We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christy Lamb. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christy below.

Christy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

I am an artist who has played with many creative mediums. I try to create at least one beautiful offering a day. My vocation is songwriter and rock singer living in Los Angeles. ‘jeanie’ is my artist moniker.

My birth name is Christy. It is not short for anything like Christine or Christina. “Christ with a y,” I use to tell people when they were looking for the spelling. And then as I grew older I’d usually add, “My dad was a preacher. I’m named after Jesus Christ, actually. No pressure, right?”

‘jeanie’ is a nod to my middle name, which I always liked better, Jeanette, and my daughter’s middle name, Jean. It also pays homage to my very cool, late Great Aunt Jean. The artist moniker is lower case because audience support is a part of “the band”. I hope this artist project will grow organically through social media channels and word of mouth. I aspire to have jeanie’s music placed in sync; and have other musicians cover music, or choose ‘jeanie’ to accompany social media posts. I hope the name conveys a sense of community co-creation.

‘jeanie’ is the result of suppressed female rage, human rights injustices, and my sheltered and scary young adulthood. Once a child who naively expected the world to outgrow its power struggles, ‘jeanie’ now stands as a middle-aged mama, watching history repeat itself. With a blend of bittersweet melodies, sharp-witted lyricism, and unflinching honesty, ‘jeanie’ crafts songs that challenge, comfort, and spark conversation.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I picked up electric bass lessons at 40 and my world shifted. I played in a cover band called Mint Condition. I began formally songwriting. I scoured my journals, recorded demos, and took several classes at School of Song and I quickly realized, I have always been writing songs.

On long family car trips as a child, I sat in the backseat making up songs. One of us would start with a simple beat and would follow basic song structure. It passed the time. It also came quite naturally. I think we could just feel it. All of our Sundays in church were an education. Hymns are basically pop ballads so we understood the formula after years in stiff church pews and vacation bible school. It grew in the hundreds of voicememos of sounds and riffs and 25 journals of words on words. All 40 years, I acted, I produced films and worked in arts nonprofits, I was writing songs.

As for listening to music, of course, I discovered the greats much younger. My first CD was Rubber Soul, which sounds archaic now. Becca and I blasted Indigo Girls, Pavement, and Hole on the way to school, windows down. So cool. So 90’s.

My music as ‘jeanie’ serves as both a lament and a call to awareness—an anthem for those who refuse to accept stagnation. I have written It’s form is just as important as it’s function. Art holds suppressed emotions and the collective sentiments of so many women who are fed up with human rights injustices and gender discrimination. We heal in public and in connection to one another.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My mission in life has always been to create and inspire creative expression. To date, my personal mission has manifested in many ways as an artist. I’ve journaled my whole life. I have written screenplays, commercials, animations, and music videos. All of my creative offerings have honed my voice but none of them have felt so close to the bone as songwriting.

For me, that creation impulse is real. I’ve had to listen very deeply to my body and care for myself in more dedicated ways in order to create. It is a muscle that I have worked very hard to exercise and sustain for over 40 years. For me, it’s a survival skill, so I don’t make the people around me suffer or make myself sick. I often call songwriting, ‘healing in public’.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Before the world came crashing at me asking for my identity to match a system that doesn’t serve my person, music was my refuge. My first love was music.

You always hear that it’s never too late to (fill in the blank). I wonder if whatever we want to fill that blank in is pointing us back to our first love. I wonder if our initial impulse is related to our purpose (creative expression, vocation, career), are we happier?

I wonder how we can play more as a culture at any age and embrace or if the first art or favorite activity as a child is the gateway to creative expression, as a means to understand and love ourselves. It was for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jeanieband.my.canva.site/jeanie-website
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeanieband/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jeanieband

Image Credits

Photo credit: Faryl Amadeus