SHELBY C. BERRY
Jacey Jacobsen
FAITH & FESTIVALS Legendary artists like Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, John Legend, and the Jonas Brothers started in the church, a safe place to share talent while worshipping the Lord in their way and blessing those around them. This faithbased music got 20-year-old Louisiana native Jacey Jacobson performing, and while it primarily drives her musical passion today, it didn’t spur the initial sparkle in her eye like bluegrass music.
birthday and contacted a music teacher at Louisiana State University to teach her lessons.
“I don’t come from a musical family, but my dad loves bluegrass music,” said Jacey. “I grew up going to bluegrass music festivals for as long as I can remember. I went to a bluegrass festival called Pecan Ridge Bluegrass Festival in Jackson, Louisiana, when I was 3, and I noticed what an upright bass was for the first time. I watched a family play at the festival, and their daughter played the upright bass. I told my dad I wanted to play that.”
Unfortunately, there isn’t much of a bluegrass music community in the Louisiana area, so Jacey focused more on classical music and classical training on the violin. “Classical music wasn’t something that I necessarily enjoyed, but I went to a lot of bluegrass festivals and got to play the music I loved,” said Jacey. “I went to a lot of SPBGMA events and played at a local venue called The Old South Jamboree. I just played anywhere I could. That’s what got me involved in playing for church and the Baptist Campus Ministries at my college.”
Ironically enough, Jacey performed onstage for the first time at Pecan Ridge Bluegrass Festival with The Saltgrass Band only a few years later. “The Saltgrass Band really helped me a lot, and I got to play with them every year,” said Jacey. “They always let me play with them, and they were always so supportive of me.”
While the upright bass was a little too big for Jacey’s hometown musical community forced her her, Jacey’s dad did buy her a fiddle for her fourth to go out of her way to find her place in music. 8