Barefoot And Eager

Jenna

There must be something in the Devon air that promotes creativity, or perhaps it's the fact that Phil Beer and Steve Knightley (Show Of Hands) have assiduously incubated talent in their home county over the last few years. The 19 year old Jenna joins the likes of Miranda Sykes and Jackie Oates in the list of artists who have collaborated and benefited from the Phil & Steve Midas touch.

Jenna comes from Woolacombe on the north Devon coast, along with Croyde just down the coast it's one of the most popular surf spots in the UK. Gentle Devon hills meet the Atlantic at a beautiful coastline, Woolacombe is vibrant bustling seaside town in the Summer, but becomes a ghost town by comparison in the winter. Ironically the surf is better in the Autumn to Spring, leaving the locals to enjoy the best waves. The landscape and surfer culture loom large in her music.

Jenna cites the location and vibe of the devon coast as inspiration in her songwriting. She succeeds in evoking the carefree summerday haze of the sun lowering into the Atlantic on Hangin' Around. She also cleverly calls upon the freshness of the beaches on a cold winters day on Surfer's Storm.

Her voice is mature for her nineteen summers, she lends a sensuous edge to Flora and a great version of Knightley's You're Mine. So many singer songwriter's seem to reach their peak within their first album, making it sadly predictable how their subsequent efforts will turn out. Jenna's future is wonderfully open, she has the range to tackle anything from roots to upbeat pop (that's a compliment by the way), This debut holds great promise, helped a great deal by two experienced musicians and producers in Beer and Knightley, hopefully she will explore all the avenues open to her.

Please don't turn into Joss Stone though.

Iain Hazlewood