Here's my first ukulele song, "What This Really Means."New Song called "Beautiful." Enjoy!Beautiful
..I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace)I'm one of those mid-western kids from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere who moved to LA to pursue music. I'm from the Bible Belt and it's had its positive and negative effects on me. Sturgis, Michigan, to be exact; and no it's not the Sturgis where they hold the Harley motorcycle rallies - it's just not that cool. If I were in front of you, I would point at the spot on my palm that signified the place just north of the Indiana border actually called, "Michiana.." That's about the only thing I enjoy about telling people where I'm from - except I that there are very large lakes everywhere, and that it snows, which is nice except for when it snows for nine months. I digress.. Ehem. It was in this very small, tight-knit, conservative, and sometimes elitist community that I first realized my knack for writing songs. In the second grade, my mom got me an old player piano I learned to play "Heart and Soul" and "Chopsticks" on, but never really took lessons. We moved all over the place so the piano became furniture at my grandmother's house for some time, and then we re-inherited it when we moved to MI. At the time I didn't have a television, so the piano became my world. Then one bright, sunny day I learned that my world had changed - or exploded if you want the real picture. During an ever so infamous move, the piano flew off a moving truck and smashed all over Maple St. You could say I've had some bad luck with instruments... Anyway, that was a bump in the road, but I kept moving forward - determined to continue my quest to create music. I sang in my churches band and in choir at school as well as had many shining, leading lady roles in my high school Musicals. I was also a "band geek." That's right, I played the cornet (small trumpet for those of you who are unfamiliar) and marched during football season and wore that god-awful, thick, hot uniform with the plum. Those were sweaty days... I digress. Anyway, when I was a junior in High School, I was introduced to my friend's older boyfriend who played guitar. I thought, 'how much easier it must be to write songs on an instrument you could carry with you wherever you went,' so I decided I wanted to learn to play the guitar too. He showed me a pawn shop in town where I found my first guitar. I bought my new "Blondie look-a-like" for a couple hundred bucks I saved up from working at Miller's grocery, and I was ready to go. He showed me a few chords and that's when my journey of writing began. About a day later my first song came out and I named it, "A Million Tears..." hahaha.. no seriously. It was kind of country. It also won me first place in my high school's talent show that year (a whopping $100.00 AND my name in the Sturgis journal wowee wow wow!). I remember feeling like it was in my blood to write and sing. Well my dad had been a songwriter so I guess it kind of was.. I had memories of sitting with my brother and watching my dad play songs he wrote like "Life is a Roller Coaster Ride." I started learning harmony from singing along with him when I was in the second grade. I also learned about performing from my grandma who sang "specials" at church as well so Carnegie Hall eat your heart out - I was born to rock! All I could think about was music - well except for that cute guy that was on the soccer team, but other than that, songs just kept creeping their way into my mind and onto pages. I began singing in talent shows, winning them, singing in church groups and other events, but really wanted to get out of Sturgis as soon as possible. So at 18, right after high school, I moved to New York City. It was a ballsy move, I actually can't believe I did that but I did. I attended AMDA, a musical theater school, and wrote songs on the side. I lived on the Upper West side during that time, blading to school (roller blading for those of you who don't know the term) and back to my "dorm room" (try closet) that I shared with a proclaimed witch (which at the time freaked the hell out of me). We actually had a COMMUNITY bathroom which, would have been fine if our community didn't consist of patients from the psych ward. But I digress again. The next couple of years I lived in the east village where I sang at a mission on 7th St. and 3rd Ave., while playing in the subways to make grocery money (my best day was $74 an hour at the Columbus Circle station). I smoked cloves, had a German room mate who burnt down our apartment, and had no clue where I was headed in life, but I was glad because I knew that music would always be this mystic, beautiful thing that I had that was all my own. Many years later now, I live in Los Angeles - Miracle Mile to be exact. My husband and I moved here in October of 07'. For a period of time I took a break from pursuing music. I sort of vanished from the map so to speak - in suburban Thousand Oaks. During those years - I both lost and found myself, wrote a lot of great songs, had a band, disbanded the band, and shared music in random places and times. But I've realized that those "lost years" weren't actually lost at all. They've only made me the BEST EVER (emphasis on sarcastic humor here). I'm so happy to be in the city again - it's just great to be in a place where things are moving and you can feel like who you were created to be and doing what you love, is possible, you know? But of course in this particular move, I accidentally ran over my first guitar with my Honda Element... I know, I know - what the Ef man??!! This ridiculous story is in a blog you can read all about called "The Day the Music Died," where you can see my impromptu photo shoot of my trashed guitar. Ya know, I guess it was just time for a new season... And that's my story in a rather large nutshell. xo Jamie
