Jamie Burke makes Unexpected Country Music Career in NYC

Jamie Burke was born in Austin, Texas and moved when her dad took his DJ career to Denver. So the country/rock/pop singer spent a lot of time going backstage and meeting the stars as a kid. Eventually, she picked up her own guitar for Nashville and made a pretty good beginning. But ten years performing the same venues got boring, and Burke set her strings on New York City. Her introduction last January, though, had her second guessing the decision.

Dropped off in front of her new apartment on a dreary, wet and cold evening, she felt pretty compromised among all her possessions. Not quite ready to throw up her hands, she was rethinking even that when a couple suddenly approached. “Are you going to rob me,” Burke fearfully thought.

Of course, the hand the couple offered has turned out to be common place, and it wasn’t the only surprising thing she found in making a home here. “I turn around and every single person is watching and listening,” Burke remembered coming out for her first performance.

In contrast, Nashville too often has audiences attuned to their phones, and aside from the acceptance country music has gotten at her shows, the real culture shock is how much New Yorkers appreciate art. Still, Burke was pretty nervous as she made the first approach. “I was shaking on the subway, because I thought it was my last shot,” Burke revealed.

Long before reaching that precipice, Burke taught herself guitar, sang in church choirs and took in a steady diet of listening music. “I love 90s country, soft, pop rock of the 70s and hard rock from the 80s,” she said.

A defining moment came when her father booked Reba McEntire for a benefit concert. “Reba did this epic costume change during the show,” said Burke. “The lights went out, and she was in a completely different outfit. So I was like, ‘I want to do this some day.’”

She did her homework nonetheless, and elaborate daydreams didn’t keep her from going to college to study English and Music Business. However, Burke came to a realization over time. “I was learning more on a bar stool than I was learning in the classroom,” she joked.

In other words, the singer had a pretty good business sense from her father and playing live makes the best teacher in her estimation. “You got to get thrown in there,” Burke asserted.

As for her writing process, the guitar helps her throw down. “Sometimes I’ll have lyrics and then I pick around until I find something,” said Burke. “Or sometimes there’s a full on melody, and I need to figure out what key is missing.”

But in a larger sense, country music appeals because the stanzas go beyond just expressing basic feelings and emotions. “I’m a storyteller,” said Burke, who has appeared at locales such as the Bitter End, Pine Box Rock Shop and Silvana.

So she couldn’t help herself one night outside a restaurant. Some guy clad in a leather jacket was dragging away on a cigarette and all there girls were checking him out. This had her wondering, why do girls always go for the bad boys. “As soon as I said that, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a song,” Burke revealed.

Bad Boy does not apply in her case, and musically, she’s made the most of the good guy in her life. “It’s crazy that in the moment you give up on love, and you’re not looking or trying, you meet someone who knocks your socks off,” she said.

Thus, Unexpected is the resulting EP, and will soon be joined in release by Reckless and Relentless. A culmination of older songs with a few news ones, the upswing also has her hooked on with a label called Oregano.

But it’s more a booking company that helps her get gigs throughout the Northeast, and that works just fine with her career aspirations. “I used to want fame and fortune, the record deal and all. But the more that I’ve done music, the more I realize I just want to do it full time and not have to pick up any side gigs,” she concluded.

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