Jenee Keener Fleenor
Jenee Fleenor’s childhood prediction to be a famous fiddler came true. Friends call her one of the best at her craft and praise her for her humility and gratefulness.
In the mid ’90s at a girls’ sleepover, 10-year-old Jenee Keener was making predictions for her grand future. She put her promise down on paper, writing “I will grow up and be a famous fiddle player when I am 20 years old.” She signed it, sure that this was one of many autographs she would give, folded the note, taped it up, and then gave it to her fellow fourth-grader and friend Bethany to keep.
On the outside it bears the date, the time — 3:58 a.m., the prime hour for making grave promises — and warns “Don’t open until [this] year.” Bethany took those rules seriously. When she opened it up in the 2020s, Jenee Fleenor was the first female to win Musician of the Year at the Country Music Association Awards, a title she has won five consecutive years, 2019 to 2023, so far.
The Springdale native has played on the road with Martina McBride and Terri Clark, previously spent a decade in Blake Shelton’s band and spent more than seven years playing on “The Voice.” This week Fleenor’s bluegrass band, the Wood Box Heroes, released its new album and kicked off with a performance at the Mountain Arts Center in Prestonburg, Ky.
“As a female, she inspires other [women] in our male-dominated industry for sure,” says friend Trent Willmon, a hit songwriter and Cody Johnson’s producer. But that’s not what sets her apart from other musicians. “It’s her absolutely genius level talent. I’d put her up against anyone for tone, tuning and tastefulness.”
Willmon and Fleenor began writing songs together many years ago, some of which were recorded by Reba McEntire, Shelton and Gretchen Wilson. As far as studio life, he says it’s difficult to come up with fresh musical ideas when playing 1015 sessions a week, but Fleenor “brings it every time, with a great attitude,” Willmon says, noting that Fleenor always brings her “A game.” While she’s a fun jokester when hanging with the guys, she’s serious about her craft, which he believes is the best of both worlds. “She commands the respect of every musician in town with her playing, and yet somehow still remains humble and grateful.”
Barry Bales, longtime member of Alison Krauss and Union Station, 15-time Grammy winner and now member of Wood Box Heroes, says Fleenor is the type of musician who always knows exactly the right thing to play and plays it well. He has never heard her play a wrong note or make a mistake.
“Jenee should be extremely proud of the career she’s built for herself,” Bales says. “And more importantly the reputation she has built for herself in the industry, not just as a stellar musician, but as a wonderful human being.”
MAKING HISTORY
In the days leading up to Fleenor’s first time to win CMA Musician of the Year, she knew that she was on some of the ballots leading up to the event. But Fleenor didn’t realize that she was the first woman to ever be nominated.
Then one day, when she was pulling up to Blackbird Studio, her phone started going off so much that it sounded like a slot machine when you’ve won at the casino — a constant barrage of dings. She’d won indeed.
“I did not know what to do with that, I couldn’t even comprehend that I was nominated, period,” Fleenor says. She was overwhelmed with emotion and shed a lot of happy tears. Inside the studio, she could hardly get through the session for all the people coming in to congratulate her.
Blake Shelton connected Fleenor with his PR rep, since she had never had a manager or anyone to handle publicity, and things began to move quickly from there.
“After that session, I thought ‘Well, this could be a game changer, you know?’” Fleenor says. So many good opportunities came all at once, among them a step into the fashion industry. Clothing companies wanted to work with her and for the first
time, she was getting ready for red carpet events.
A week before her first CMAs, Fleenor was about to make her Grand Ole Opry debut and her father-in-law was in the hospital. He was in stable condition when Fleenor, her husband and mother-inlaw started to leave to head to the Ryman Auditorium that night. Her husband told him they were going to see Fleenor play the Opry, but then they’d be back.
Her father-in-law passed away after they left. Fleenor didn’t know whether she should go ahead and perform or not, but everyone, Ricky Skaggs and the Opry band included, encouraged her to go out. That she should do it — for him.
“That was really hard, but everybody said he was going to be front row,” Fleenor said. “All I could think was he was sitting in the front row of the Ryman with my Daddy,” who had died during her senior year of high school.
On CMAs night a cast of female performers was put on stage together for the occasion: McEntire, Loretta Lynn, Terri Clark — the first big country act Fleenor had played with — Martina McBride and Carrie Underwood. Dolly Parton was a part of the festivities and she and Fleenor performed together that night, too.
About 10 minutes before the performance was to go live, Fleenor found out that she won. It was a whirlwind, making that acceptance speech then getting on stage to perform. They’d had her father-in-law’s funeral a few days before and the combination of events was a period of her life that was “the highest of highs and lowest of lows.”
The fresh, raw flood of emotions poured right back into her music.
“Everything I do musically just comes from the heart, I hope that’s what people hear when they hear me play or sing,” Fleenor says. That’s how her music was the night of her father-in-law’s death, straight from the heart. Fleenor still gets nerves when she’s at the center of attention, but certain moments, like this one, sweep that away.
“For so much of my career, I’ve been a side woman and so when I step into the spotlight, it’s just a different weight you have on you,” Fleenor says. That night, “I couldn’t even try to be nervous. [I thought] ‘Whatever’s going to come out is going to come out.’ I told the audience. … ‘Here’s what happened. I’m going to do this for my father-in-law, because I think that’s what he would want me to do.’”
It was one of the hardest performances she has been through.
FADED LOVE
Keener’s love of music began in the world of classical training. After seeing in a newspaper a picture of little kids carrying their violins, Fleenor’s mom felt compelled to enter her in violin lessons through the Suzuki school when she was just 3 years old.
“I had no idea where it was going to lead,” says Helen Keener. Putting your kid in music lessons was just how she was taught. She had taken piano instruction herself, but didn’t have the musical talent that Fleenor did. “People had to tell me she was talented.”
Fleenor’s teachers were the ones to pick up on her gift, but that didn’t mean she didn’t work hard for it. In 14 years of Suzuki, Fleenor was required to practice a minimum of an hour a day.
Keener was always involved, staying right by her daughter’s side as she practiced, and would sometimes bribe her with a trip to McDonald’s to ensure she got the practice time in. Keener also attended the music lessons with her daughter and kept notes. At home, she would go over the music with her.
“I enjoyed it,” Keener says. “It was our time together.”
Being brought up in the classical style was a traditional way of earning musical training. It gave her mom visions of concerts, orchestra and Julliard, but it didn’t take long for a love of country music to take root in Fleenor.
Her father had picked up the fiddle shortly after she did and would play the old-time fiddle records: Bob Wills, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson among others. When she was about 6, he played “Faded Love,” Helen Keener says.
“It was a gateway song for me to country music,” Fleenor says. Even now, every time she hears it, she still loves every single thing about it. To say she loves playing it is an understatement. “I love the original version of it so much. It takes me all the way back.”
FRONT AND CENTER
Throughout her childhood, Fleenor’s parents took her anywhere they could get her on a stage. She played various functions, but among the most frequent venues was a Baptist Church in Springdale.
“I remember having to deal with nerves, more so with singing, not as much with fiddling,” Fleenor says. Sometimes those nerves would progress to where it cut off the vocal sounds of the throat. “Having to work through those things definitely prepares you for later in life.”
Early on she learned the importance of deep, steady breathing for calming those nerves and getting through a performance.
As her musicianship progressed, Fleenor kept up both sides — the Suzuki lessons and recitals as well as the more animated craft of fiddling — but there was no question which side was winning.
“Growing up in Arkansas, [country] was the sound, the background I heard and the stories were the stories of my life,” Fleenor says. She played with the old timers in Springdale and competed in fiddle contests all throughout Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Whenever she won, she’d bring the award in to show her classical teachers.
“They frowned on it at first, but then they soon enjoyed it,” her mom says.
For talent competitions, her mother would dress her in square dance outfits and tease her hair, “jacking it up to Jesus.” At the time, Fleenor couldn’t stand it. During one such competition in Cassville, Mo., they pair decided to lean into that dynamic. They had family visiting from Louisiana, watching the show from the front row.
“I come out on stage all (dressed in western getup) and my mom comes out with me, and she’s going ‘Practice your classical,’” Fleenor says. She followed suit, stoically delivering her Suzuki song, then breaking back into bickering with her mom on stage, continuing their differences about the hair style and embarrassing the Louisiana members of their family to high heaven.
They sank down in their seats and her mom left the stage, only for them to realize it was all an act when young Fleenor said “Hit it boys!” and launched into fast fiddle tunes.
In her teenage years, Fleenor began playing at steel guitar conventions in Tulsa, Dallas and Knoxville, which Keener believes aided her career and allowed her to meet the old-time country stars like Buddy Emmons and Ralph Mooney. During one convention, Fleenor got to play for Loretta Lynn.
“It’s kind of like she grew up in transition from the older players to the ones we have now,” Keener says of the old-time country music. “That made her more versatile. Back then she was only 14 to about 17, but she was a great musician. They would play songs she had never heard, but she could take a ride on it.”
During those days, hearing fiddle on country radio always drew Fleenor in. She would call in requests to a radio station, then hit record on her cassette player.
Her favorite game was to listen, guess which musicians were playing on that album, then open the insert to see if she was right. She was good at it, and though there were no other kids who wanted to play it with her, she got better and better at identifying the artists.
“Now I work with a lot of these musicians, that’s kind of crazy for me,” Fleenor says. “A lot of those guys were my heroes. That’s what’s so wild for me now getting to be in the studio with them and actually play music with your heroes.”
HER BIG BREAK
Fleenor always knew she was headed to Nashville, Tenn. After high school graduation, she moved there in 2001 to attend Belmont University, where she began studying commercial music.
The Station Inn, the bluegrass mecca, was one of her very first stops in town, a place she’d been introduced to during a fiddle camp she attended when she was 11.
Larry Cordle was playing on the Station Inn stage and right next to him was Brandon Rickman, a good friend of Fleenor’s from Missouri. She couldn’t believe she would know one of the musicians performing. Rickman asked where Fleenor’s fiddle was and invited her to play backstage for them.
“They kept saying ‘That’s the sh*t!’ and I didn’t know what that meant,” Fleenor says, laughing. They had her join them on stage. Cordle was looking for a fiddle player and the next week he offered her the job. Fleenor was astounded, but accepted the opportunity. She could stay in school and play gigs on the weekend.
A year later Fleenor got a call to audition for Terri Clark. She went on tour at age 19.
“I really loved my days at Belmont, I learned a lot while I was there,” Fleenor says, and years later they made her an honorary alumna. “But I just knew I was getting calls to do what I wanted to do.”
She was so young that she sometimes had to sneak in venues from the back because they wouldn’t let underage kids in the door.
Soon she started to play on Jon Pardi’s records. It all led to experiences she couldn’t have dreamed up, like Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler calling her personally to request that she play music with him in Maui for 10 days and the time that she had two gigs at 30 Rockefeller Center on the same day — Seth Meyer with Blake Shelton’s band and Jimmy Fallon on her own — causing her to bounce from one sound check and clothing change to another.
“I get to play these big moments … and now looking back, I’m like ‘I can’t believe I got to do that, that’s really something,’” Fleenor says.