Maybe my musical story begins at my first major public performance in which I sung the leading Hen in the musical Rooster Rag aged 7 in a school performance singing the lyrics ‘Every time I lay an egg I think of you’! (I still remember the song by heart even now! ) Or maybe it was destined from birth when I was born (in Dublin, Ireland) into a largely Irish family with all the passion and appetite for music that automatically seems to bring (guitars out every opportunity for a great sing song with anyone who was passing through). I think for now, I’ll begin in my late teens when I took a weekend job singing jazz standards in a wine bar/restaurant in Cambridge where I grew up.

I learned a whole load of jazz standards and popular songs and teamed up with a piano player. I fell in love with the old jazz songs and sung my heart out to whoever happened to be dining that day. I never looked back! Managing to avoid getting a ‘proper job’, I’ve been performing since then singing in many different styles including Jazz, Blues, Pop, Funk, (even classical back in the day!…) and discovering and developing my own style from there. It’s all about the song -the truth and emotion that you put into the song. The purpose for singing to me is to communicate something real. For example, I always find it frustrating to listen to an ‘amazing’ very technically talented singer who has forgotten the heart and soul of the song or equally is not singing about anything in particular. I am committed to the journey of seeking total honesty in song.

I have learned from many great singers and generous friends and mentors along the way (and I’ll never stop learning), but also through the simple hard slog of gigging lots and I guess what they call ‘paying my dues’. So, after all the experience of performing live in different settings, meeting and collaborating with some truly great musicians; and whilst simultaneously collecting some of life’s marvellous experiences in all their glory and their challenge (love, hope, disappointment, joy, successes, failures and all the rest), I got to putting together a few songs to share and we set about recording my debut album. Most of the songs are written by me or co-written by me with another songwriting friend. I love working with other writers too because I think that 2 brain’s and 2 creative universes together provide many more possibilities then 1 alone. Lots of the people I work with feel the same about that. In fact, there is a kind of magic that happens when 2 particular writers I am very fond of -Juan-Luis Ayala and Rob Adediran put their heads together and I have ended up ditching a few of my own songs to make way on the album for 3 of theirs that they have amazingly written for me. One of these 3 is my single Love Is Surprising which had a 3rd fabulous co-writer on-board called Silje Haavet who I also totally rate.

So…. with way more then all the songs one girl could possibly need for her album, we paired it down and picked the chosen few (always painful to say goodbye to those songs that didn’t make it!). We wanted to make sure that all the songs were a unit together, that the album was coherent as a whole. The album seemed to take on a life of it’s own. It has a message of hope and second chances, of struggle for purpose (for growth), and the over coming of those struggles.

The next step was to put together a group of incredible musicians and collaborators, which I was lucky enough to be able to do from all the amazing people around me. This team includes producers Juan-Luis Ayala, Sam Grimley, David Grant and engineer Richard Woodcraft, as well as endless awesome musicians who themselves can name drop till the Kingdom comes…

On a low budget with sky-high standards, it took not a few months but a few years to put together, and has been a real labour of love for many. I have been lucky to have an incredible team around me, and wonderful support from everyone involved from the production team to the musicians, artwork, videos-everything. I have totally loved every step of the process and learned SO much along the way. The music industry is an ever-morphing minefield of treasures and dangers to navigate but I believe that despite whatever the road ahead looks like, and whatever fears we may carry, if you have a passion in your heart to achieve something then you simply must throw yourself into achieving whatever that is -because that is what will make your heart sing. Life is too short for the ‘safe’ option!! We learn along the way, and the journey always involves great risk. As Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote in a famous poem ‘it is better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all’ and I suppose that’s what it felt like to set about the seemingly impossible task of making an album of the quality I envisioned when you have a pocket full of no resources at all and some very weighty dreams! We didn’t know if we would pull it off at the start but it was worth the risk, and of course we did pull it off or you wouldn’t be reading this! What ends up happening is that after you make your first risky step, the next resource appears and on queue, without fail the resources become available just as you need them. I believe that is what happens if you truly follow your God-given hearts desires. And believe me, this album is a testament to that!

I hope you enjoy my music, and be sure to spread the word if you do! It’s all about supporting the individuals and creative work that we believe in these days ? and that is why I have also made a ‘community’ page of other artists that I know and think are great- I hope you enjoy their music too.

So for now, thank you for visiting my site! Be sure to stop by and have a listen to what I’m up to anytime! And as for you, find out what makes your heart tick and go for it! Long may my journey, and yours continue.

So for now, I will leave you with this beautiful old Irish prayer from my Irish roots for you:

‘May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rain fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.

All my love,
Jennifer xXx