Celebrating with Jamie Grace

By B.L. Barbour

Jamie Grace Harper is an Atlanta, Georgia native and quickly gaining favor in the gospel arena.  Her professional name is Jamie Grace.  Grace won the New Artist of the Year award at the Dove Awards in 2012, one year after the release of her debut album, Hold Me.  She did this while battling the effects of two health conditions.  She was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome at age eleven, she also has obsessive-compulsive disorder.  Despite her situation she has continued to generate great music for the lord and these issues didn’t prevent her from mastering the guitar, piano, ukulele and drums.  She is also a songwriter and excellent vocalist.

Hers is a different take on gospel music.  It’s a unique blending of folk, pop and hip hop.  Yeah, it’s hard to imagine blending those genres successfully, but she does it and it sounds good.  In all her music she is featured playing acoustic guitar or the ukulele and the lyrics are very expressive.  In one of the four songs, Into Jesus, on her album, Hold Me, a miniature album, she sings these lyrics, “…I feel your love through my despair.  And you speak the words that ease away the pain. My heart is free, my eyes are clear, my soul is healed.  Now that you have got a hold on me.” It’s a beautiful praise song.  Her first full album, One Song at a Time was released in 2011.  It consisted of 11 contemporary gospel tunes.

She released her second full album, Ready to Fly in 2014.  It was packed full of songs (fourteen praise tunes in all) compared to the first album, which only had four.   The album raced to the top 40 of the Christian music chart.  Unfortunately, she hasn’t yet released her third album, titled The Happy Song. The album was originally set to be released at the beginning of the year.  However, she did release a single called The Happy Song in April, 2017.  She is touring the country performing this year, so we can continue enjoying her music live and her previous releases.  Hopefully, we will be rewarded for our patience with the new album being released sometime this year.

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