Jenee Fleenor is the first woman to win CMA Musician of the Year. She took the award in 2019, the first fiddler to win it in more than 20 years, and held it for five straight years. She grew up on fiddle contests and bluegrass jams in Arkansas, got her Nashville start in Larry Cordle’s band at 18, and now plays with George Strait’s Ace in the Hole Band and her own bluegrass group, Wood Box Heroes.
Why Fleenor matters
Fiddle almost vanished from country radio in the 2010s. Fleenor kept it there. Her fiddle is on number one records by Jon Pardi, Blake Shelton, and Cody Johnson, and her five CMA trophies told Nashville that the instrument still sells. She did it with a bluegrass player’s ear. She learned in jam sessions, and she plays what the song needs. Her band Wood Box Heroes brought that ear back to bluegrass radio with the most played song of 2024.
Life and career
Fleenor was born in Springdale, Arkansas. She started violin at age three in the Suzuki method, with her father on violin and her mother on piano. At five she heard Bob Wills’s Faded Love and wanted to play fiddle. By ten she held the fiddle chair in the band at a local opry house. She played fiddle contests and bluegrass jams around Springdale, where Lonesome River Band singer Brandon Rickman first heard her at age 11 or 12.
She moved to Nashville in 2001 at 18 to attend Belmont University. Within weeks she sat in with Larry Cordle’s Lonesome Standard Time at the Station Inn. Cordle hired her a few days later. She left college to play full time. With Cordle she recorded her first session, played the Grand Ole Opry for the first time, and wrote her first songs. She then toured with Terri Clark and Martina McBride.
In the 2010s she added mandolin and acoustic guitar to stay working when fiddle demand dropped. She toured with Blake Shelton and Steven Tyler, joined the house band on NBC’s The Voice for eight years, and became Jon Pardi’s fiddler. She won CMA Touring Musician of the Year in 2015. In 2019 she released her debut album, Fiddle & Steel, and won both CMA Musician of the Year and the ACM Specialty Instrument award.
In 2023 she formed Wood Box Heroes with Josh Martin, Barry Bales, and Matt Menefee. Their single Cross the Line was the most played song on bluegrass radio in 2024. In 2024 she joined George Strait’s Ace in the Hole Band after the death of longtime Strait fiddler Gene Elders, one of her fiddle heroes. She co-wrote A Song to Sing with Chris Stapleton, Miranda Lambert, and Jesse Frasure, and it earned a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song in 2026.
Playing style
Fleenor plays in tune. That was the first thing Cordle noticed, and it is still the trait that gets her hired. Her Suzuki training gave her a clean left hand, and years of contest fiddling gave her the double stops and shuffle bowing of the Texas and western swing styles she heard in Bob Wills.
On records she plays for the song. Cordle put it best: when it is time to wail she wails, but she knows what not to play. Her fiddle parts on country hits are short, singable hooks with a wide vibrato. In Wood Box Heroes she opens up and takes bluegrass breaks, and she sings lead. She also plays mandolin and guitar on sessions.
Influences and legacy
Her fiddle heroes include Mark O’Connor, Rob Hajacos, and Gene Elders, and she names Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, and Steve Wariner as models. Her bluegrass influences are Tony Rice, J.D. Crowe, Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas, the Lonesome River Band, and the Osborne Brothers. Steel guitarist Hal Rugg, who played on the Osborne Brothers records, was a hero she met as a teenager at steel guitar conventions.
Larry Cordle gave her a start and remains her co-writer. As a songwriter she has cuts by Dolly Parton with the Grascals, Del McCoury, Blake Shelton, Reba McEntire, Chris Stapleton, and Miranda Lambert. Big Blue Raindrops, written with Cordle, appears on McCoury’s Grammy winning The Streets of Baltimore. She has judged and inspired a wave of young women fiddlers who saw her on the CMA stage.
Signature tunes and songs
Faded Love Fiddle & Steel Cross the Line Wayfaring Stranger In the Pines.
Essential recordings
Fiddle & Steel (2019) Heartache Medication, Jon Pardi (Capitol Nashville, 2019) 444, Wood Box Heroes (2024)
Awards and honors
CMA Touring Musician of the Year (2015) CMA Musician of the Year (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023) ACM Specialty Instrument Player of the Year (2019, 2022, 2024) Grammy nomination, Best Country Song, A Song to Sing (2026) IBMA Song of the Year nomination, I Am Strong, the Grascals with Dolly Parton (2011)
Watch and listen
Fleenor plays her title tune Fiddle & Steel on Larry’s Country Diner. Watch the shuffle bowing and the double stops under the steel.
Wood Box Heroes play The Breeze at the Grand Ole Opry in August 2025. Listen to how Fleenor’s fiddle sits with the band.
What to learn from Fleenor
Learn Faded Love, the Bob Wills tune that made her want to play fiddle. It is a slow waltz in D with long double stops, and it teaches intonation better than any exercise. The technique to steal is her fills. Play along with a Jon Pardi record and play only in the gaps between vocal lines. Keep each fill short and end it before the singer comes back in. That is the skill that made her the most hired fiddler in Nashville.
Sources
Jenee Fleenor, official site, Bio Famed fiddler Jenee Fleenor jams in bluegrass, Bluegrass Today Jenee Fleenor, Wikipedia Wood Box Heroes, 444, Discogs Jon Pardi, Write You a Song, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more players. Alison Krauss and Mark O’Connor are her models. Aubrey Haynie and Stuart Duncan hold the other first call fiddle chairs in Nashville studios. Bob Wills wrote the tune that started her.