Courtney Jaye

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, singer and songwriter Courtney Jaye relocated to Atlanta while still in high school, where she first began composing songs following the sudden loss of a friend. After completing her studies she embarked on extensive travels, working as an acupuncturist in Flagstaff, Arizona, by day and performing with a band at night. Her journey eventually brought her to the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where she developed a deep appreciation for the locale’s flowing rhythms and relaxed mood. Only after she returned to the mainland and established a temporary base in Georgia did the sounds absorbed in Hawaii start to shape her own material. Athens introduced her to both an early romance and a lively, formative music community. She moved again, this time to Austin, Texas, where the dissolution of her partnership left her with an inexhaustible reserve of emotion to explore in her writing.

A mutual acquaintance arranged an audition with A&R executives at Island Def Jam Music Group, resulting in an immediate signing. Her major-label introduction arrived with the 2005 album Traveling Light, and several tracks subsequently appeared on programs including Laguna Beach and One Tree Hill. The relationship with Island proved brief, prompting her to release independent recordings for the remainder of the decade, among them 2007’s Who’ll Stop the Rain. Her most fully realized work to date, The Exotic Sounds of Courtney Jaye, appeared in 2010 and featured a duet with Band of Horses frontman Ben Bridwell, mixing by Guster’s Joe Pisapia, and a fusion of Laurel Canyon folk with tropical pop. She remained active through additional collaborations, among them a vocal contribution to a track on Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s 2010 release.