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Jayme grew up on New Zealand’s famous East Coast township of Gisborne.
When she was five, the family; Mum, Jan, Dad, Paul and sister Abby moved away to live
in South America, Chile for 9 months. This is where Jayme got her first taste of music with
a soulful little 29 key keyboard that played some “radical beats” as Jayme described it.
Arriving back from Chile, Jayme and her family resided in the laid back wee town of
Waikanae Beach.
This is where Jayme can remember jumping up and down on the couch screaming at the
top of her lungs Cat Stevens “Another Saturday night and I ain’t got nobody I got some
money but I just got paid…” with her sister of course.
A definite highlight in her childhood Jayme referred to it as such.
Jayme’s 9th birthday came around fast and by that time she was living on Vancouver Island,
in a beautiful town called Nanaimo in Canada.
It was for Jayme’s 9th birthday that her parents decided to get her a 6 string acoustic nylon
strung guitar. Jayme was wrapped.
That’s where it all started.
Jayme seems to have a mature sense of initiative of what works in song writing far
beyond her 16 years.
Perhaps in a style that mimics her semi laid-back approach to life, when penning tunes she
prefers to let the songs “arrive” rather than trying to force them out.
Jayme embraces a range of influences in her music. She grew up listening to Crowded
House, The Eagles, Melissa Etheridge, Celine Dion, Fleetwood Mac, The Corrs and
Stevie Ray Vaughn.
Later influences came from the form of song writers like Jewel, Natalie Imbruglia,
Delta Goodrem, and Bic Runga, Local kiwi girl Flip Grater, Jack Johnson and Brooke Fraser.
Current favourites include Brooke Fraser,Reb Fountain, Jewel, Kim Walker, Jesus Culture, Hillsong United, Flip Grater. Unsurprisingly, Fitzgerald’s style has ended up sitting somewhere in the
laid-back beach infused folk sort of vein.
A water baby at heart, Jayme Fitzgerald could never claim to lead a boring life.
Her addiction to the water means summers are often spent patrolling in the irb
and in between the flags.
Jayme has been a qualified surf lifeguard for two summers now at Pukehina Surf Club.
This is where Jayme’s beach house is. She also surf instructs over the summer in Ohope
down West End at “By Salt Spray Surf School” run by Beaver and Yvonne Porter.
Jayme loves to give every opportunity a go. She is in the 1st 11 girls’ football team
at her school Tauhara College, Taupo and has also joined the snowboard team at
school. | 
