By Ed Karvoski Jr., Contributing Writer
Southborough – Jessie Chris of Southborough embodies a mixture of New England and Nashville.
She’s completing her senior year at Algonquin Regional High School online while pursuing a career in country music. After recently recording her first album and touring for three weeks, she performed in her hometown at this year’s Southborough Heritage Day Celebration.
“I grew up going to Heritage Day every year as a little girl, so it was really special to be able to sing there,” she said.
Chris debuted on stage at age 5 in the Southborough Players production of “The Wizard of Oz.” She played a munchkin in the Lullaby League.
“I probably had the smallest part in the whole show, but I thought it was such a big deal,” she acknowledged. “I was so proud of my part. I thought I was a superstar.”
Her favorite musical style became country at age 9 soon after her younger brother received an electric guitar for Christmas. She took more of an interest in the instrument than he did.
“I asked my mom to take me to buy a guitar – acoustic instead of electric,” she noted.
She took private guitar lessons with Miguel Perez, a graduate of Berklee College of Music, who soon became her mentor. He’d recommend songs by country artists for her to play, which he considered to be compatible with her voice.
Chris continued performing in musicals while attending Neary Elementary and Trottier Middle schools. Then she began studying music more seriously in Boston while in seventh to ninth grades at Fay School. She wrote her first song as an eight-grader.
“I struggled with bullying a lot growing up and doing musicals,” she said. “I wasn’t the jock athlete, so it made me a target for bullies. One girl bullied me every day. I wrote my first song about this girl. I realized that it’s my way of coping with things.”
More recently, Chris was performing in the Midwest and shared those experiences of being bullied with the tour manager. That led to her getting booked for the Allstar Nation Tour, a peer-to-peer anti-bullying music campaign.
She has since delivered a message against bullies while performing with that tour at middle and high schools in Texas. It’s a message that she’s spreading both on and offstage. She cites an encounter after a show as particularly memorable.
“There was this girl sitting on the floor in the bathroom and she thanked me,” Chris relayed. “Then she said, ‘I hope that kids here got the message. I wait in the bathroom in between classes because I’m bullied so badly.’ It’s moments like these when it really hits me that it’s such a problem.”
Chris will rejoin the Allstar Nation Tour in December in Florida.
Her debut album, “Wildfire,” was recorded in Nashville and will be released soon. It features 11 original songs, six of which she wrote.
“I wanted to work with other writers in Nashville who have been doing this longer than me,” she explained.
She also got to work again with her early mentor. Perez now lives in Nashville and produced her album. She was pleased that he recently visited Southborough to play lead guitar onstage with her at the Heritage Day Celebration.
“He’s like family now,” Chris said of Perez.
Among her future plans are researching record labels, getting her diploma at Algonquin and relocating at some point.
“I definitely want to move to Nashville eventually,” she shared. “It’s like a small, connected town; and it’s also a big melting pot. Everyone is so accepting of who you are.”
Stay connected with Chris at facebook.com/jessiechrismusic.