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:
“In early times, before the floods swept across the world, there was life, albeit odd, as one can see from the fossils of mammoth bones, and there was the regime of Prince Metternich.”
—Franz Grillparzer (17911872)
“The new concept of the child as equal and the new integration of children into adult life has helped bring about a gradual but certain erosion of these boundaries that once separated the world of children from the word of adults, boundaries that allowed adults to treat children differently than they treated other adults because they understood that children are different.”
—Marie Winn (20th century)