California Bluegrass Association Honors Jeanie Poling as San Francisco Scene Mourns Singer

The California Bluegrass Association published an In Memoriam tribute on Sept. 15 for Jeanie Poling, the San Francisco bluegrass singer who died on Aug. 26 at age 67 after a three-and-a-half-year battle with two rare forms of cancer. The tribute, written by Jody Richardson, described Poling as a central figure whose ‘powerful contributions’ shaped the Bay Area bluegrass community for decades.

A Life in Bluegrass

Poling performed alongside her husband, Chuck Poling, for more than 40 years as the duo Jeanie & Chuck’s Country Roundup. She played guitar while Chuck played mandolin, and the pair specialized in traditional bluegrass and country music, often performing in cowboy suits and singing into a single microphone.

The couple hosted the Bluegrass Country Jam at the Plough and Stars in San Francisco for two decades until the COVID-19 pandemic shut it down. The three-hour sessions drew between 15 and 30 musicians and typically ended at 11 p.m. with Jeanie leading the group in the bluegrass standard ‘Drink Up and Go Home.’

Poling was a Long Island transplant who became a San Francisco city planner and PTSA president. Chuck Poling was a San Francisco native. The couple met in 1982 at the San Francisco Folk Music Club, where Jeanie was singing ‘I’m an Old Cowhand From the Rio Grande.’ They shared 44 years of marriage.

Continued Performing Through Illness

Despite battling two rare cancers for three years, Poling continued to perform at farmers’ markets and street fairs under the shortened name Jeanie and Chuck, always wearing her cowboy hat and pointy-toed boots. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that she kept playing almost until her death.

The California Bluegrass Association tribute noted that her passing seemed sudden for those who loved her. ‘Jeanie’s been so brave and so tough through that I guess a lot of us figured she could fight off everything,’ Chuck Poling said in the tribute.

Chuck Poling also told the Chronicle, ‘Jeanie was a remarkable singer, with a powerful voice. She could really get a room to shut up and listen.’

In a Facebook post, Chuck Poling wrote that his wife died from pneumonia after her cancer battle. ‘She fought the good fight but knew when to throw in the towel,’ he wrote. He described her as ‘a beautiful, bright, funny, and oh, so talented woman’ and said she made all his dreams come true.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Connection

Jeanie Poling was a longtime attendee of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that she never missed a day of the festival for 20 years and could always be found at the Rooster Stage, where Chuck Poling serves as the announcer.

The 2026 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival is scheduled for Oct. 2-4 in Golden Gate Park. Jeanie Poling will not be at the Rooster Stage for the first time in two decades.

Jeanie & Chuck’s Country Roundup performed at the festival in 2002, when it was still known as Strictly Bluegrass. The duo also played at the San Francisco Bluegrass and Old Time Festival.

Community Tribute

The California Bluegrass Association’s tribute highlighted Poling’s role as a community builder. ‘Jeanie approached music with pure joy,’ Richardson wrote. ‘She didn’t have the hangups that ego and self-doubt bring to so many of us musicians. She lived in the reality that a relationship with music could be simple, and dang if it felt good then let’s keep on doing it!’

The tribute also noted that Poling and her husband gave many San Francisco bluegrass musicians their start through their monthly local showcases and the Plough and Stars jam. ‘Jeanie cultivated a vast array of musicians who are more determined and confident in themselves for having been touched by her, beyond what she even knew,’ Richardson wrote.

Chuck Poling said in his Facebook post that he was being cared for by his children, Isabel and Reuben, and Reuben’s wife Kat. ‘I could say so much about Jeanie but can easily sum it up by saying she made all my dreams come true,’ he wrote. ‘I shared 44 years of true love — that elusive magic that so many people search their whole lives and never find.’

Current Status

Jeanie Poling died on Aug. 26 at UCSF Stanyan, the hospital where her husband was born. No public memorial service or tribute concert has been announced. The California Bluegrass Association’s In Memoriam, published Sept. 15, remains the most recent official tribute from the bluegrass community.