Early Life
Messina was born Jo Dee Marie Messina on August 25, 1970, in Framingham, Massachusetts to Vincent and Mary Messina. Her father was of Italian descent and her mother was of Irish descent. She was raised in Holliston, Massachusetts, with two sisters, Terese and Marianne, and a brother, Vincent. Messina had a variety of country music influences, including Patsy Cline, Reba McEntire, and The Judds. She soon started performing live, and by age 16 she was playing local clubs, singing while her brother and one sister provided backup on drums and guitar. The group continued performing until she graduated from high school.
Realizing that living in the Northeast would limit her chances of achieving country music stardom, Messina moved to Nashville, Tennessee at age 19. She worked various temp jobs, including computer programming and accounting, while entering talent contests around Nashville.
One win led to a regular gig on the radio show Live at Libby's, which caught the interest of producer Byron Gallimore, who helped her assemble a demonstration tape. Gallimore was also working with the young Tim McGraw around the same time, and Messina befriended him. Backstage at one of his concerts, Messina met an executive from his label, Curb, and jokingly suggested that they needed a redhead. With the help of fellow Curb producer James Stroud, Messina was soon signed to the record label. Gallimore and McGraw would later become co-producers of Messina's studio albums under Curb.
Read more about this topic: Jo Dee Messina
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Today’s pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual attainment, deriving from a changed perception of precocity. Several decades ago precocity was looked upon with great suspicion. The child prodigy, it was thought, turned out to be a neurotic adult; thus the phrase “early ripe, early rot!””
—David Elkind (20th century)
“Tomorrow in the offices the year on the stamps will be altered;
Tomorrow new diaries consulted, new calendars stand;
With such small adjustments life will again move forward
Implicating us all; and the voice of the living be heard:
“It is to us that you should turn your straying attention;
Us who need you, and are affected by your fortune;
Us you should love and to whom you should give your word.””
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)