Jamie O'Hara

Born on August 8, 1950, in Toledo, Ohio, singer-songwriter Jamie O'Hara first gained attention as a college football standout. A knee injury ended any prospects in the NFL, prompting him to take up the guitar and perform his own material across Midwest venues. Recognition from fellow artists helped him gain footing as a tunesmith, and in 1975 he landed a publishing agreement with Nashville's Tree Records.

A 1985 collaboration with fellow Tree staffer Kieran Kane on the track "Bluegrass Blues," later cut by the Judds, sparked their decision to form the duo the O'Kanes. The pair signed with Columbia and issued three well-received country albums from 1987 through 1990. Once the O'Kanes disbanded, O'Hara resumed his primary work as a songwriter yet still managed to issue a solo debut, Rise Above It, on RCA in 1994; every song on the project was his own. Although that effort succeeded, its successor, the richly textured Beautiful Obsession, did not surface until 2001.