Before meeting Jessie Lynn Nichols, only hearing her voice would be enough to conclude that she is a seasoned country music performer.
She takes it as a compliment when she is told she sounds like one of her idols, Wynonna Judd, when she speaks and sings. Nichols is a junior in college and balances running a business, a music career and the life of a full-time student.
For Nichols, singing runs in her blood.
“I started singing when I was 3 years old,” Nichols said. “I guess it comes from my great-grandma, who I was named after. She sang with the Blackwood Brothers and so did my grandmother and her twin.”
When Nichols turned 6 years old, she began classical training that centered on a Broadway style with a goal of going to New York City.
“I cut my first demo when I was 11 in the studio and was offered several contracts,” Nichols said. “My parents didn’t want me to sign right away, but wanted me to have a childhood. They didn’t want me to end up like a Bieber of the music world.”
Nichols fostered another passion in her life, riding horses. She took her love of horses and started her own business, Alabama Extreme Equine Productions.
“I was 15 when I started the business and trained horses,” Nichols said. “I actually stopped singing for a while and just focused on the horses.”
After entering her first year at Auburn, Nichols said she knew that she had to start singing again.
“I had gotten bored with classical music the past few years, but my first year at Auburn, I had this gut feeling to just go for it and it hit me full force,” Nichols said. “From that first August I worked with a private producer and within a year’s time my own stuff was flourishing.”
During that first year, Nichols juggled her agriculture communications classes and said she realized country music was what she wanted to pursue and moving to Nashville, Tennessee, someday was the dream.
Nichols worked on an EP, which was finished by April of 2014. It contained a song she had written and two from a Nashville writer. She said attending Auburn helped her through that first year.
“I had told my mom since 4H club that I wanted to attend Auburn someday,” Nichols said. “I’m living a dream within a dream and I’m very blessed. Being able to do what I love and love what I do without it being work is amazing.”
Nichols is a sophomore by age, but a junior by hours. She categorizes her time at Auburn as a chance of a lifetime.
“I have so many friends in the agriculture department and we all go out and ride horses together,” Nichols said. “I enjoy every minute of it and there’s not a week or day I regret being here, even on the worst day.”
Nichols said her schedule is hectic, but credits her ability to multitask to her high school days of running a business.
“I don’t know which direction I’m going sometimes, but training horses and 4H taught me that it’s as easy as just choosing what is the highest priority at the time,” Nichols said. “Most of the time school is the highest priority because I paid so much for it.”
As for her music style, Nichols classifies it as traditional country, with that mix of rock and contemporary new country. Nichols ususally performs at large events around Auburn and the Montgomery area, but also travels all over the state.
“This past November, I performed for the Ag Roundup, the largest tailgate before the Louisiana Tech football game,” Nichols said. “I’m scheduled to perform the full four hours this upcoming football season.”
While Nichols usually plays at open invitation events, governmental affairs and rodeos, she said her album work is her main priority.
According to Nichols, she channels a lot of her musical influence from many of the great women of country music she has listened to.
“I should have been a redhead,” Nichols said. “I grew up listening to Reba (McEntire), Wynonna (Judd) and Jo Dee Messina. My all time favorites that I listen to most are Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn.”
As for the future, Nichols has applied for an internship at CMT and spends her time in the studio working with other local artists by coming in on their albums. She is also planning three or four trips to Nashville this summer.
“If it wasn’t for my Auburn Family supporting me so well, it would be too hard to manage,” Nichols said.
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