Jessie James Decker

A singer whose style blends country sounds with a pop sensibility, Jessie James Decker’s vocal style is strong enough to shine in either style, though her heart is most clearly in country themes. Decker is most at home with songs about love, either going well or going south, and she brings a style and glamour to her performances that doesn’t cancel out the girl-next-door outlook of her songs. Delivering a slick fusion of country and pop on her 2009 debut as Jessie James, she pushed her country mood up in the mix when she re-established herself as Jessie James Decker on 2014′s Comin Home, and she achieved an easy balance between heart and polish on 2021′s The Woman I've Become.
Born Jessica Rose James, Decker’s somewhat exotic birthplace was a product of her being raised in a military family. By the time she was nine, Decker’s family was living in Louisiana, where she won a regional talent contest with a cover of Patsy Montana’s “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart.” By 15, Decker was living in Georgia. She’d started writing songs, and was paying regular visits to Nashville, making the rounds of record companies and music publishers, looking for a deal. She was 17 when she caught the ear of a representative of independent label Big Yellow Dog Records, who began shopping her songs to artists and labels. When Mercury Records president David Massey heard Decker’s demos, he passed them along to L.A. Reid, head of the affiliated Island/Def Jam label group, and Reid signed her to a record deal.
Her first album, a self-titled effort under the moniker Jessie James, arrived in August 2009. Jessie James was reasonably successful and featured “Wanted,” a single that brushed the Top 40 of the singles charts. However, while Decker had always considered herself a country artist, the album was produced and marketed with a pop audience in mind. After two more singles from the album stiffed, Decker battled with label executives for greater control over her music, and her next single, “Boys in the Summer,” was a more country-oriented release. Decker’s second album, announced under the titles of Daughter of a Gypsy or Sweet American Dreams, was shelved by Mercury, and after three singles fared poorly on the country charts, Decker was released from her contract.
While Decker’s recording career was not all she hoped it would be, her personal life was on the upswing. In 2013, she married professional football star Eric Decker, and the couple became the stars of a reality TV series, Eric & Jessie: Game On. The series ran two seasons and raised her public profile considerably, as did her YouTube channel, which offered beauty and fashion tips to her fans. Now recording as Jessie James Decker, she struck a new record deal with 19 Records, and April 2014 saw the release of the EP Comin Home, which rose to number five on the country chart. Before long, Decker once again jumped labels, this time to the company that first noticed her, Big Yellow Dog. In January 2015 she released a single, “Clint Eastwood,” followed in August by “Lights Down Low,” which rose to number 38 on the country singles chart, her highest placement there to date. An EP of holiday songs, This Christmas, was released by Big Yellow Dog in December 2015.
Early in 2017, Decker switched from Big Yellow Dog to Epic, releasing the Gold EP in February 2017. The EP contained two songs co-written by Maren Morris, one of Epic’s rising country stars of 2016. Another EP, The Blackbird Sessions, followed a few months later, featuring live covers recorded at Nashville’s Blackbird Studios. Southern Girl City Lights, her first full album since 2009, was released in October 2017; the record topped the country charts. A year later, Decker released the seasonal album On This Holiday.
When not occupied with recording and touring, Decker began branching out and expanding her brand. October 2018 saw the publication of her first book, a cookbook and lifestyle guide titled Just Jessie: My Guide to Love, Life, Family, and Food. It was successful enough that she returned in September 2020 with a second book, Just Feed Me: Simply Delicious Recipes from My Heart to Your Plate. She also launched a casual clothing line, Kittenish, initially through an online shop, moving on to brick-and-mortar locations in early 2019. In January 2020, Decker signed a new record contract with Warner/Atlantic, and her first release for a label was a Christmas single, “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” The COVID-19 pandemic caused Decker to postpone recording plans for her next project, but October 2021 brought a seven-song EP, The Woman I've Become. ~ Mark Deming