JudyAnne Jackson’s favorite songwriters include Taylor Swift and Maren Morris, but there’s another one who really impresses the young Tampa talent.
Jackson, a sixth grader at the Academy of Holy Names, is one of countless singer-songwriters working the Tampa Bay scene, and she’s already shared a bill with that hero of hers.
“Brandi Carlile,” Jackson, 12, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “She’s just amazing.”
It happened in early March, at Gasparilla Music Festival (GMF), a festival Jackson already played, solo, as a fourth grader in 2017. She totally wasn’t expecting to be on the big stage at Kiley Gardens this year, during what ended up being Tampa Bay’s last music festival before concerns surrounding the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 effectively shut down live music.
“One of the band’s flights got delayed, and they weren’t equipped to be there, so GMF called me, and they’re like, ‘Can you be here in 10 minutes?,’” Jackson explained matter-of-factly. “So it was fun, I got to do a 30 minute set.”
You can practically hear Jackson—who’s taking a few minutes to talk to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay after finishing schoolwork and before an online guitar lesson—smiling through the phone as she explains the set. Her quick response to that evolving situation is just one way Jackson is pivoting in the face of change.
On April 11, Jackson released a video for “Stuck In the Clouds,” her first original song, written when she was nine-years-old and polished up with local producer Anthony Little. The nearly three-minute cut—a midtempo ballad with a singalong chorus—is still one of her favorites.
\\<\/iframe\>
“I did kind of tweak it to make it the way it is now, and while I didn’t write it during quarantine, I think people can still relate to it now,” Jackson said, explaining how she sees life changing around her and how hard that can be.
“There's also a line in the beginning that I think is important, too. ‘Sometimes people don’t understand how hard it is to grow up,’” Jackson said. “I think that's a big part of it, because a lot of kids—and not even just kids, college aged people, so many different people— they're missing out on so much right now. I think we just have to adjust and look to the future. We can't go back, so
I think that's a big part of it.”
And while Jackson’s focused on the big picture—she hopes to release a full EP as her next project—knocking out the little things is helping her get through the pandemic and over the fact that she can only see her friends on a screen.
“I miss being able to interact and hangout. I miss seeing my teachers,” Jackson said. So she gets her schoolwork done, takes a break, then takes either an online guitar , piano or voice lesson depending on the day of the week. Like everyone else dealing with life on lockdown, there are snacks in Jackson’s itinerary, but she’s also relishing her free moments in between the minutiae that makes up her day.
“It's actually kind of nice to have a little bit of time to be able to have some time to sit and write songs and work on my music,” she said of her quarantine lifestyle. “I’ve been jamming and practicing on Zoom. It’s actually working out pretty well, and it's great that we have this technology now because if this happened in the past, it would have been a lot harder to do this stuff—so I'm really grateful for that.”
Like any songwriter navigating the new state of “live music,” Jackson does live sessions on Instagram to stay in touch with her audience. All the electronic interaction, however, still doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing for Jackson.
“It is kind of hard not being able to be able to hang out with your friends, but when I feel the weight of being stuck here, I normally go to like my parents,” she said. “They just talk to me about it, and I think that really helps keep me grounded, and it keeps me moving and being productive with my day.”
So when this starts to blow over, Jackson looks forward to going to summer camps for songwriting and playing some actual gigs.
“Being able to be in front of people is one of the most fun things to do because you get to interact with the audience.You are kind of interacting on Instagram Live, but it's not really exactly the same. You don't get to see people's faces,” Jackson said. “When I play music I really like to make people smile. I love seeing reactions, people smiling—it really makes me feel good.”
Support local journalism in these crazy days. Our small but mighty team is working tirelessly to bring you up to the minute news on how Coronavirus is affecting Tampa and surrounding areas. Please consider making a one time or monthly donation to help support our staff. Every little bit helps.
Follow @cl_music on Twitter to get the most up-to-date music news, concert announcements and local tunes. Subscribe to our newsletter, and listen to us on WMNF 88.5-FM’s “Radio Reverb” program every Saturday from 4 p.m.-6 p.m.
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2020.