Jamie McDell

Jamie McDell, a singer and songwriter from New Zealand, achieved her first broad domestic breakthrough via a 2012 debut that showcased warm-toned confessional folk-pop. Following a pair of strong-charting releases on major-label EMI, she chose independence and shifted toward a more organic, country-rooted sound for the self-released 2019 set Extraordinary Girl.

Born in Auckland, she passed part of her childhood on her family’s yacht, where she first picked up guitar while harmonizing on John Denver and Jimmy Buffett numbers with her parents. During her early teens McDell started posting original material on YouTube and built an audience through social-media channels. At sixteen she secured a contract with EMI Music New Zealand by mailing the label a demo. Her first single, the reggae-tinged folk-pop track “You’ll Never Take That Away from Me,” appeared in early 2012, climbed to number eleven on the New Zealand Top 40, and earned gold status. An acoustic EP titled All That I Wanted followed soon after, then came her November full-length debut, Six Strings and a Sailboat, which reached number eight on the national pop chart. Ask Me Anything arrived in 2015, bringing a sharper edge to her confessional folk-pop approach and landing at number seven. One year later her EMI agreement concluded; she stepped away from mainstream pop structures and proceeded independently. To make her next record she journeyed to the United States and worked in Nashville with Australian producer Nash Chambers. The resulting 2019 album, Extraordinary Girl, was entirely self-written, more intimate than her earlier work, and marked by an organic, Americana-driven style.