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DETROIT’S COUNTRY GALPAULINA JAYNE FUSES ROCK AND COUNTRY TO GET ON THE MUSIC MAP
Paulina Jayne is Detroit’s offering of a new brand of country music that
she has coined“urban country.”It’s an edgier, Detroit-rock style of country
music that this wild, golden-locked 18-year-old ingénue writes and
performs herself.
Now in her last year of high school, Paulina Jayne – as she is
professionally known – has opened for Sheryl Crow at the DTE Music
Theater with an audience of 6,000 people; shared the marquee with
country legends Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert for the Watershed
Music Festival at the Gorge in Washington State; has opened for Chase
Rice to a packed house at Live Nation’s St. Andrews Hall; is the subject
of a documentary feature film currently in production; and was gifted an
invitation by Grammy Award-winning producer Toby Wright to attend
a private audition for NBC’s hit show The Voice in Music City, U.S.A. –
Nashville,Tenn.
Paulina Jayne, the student from Grosse Pointe, has a 4.0 grade
point average and was captain of her basketball team. She was elected
to homecoming court and has two proactive and involved parents, Deb
and Harold, who keep her grounded. A typical evening at the family
homestead? Homework followed by household chores. When musical
inspiration strikes, chore duties are put on pause and an instrument
– piano, drums or guitar – can be heard from across the house as Jayne
works out a riff or bridge. Once the muse has been satisfied, mom reminds
her daughter where the broom is and chore duties continue, though the
playful teenager might choose to mix it up a bit by putting on her mother’s
dress coat to do them in.
“I have a constant soundtrack in my mind,” she says, and it often
gets her into trouble at school.“I get passes to the girls’bathroom during
school, so that I can record new songs on my iPhone,”she says.“I need to
get the song out. It’s distracting me from paying attention in class.”
She credits her mother, who is also a singer and a classically trained
pianist herself, for her love of music.“I really fell into music because of my
mom. It was more of a forced stay. My mom made me play piano,”Jayne
says.“I originally hated it, but then I grew to love the instrument, and the
guitar became my favorite.”
Jayne has been writing music since she was 9 years old and has
over 200 songs in her arsenal. Her first professional gig was the Stars
and Stripes Festival in downtown Mt. Clemens.“There were a bunch of
different acts there. I was 13, and it was a blast,”she explains. She signed
with a management team at age 15 and has been playing locally as well as
a few national shows – the rest, she says, is history.
With three music videos under her belt, the first,“Get Back on Your
Feet,”garnered nominations for a 2013 Detroit Music Award and the 2013
Uptown Film Festival. It also received a 2013 Student Emmy Award as it
was produced by Madonna University’s Capstone Film Class.
Jayne recently returned to Nashville where she has been working
with Emmy Award-winning songwriter and music producer Trey Bruce
on her upcoming EP and her audition for The Voice. Her position on the
opportunity?“Whatever God has planned will come to be,”she says.
What resonates for everyone who meets Paulina Jayne is her calm,
down-to-earth demeanor.“I think a defining moment for me was learning
from Sheryl Crow that it’s extremely important to be authentic. We were
back stage at the DTE concert. I was being introduced to Kid Rock,
Sheryl’s band, music people, and when I was brought to Sheryl, she was
Skyping with her kids. She didn’t have any makeup on. She was wearing
sweatpants and a T-shirt,”Jayne recalls.“It was a real moment for me. It
showed me that these people are just people. Authenticity is the most
important thing.”
Next up for this fast-rising Detroit country singer? Paulina Jayne is
looking forward to this next semester at school where she is taking a class on
music production; her upcoming performances with Live Nation; working
with her new management team atThe 513 Agency; shooting a music video
for her song“Hello Saturday Night;”a spring break trip to Florida with her
girlfriends; graduating this summer; more writing with Trey Bruce; coaching
with Herschel Boone; filming with her documentary crew and attending
Belmont University in the fall where she’ll study music business.
Oh, and finding out if she made it to the next round of The Voice.
Jayne reports that if chosen, it’s“Team Blake all the way!” — Jennifer
Champagne
paulinajayne.com
Paulina Jayne
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photo:CopyrightAPImages(AssociatedPress)
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