Music has been a lifelong refuge for singer-songwriter Emma James. In fact, “Refuge” was the name of her first song, written at 9 years old on an iPad as she decompressed in the backseat while her family drove out of the path of Hurricane Harvey. Since then, the 17-year-old musician has amassed over 200 songs under her belt and continues to dedicate herself to her craft. As an upcoming high school senior, James carves out time for the things most important to her while still keeping her eye on the prize: a career in music.
“I went up to a songwriting camp in Nashville the summer between eighth grade and freshman year,” James said, recalling how she fell in love with the process of intentional songwriting, co-writing and building skills from various mentorships. “I came back home from a talent showcase [later that year] and I remember telling my mom, ‘I wanna start playing gigs.’”
James’ live music journey began on the farmers market circuit, before she ventured into gigs at Executive Surf Club and other local live music staples. She recalls these beginnings, sharing her craft and the vulnerability of her work at such a young age, with a mix of surprise and retrospective admiration at the uninhibited nature of a young dreamer. Her live act came together through a process of finding the right venues, growing her original catalogue of songs and continuing to seek mentorships with studied performers like Clarissa Serna and Stephanie Skipper.
Dreaming, confidence and knowledge of her craft play equal parts in James’ career as a musician now. A studied enthusiast of music, she finds inspiration in newer country and country pop artists, from Aaron Watson to Kelsey Ballerini, Taylor Swift and Lauren Dagel. She grew up on a mix of Texas country and Christian radio, and keeps the former’s spirit alive in her work while embracing the nuance of the current country pop revival.
Despite her age, James has a knack for picking up inspiration from both her lived experience and her true knack for storytelling. “I think a lot of my songwriting process comes from the fact that I love reading, and really, I like to make up stories,” she said. “A lot of aspects of [my songs] are real, and I feel like I’m in that transition where I’ve experienced a lot of life for a 17-year-old.”
As a burgeoning young woman in her industry, James also takes her role as an advocate for women in the arts seriously, even meeting with state representatives with ideas for policy initiatives to support women in music.
“The Texas music scene is one of my absolute favorites. Being in the Coastal Bend, it has been a little harder as a young female. As you get into the bigger venues, there is a severe lack of women, which you don’t see in Austin and Dallas,” James said about the lack of diversity in the local scene. “It’s been admitted by some booking people that they don’t think women sell tickets. They’ve been proved wrong multiple times, and that’s something that I want to work against.”
Some themes of key importance in James’ work are those considerably less explored in country music. Her debut album Heirloom is slated for release this summer. In it, James tackles topics like breaking harmful cycles and addressing generational trauma.
“The more personal a song is, the more people can relate to it,” she said. “My hope as a singer-songwriter is to help people express feelings that are hard to articulate, and to push past that stereotypical expectation for country music.”
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