About Me
Born during the baby boom in 1960 and raised in southern California’s infamous Orange County, Jamie grew up along with two brothers in the shadow of Disney, Fender guitars and Hollywood. The bedroom community of Fullerton in the sixties and seventies was a suburban hamlet for middle-class wage earners commuting to Los Angeles. Jamie inherited his gift for writing from his father and music from his mother. The influences that cultivated Jamie’s early musical development were rising up all around the “Southland.†The Beach Boys were utilizing the complex vocal harmonies that popularized the California surfer myth in the sixties and the quintessential singer-songwriter was being birthed in the hills and clubs around Hollywood in the seventies.The post-Woodstock era found many free-spirited young people scrambling for answers to spiritual questions that were not being satisfied with the hippie rhetoric of the day. Disillusionment prompted a collective spiritual movement that swept throughout southern California and resulted in many counter-culture youth embracing a personal, life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ. Jamie decided to follow Jesus during the spring of 1975 in the wake of that tremendous movement. He soon realized that his gift for songwriting, singing and playing the guitar would find a ministry opportunity after hearing the rock-influenced worship music coming out of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and Maranatha! Music. This encounter led to a life-long dedication to writing worship music and leading worship in the local church here and abroad.After a failed attempt at Golden West College in the late seventies, Jamie left southern California to play in a series of music groups, some secular, some Christian. After six years on the road which included a two and one half year stint in the group Truth, Jamie moved to Mobile, Alabama in the summer of 1985 to marry Brenda. He also made good on his goal to finish college at the University of Mobile. The worship company, Integrity Music, opened it’s doors in Mobile that same summer. After graduating college and welcoming two children, Josh and Betsy, Jamie began to cultivate a relationship with Integrity Music which culminated in the writing of the classic song, Ancient of Days with co-writer Gary Sadler.Jamie soon became an exclusive writer with Integrity and went on to write and record several worship classics including Firm Foundation, Because We Believe, Garments of Praise (Revival in Belfast) and My Heart (Already There), for artists like Ron Kenoly, Don Moen, Kim Hill (Focus On the Family), The Motor City Mass Choir, Newsong, Truth, Petra, Promise Keepers, Jeff and Sheri Easter, and others. He has several Gold and Platinum recordings to his credit.Jamie has toured as lead guitarist with artists such as Don Moen and Ron Kenoly. He has ministered here and abroad with Integrity Music's Worship International, the Worship Group with Gerrit Gustafson and Maranatha! Music's Worship Leader Workshops. For four years Jamie played lead guitar with the Maranatha! Praise Band and can be heard on the Praise Band recordings 7, 8 and 9.Making his home just south of Nashville with wife, Brenda, Jamie currently runs his own independent publishing company. He amicably left Integrity Music in 2000 and continues to write, record, lead worship, travel and speak to congregations throughout the world.His passion is to encourage the local church to fulfill Jesus’ greatest commandment in Mark 12:28-34: to wholeheartedly worship God while serving others. He also has a strong desire to equip young people in the area of worship through the ministry he developed and leads called Worship Foundry www.worshipfoundry.com. He is currently a worship leader at World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro, TN www.wochurch.org.For over thirty years God has instilled a passion in Jamie Harvill for worship and serving the church. The next thirty are already in the making.Jamie will be releasing a new CD very soon entitled Incredible God. Listen to samples in the media player.
