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Jenn Bostic and Sarah Conant

Presented by Douglas Corner Cafe at Douglas Corner Cafe

October 27, 2011

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Born in Philadelphia, but raised in Waconia, Minnesota, a small town 30 miles west of Minneapolis, Jenn Bostic grew up singing with her family around the piano. Her father, a CEO of NordicTrack, played a variety of instruments, including accordion, while his daughter picked up a love of folk, blues, R&B, soul, show tunes and, eventually, country. Seeing her father die in front of her made her angry with God at first, but she later found an outlet for her sorrow in music and writing songs.

“The first time I was able to sit down at the piano and play, I shut my eyes and honestly felt a presence next to me,” she explains. “I poured my heart into those first few songs. The only way I could connect and be with my dad was when I played music. And I still feel that way.”

Jenn went on to perform wherever she could, taking voice, piano and acting lessons, singing in choirs and school musicals. She would sit in with a local roots band, Traveled Ground, that consisted of teachers from her middle and high school, and once included her father on accordion.

She went east to attend the famed Berklee School of Music, where she honed her performance skills while studying music education, a field still vitally important to her.

“One day, I’d love to open up a ‘School of Rock’ type institution,” she says. “Just really give back by working with people who are as passionate as I am about music.” She also discovered country music, singing for a cover band called DiggerDawg, which opened for a variety of performers, including Alan Jackson, Josh Turner, Brad Paisley, Reba McEntire and Gretchen Wilson, as well as traveling to Iraq and Kuwait on an Armed Forces Entertainment Tour to entertain the U.S. troops.

On graduation, she relocated to Nashville, where she fell in with the local community, taking part in writers’ rounds and performing on a regular basis. “Change,” another song on the new album, expresses her frustration at being told she was “too pop for country and too country for pop.” “Everybody’s so quick with advice/About who I’m supposed to be,” she sings, stating defiantly, while quoting Judy Garland, “Never be a second-rate version of somebody else.”

Also performing: Sarah Conant