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Polishing Stars

from Heart of the Mountain by Jeni & Billy

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Lauded roots singer and Jean Ritchie scholar, Susie Glaze, writes in her review of "Heart of the Mountain" for Folkworks, "During and after a good hearing of this great new CD project, you’ll feel like you’ve spent a fine long visit in the mountains with this family, remembering the generations, and that they’re all new friends of yours."

    Comes in a eco-friendly paper envelope with artwork by Jeni Hankins and her father, Greg Hankins. Includes CD with 27 tracks, fully illustrated lyric booklet, and a newspaper including the spoken word selections from the CD as well as a recipe for Aunt Erma's Gingerbread, poems, and essays.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Heart of the Mountain via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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      $20 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

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  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 26 Jeni Hankins releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of String Unraveller Demo May 2021, The American Dream (Harlis and Freda), Voice Memo Demo, I'm Letting Go of You – Kitchen Single, The Wondarium: Songs For Kids, A Body is a Delicate House, I Fell Into the Fire, The Loneliest Snowman, I Fell Into The Fire – Limited Edition Handprinted, and 18 more. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $181.68 USD or more (20% OFF)

     

about

A song about electricity, the international space station, and Heaven based on a story that Jeni's grandmother told her.

lyrics

Mama, she told me, when she was a girl,
Grandpa, he built them a windcharger
that powered a bulb in the kitchen at night
where they’d sit with their Bible to seek out the light.

I hope I am fit for polishing stars.
When my chance comes, I hope I am called.
I’m practicing now inside my heart.
I hope I am fit for polishing stars.

Mama and I look up at the sky
that sparkles and glitters on a mountain night.
We follow the light of the satellites bright,
spinning in wonder beneath the starlight.

Once I asked Mama, “Where do we go
when our bodies are gone and
our breath is no more?”
“If we are lucky, we go very far;
we go to the heavens to polish the stars.”

credits

from Heart of the Mountain, track released May 1, 2016
Jeni Hankins, vocals, guitar.
Billy Kemp, vocals, piano, National Resophonic guitar, tambourine.

license

all rights reserved

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about

Jeni Hankins London, UK

Jeni Hankins grew up in the coalfields of Appalachian in Southwest Virginia among a family of miners, moonshiners, and journalists. Her writing pulls the grit, gumption, and keen sense of observation out of that heritage like drawing water from her grandmother’s well.

In every song, Jeni’s “true sense of place shines through – old as the hills, but brand new at the same time.”
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