Jackie Venson

Well my dad is a professional musician and he was my example. A lot of people like music and they think they have an affinity for it but if nobody else in the family does, then they sometimes don’t see it as a possibility. Having my dad as a professional musician, it’s like ... you can do this, it’s hard but you can do this.

Venson attended the Berklee College of Music, where she majored in composition and studio production. Venson said she had a bad experience at Berklee with the ultra-competitive environment the staff fostered, describing it as "American Idol the school". "Berklee was really hard for me", Venson recalled. "I was expecting it to be one thing and it ended up being another thing and I was really depressed probably for the entire time I went there. I didn’t really play at all." At a social gathering, Venson was inspired by the ease with which a schoolmate performed the guitar, noting that the student "looked like he was having so much fun, and I was like, 'Dude, I don’t have that much fun doing anything related to music'". She decided to pursue guitar, and began learning the instrument in 2011, during her last year at Berklee. Her piano studies and the music theory she learned in school helped Venson adapt to the new instrument.

Venson released her debut studio album, The Light In Me, in 2014. In 2016, she released the EP Jackie Venson Live, and the live album Live at Strange Brew. On September 30, 2017, Venson released her EP Transcends. On October 30, 2018, she released the song "Cover My Eyes" with a live in studio video.

In April 2014, Venson entered the Modern Southern Music Competition and won a headlining spot on the Belk Summer Tour. She opened for country artists Jason Aldean, Tim McGraw and James Taylor. She has also performed at the Austin Urban Music Festival. Austin City Hall declared May 21, 2014 Jackie Venson Day, and held a concert in her honor to raise money for an Austin music school.

Jackie Venson is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist from Austin, Texas. She graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2011. Venson has released two studio albums, The Light In Me (2014) and Joy (2019).