Jenee Fleenor
Jenee Fleenor (often misattributed as Keener) is a fiddler, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Springdale, Arkansas. By age ten she was playing fiddle in the house band of a local opry house. She moved to Nashville in 2001 to attend college. After she sat in with Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time at a bluegrass show, Cordle hired her as his fiddler while she was still a teenager, making her the first woman in his band. She soon made her Grand Ole Opry debut and began singing and writing songs. She later toured with Martina McBride, Terri Clark, Blake Shelton, Steven Tyler, and Jon Pardi, played in the house band of The Voice and began touring with George Strait's Ace in the Hole Band in 2024. She released her debut album, Fiddle & Steel, in 2019. That year she became the first woman to win the CMA's Musician of the Year award, which she won again each year through 2023. She has also won the ACM's Specialty Instrument Player of the Year award twice. She helped form the acoustic band Wood Box Heroes with Josh Martin, Barry Bales and Matt Menefee in 2023. She was nominated for the Grammy for Best Country Song in 2026 as a co-writer of "A Song to Sing," recorded by Miranda Lambert and Chris Stapleton.
In the newsletter
- No. 28 January 2002