Born A Musician and Never Giving Up

I am a singer/songwriter guitarist from Santa Cruz, CA striving to become successful in the music industry.

I started singing Blue Bayou by Linda Rondstadt age 3 and heard a Heart song called “Crazy On you” that made we really want to pick up the guitar at age 9. I immediately started writing songs. I was a very strong story writer in elementary school with a vivid imagination, so it transferred easily to music for me. Sometimes I can’t even practice guitar without stopping to write a song. It’s something I just can’t help. I feel that I was destined to be a musician. It’s all I can ever remember doing or thinking about.

At age 12, I wrote a song, called “Rock On”, that became popular in my neighborhood and at the local elementary schools. Students were performing the song and dancing to it at their talent show- even a second grade class got up and performed it for Open House! The song was about my hometown, Santa Cruz, and it was very inspiring for the students and teachers. To this day, I am still asked to come back to one of the local elementary schools to speak to the children about writing and poetry.

The children loved me, however my own peers loved the song at first and then ended up teasing me about it and made fun of it. But that’s when I realized I had the making of a hit song- my peers couldn’t get it out of their head and resented me for it. I then challenged myself to write different styles of songs that my peers would like, such as punk and metal songs.

Then people, mostly guys, teased me about how I played the guitar, which made me stronger; though I didn’t have the money for all the fancy lesson that they had. I took some lessons to help me until I couldn’t afford them anymore, then I started learning how to play by ear and started writing more intricate songs. After that, I started to play equally as good as they did, if not better. Looking at the shock on their faces was a very powerful feeling for me.

My peers would also at times say that I’d never make it in the music business, which only forced me to work harder. As they were playing local small venues, I ventured out and started to perform in other cities. Two of my original songs even won a contest through Seventeen Magazine and they flew me out to Philadelphia to perform. My songs have also had air play on college radio, such as UC Berkley, Santa Clara University, San Jose State & UCI Chicago. I’ve also played as many shows as possible and one thing led to anther and I had the privilege of performing for the San Francisco 49ers thee times. I also got a Guitar Sponsorship, which led me to performance at Winter NAMM 2011.

No matter what, no show was too small for me and because of that, I was playing at a local Middle School and someone saw me and recommended me to Laura Karpman- a four time Emmy Award Winning composer who asked me if I’d like to perform guitar for the “Hidden World of Girls” with a world famous female conductor named Marin Alsop and a live orchestra. Just recently I was fortunate enough to be found on youtube by Prisoner Productions, who picked me to be featured as one of the top young female musicians in the country on a new online show called “You Play Like a Girl”, airing on vevo.com. I will always cherish my experience in filming for the episode and I am eternally grateful for having been a part of it.

Find me at: jackierocks.com