Jada Star and her band will be performing a set in the Acoustic Tent!
With her breathtaking debut album, Tell Me I’m Your Angel, singer-songwriter Jada Star is not simply creating music, she’s also carrying forward a family legacy. A member of the renowned, East Tennessee Parton-Owens musical family dynasty and the niece of Dolly Parton, Jada’s personal musical destiny took time to manifest, even though she
grew up surrounded by music.
“I call myself a late bloomer,” Jada says. “I was incredibly shy as a kid — quiet and reserved with my thoughts and feelings. I wrote a lot of poetry as a way to get my feelings out, but I wanted to help other people do the same by becoming a psychiatrist or a therapist. When I was in my late teens, my mom taught me three chords on the guitar and said, ‘Now you can put music to the poems you write because that’s what we do in this family,’ and I ended up really liking it.”
Her songwriting continued to be a mostly private affair until she was in her early 30s, when her Aunt Dolly, made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. “I was about to go back to school to finish my studies when Dolly offered me this great opportunity to work with the family show at Dollywood,” Jada says. “Immediately after the first show, people in the crowd started sharing their stories with us and telling us deeply personal stories about how much Dolly or our family’s music meant to them. That was it. I knew what I wanted to do.”
Jada spent almost a decade performing with her family members at Dollywood where
she sharpened her performance skills and found her own songwriting voice. “I write what I’m feeling,” she says. “All my songs are very personal to me. They’re very true — either about me or a situation that I’ve watched a person I care about go through.”
In early 2021, Jada moved to Nashville where she continued her musical journey, exploring a fusion of the traditional, high lonesome sounds of the East Tennessee Mountains with modern pop music and an emotional confidence and honesty that has
drawn comparisons to Nanci Griffith and Carly Simon. That merger of varied musical
traditions and deeply personal songwriting takes the spotlight on her debut album, Tell
Me I’m Your Angel, now available on most major streaming platforms.
Opening with the powerful “Keeper of My Heart,” a song that examines the moment of decision to both accept and give love with honesty and a heart laid bare, Jada spins 10 tales of relationships filled with both heartbreak and joy, commitment and apprehension. It’s an album filled with honesty and a view of romance lacking in naivete. The type of relationships that can only be found through coming to terms with the value of honesty about oneself and their partner and the bravery required to be true to yourself.
“I enjoy being 100% myself,” Jada says. “I just want to make music, tell stories to people and hear their people’s stories. There’s not a job on Earth that sounds better than that.” In addition to her first solo album, she recently appeared on the ABC television reality show, Claim to Fame, and performed at this year’s Fairport's Cropredy Convention festival in the UK — all further steps in finding her own path in music.
But even though Jada is now following her own destiny, the traditions she’s learned from family remains the heart of her music. “We don’t get to pick the family we’re born in,” Jada says. “I say all the time I’m so thankful that the plan of the universe decided to drop me into this family. I’m so fortunate to have all the people around that have taught me so many things and have told me their stories. My grandmother taught me how to sew, and while she was teaching me I got to hear the story of the coat of many colors from the woman that sewed it. That meant so much to me, and I want to share that feeling and inspire other people to share their stories.”
-Randy Fox
Jada Star and her band will be performing a set in the Acoustic Tent!
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Jada's debut solo album