Behind the Song: Jenee Fleenor, “Fiddle & Steel”

She’s the 2019 Country Music Association Musician of the Year, the first woman to win the award. The longtime fiddler/guitarist/vocalist for Blake Shelton’s band. A member of Steven Tyler’s road band. A member of the house band on The Voice. The fiddle player on Jon Pardi’s current hit, “Heartache Medication.” How could one person do all of this and still have time to write and record her own songs? 

Somehow, Jenee Fleenor does all of this, and more. With her single “Fiddle & Steel,” which is approaching a quarter of a million Spotify streams, Fleenor is establishing herself as not only one of Nashville’s premier female talents, but as a Music City force to be reckoned with in general.

As a writer, Fleenor’s first cut was with bluegrass group The Grascals with Dolly Parton on vocals, and was nominated for Song of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association. She’s also had songs recorded by Shelton, Gretchen Wilson and others. “Fiddle & Steel” is a semi-autobiographical song about missing home and loving the sound of traditional country music on the radio. E-mailing from who-knows-where-at-the-moment, Fleenor gave some background about how “Fiddle & Steel” came to be.

“I remember walking into my co-write that day with Phil O’Donnell (George Strait, Parmalee) and Buddy Owens (Gord Bamford, Montgomery Gentry), and kinda stormed in and said, ‘Guys! Has there been a song written called ‘Fiddle & Steel!?’ None of us could think of anything and they were all-in with the idea. Phil, Buddy and I have written for years together now and we are all traditional country lovers, so I knew we could write the heck out of a good ol’ country song. I had my iPhone on shuffle as I drove into Nashville that morning, and Haggard’s ‘Misery & Gin’ was playing. I’ve always loved that song, and I suggested we maybe use some of those same chord progressions in our tune as well.” 

“We originally wrote it with some male artists in mind, but when I realized I really wanted to cut it myself I called Phil and Buddy back in so we could tweak it to suit my life. In the verses we pulled from my upbringing – my Daddy was a paratrooper in WWII, and my Mama makes some mean deviled eggs – and the chorus just tells it like it is: ‘Fiddle and steel, cryin’ through my radio, sad and slow, I can’t help myself, there I go, headtrippin’ through Memoryville with a fiddle and steel.’” 

Multi-instrumentalist Fleenor is a bit of a gearhead as well, with an array of stringed instruments and a studio where she sometimes records her session parts remotely. “I play Takamine guitars on the road with Blake. I love my Takamines! We always play plugged in on the road and their sound is always consistent, which is key when I have to play so many guitars with different tunings. And my main fiddle is a Guarneri copy that is over 100 years old. It is the first full size violin I got when I was 11 years old and it’s still my favorite! I use an Oktava modded mic a lot of times in my studio.” 

The classically-trained Fleenor has played all types of music with different types of acts, but in the end it’s traditional country that seems to tug at her heartstrings. “My teenage years were spent playing fiddle at steel guitar conventions where I would be in a house band, and play hours upon hours with legends like John Hughey (Vince Gill) and Tom Brumley (Buck Owens). To me, steel guitar and fiddle go together like peaches and cream, and I just felt in my soul I needed to write this song.”

Fleenor has another single, “Good Ol’ Girls,” set to drop later this week.