |
US Indie Independent Albums The Billboard Independent Albums is a chart of the highest-selling independent music albums and extended plays in the United States, compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is used to list artists who are not signed to major labels... |
US Folk Folk Albums Folk Albums is a music chart published weekly by Billboard magazine which ranks the top selling "current releases by traditional folk artists, as well as appropriate titles by acoustic-based singer-songwriters" in the United States. The chart debuted on the issue dated December 5, 2009... |
||
| 40 Days 40 Days 40 Days is the debut full-length album from Canadian folk trio The Wailin' Jennys. The lineup of the group at the time was Ruth Moody, Nicky Mehta, and Cara Luft... |
|
— | — | — | — |
| Firecracker |
|
2 | 23 | 27 | — |
| Live at the Mauch Chunk Opera House |
|
3 | 25 | — | — |
| Bright Morning Stars |
|
1 | 7 | 24 | 10 |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | |||||
Extended plays
| Title | Album details | Peak positions |
|---|---|---|
| US Grass | ||
| The Wailin' Jennys EP The Wailin' Jennys EP The Wailin' Jennys EP was the debut release from the eponymous Canadian folk trio. The lineup of the group at the time was Ruth Moody, Nicky Mehta, and Cara Luft; Luft has since left the group, being replaced first by Annabelle Chvostek and later by Heather Masse.-Track listing:#"Come All You... |
|
— |
| iTunes Session |
ITunes iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.... |
7 |
| "—" denotes releases that did not chart | ||
External links
- The Wailin' Jennys' official site
- The Wailin' Jennys' Myspace
- Ruth Moody
- Nicky Mehta
- Cara Luft
- Annabelle Chvostek
- Heather Masse
- Wailin' Jennys set off a firecracker, story at Country Standard Time, 2006