We were lucky to catch up with Jolene Dixon recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jolene, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I LOVE THIS QUESTION, and I am incredibly passionate about this. As a 41 year old female, I have an uphill battle to climb. Especially in Nashville.

If you would have asked me at 17 what I would be doing with the rest of my life, I would have unabashedly said, “I will be on stage, performing songs I wrote, all over the world”. And I wasn’t budging.
And then there was a boy…. There’s always a boy…

Fast forward through a bunch of boring details of infidelity and divorce, I was broken at 26. Utterly destroyed inside. I had lost the sound of my still small voice to the screams of “you lost your chance”, “you’re not that good anyway”, “you should get a real job”. And they won. I left my artist stranded on an island for all of my 20’s and most of my 30’s.

I had tried the corporate world, and I was good at it. Climbing corporate ladders and kissing ass came easy to me. Selling a luxury hotel on the beach, piece of cake. And when my creative stirs couldn’t be silenced any longer, I used my creativity in the culinary world. I gave myself permission to be THAT creative only. And again. I was successful! I had a wonderful private Chef business in Southern California. And yet. I was still so thirsty.

It wasn’t until 2019 when my dear friend Kyle Krone (of The Shy’s) reached out to me and asked if I was still writing. And my immediate answer was no. Because even though I had written maybe 10 songs over the last 10 years, I thought I had lost that part of me forever. That it was too late. I was too old and I didn’t have any songs left in my soul. BUT with his encouragement, we made a beautiful record that I am very proud of called Quiet Thunder featuring half songs written by me and half by Kyle. It woke up my sweet little 17 year old self from her nap. Rise and Shine! It’s time to get back to our REAL dreams, darling :)

After we finished the record, there was no turning back. I packed up my house, my hubs, and the dog and we headed back to my home town of Franklin, Tennessee where we live now.

In the last 4 years that I have devoted my life to my music, I often stumble on these road blocks of self doubt, shame, and deprecation that sound something like, “You never should’ve quit. Think about where you would be NOW if you never stopped” or “You wasted so much time” or “You’re old. Just hang up the boots, hun.”

But I have been learning to replace those little shits of thoughts with more truth.

The fact that I have lived so much LIFE up to this point is a GOLD MINE of material for songs. Had I gone straight into performing as a job, I wouldn’t have the empathy depths that all my favorite songsters do. I know what it’s like to work in a restaurant. I know what having a car repo-ed feels like. Death, birth, loss, love. I have the years and the experience to write from a truly, authentic place. A space that is brave enough, wise enough, and strong enough to withstand the ebbs and flows of the aritsts life without giving in to the whims of a fickle public opinion. I wouldn’t have that at 17. So I am INCREDIBLY grateful that I didn’t start sooner. Everyone’s timing is their own and I am ever in awe of mine.

I also believe that time is a man made construct, but that’s another interview…

Jolene, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Jolene Dixon is a genuine American Singer Songwriter talent born in Topanga Canyon, California and raised in Franklin, Tennessee. The daughter of the Donivan Cowart the celebrated Country Songwriter and Recording Engineer who helped give us timeless music from the likes of Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell (just to name a few).

Jolene grew up in a truly musical environment and began singing and harmonizing with her sisters and musician parents from a very tender age. Jolene spent countless hours as a guest in her Fathers studio soaking up the sounds and magic during sessions with some of Country and Americana music’s greatest legends. As one can imagine it all made a lasting impression and Jolene began expressing her own experience creatively through song.

Simply put Jolene is a natural, her songs and voice are as rare and unique as they are classic and time honored. The combination of both traditional and modern influences both musically and geographically helps create a sound that is a well brewed cocktail of great Americana. There is a duality in Jolene’s voice that is equal parts innocent and seasoned. Her songs seduce the listener with beautiful vulnerability, honesty and a genuine optimism that celebrates and soothes the broken hearted. The classic autobiographical story telling that we’ve all come to love and expect from Country does not disappoint in Jolene’s songs but they certainly aren’t limited to that framework.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think one of the hardest things to grasp is the time it takes to become a masterful songwriter and performer. I have been asked to perform for free hundreds of times, and I have. And I am grateful for each and every one of those performances because they made me the courageous ham I am!

What most people don’t realize is the hours of practice. Family-forced concerts in the living room. More practice. Playing gigs to a bartender. Only. More practice. No one can pick up a guitar and get on stage and play a show that anyone wants to listen to.

By the time the audience sees the live show, it should look easy. It SHOULD look like they just walked off their bus and picked up that mic and knew the lyrics and melodies and charts by heart intuitively from the start. It SHOULD look like anyone can do it. That means it is being done well. And that it took A LONG TIME to sound that good.

And A LOT OF MONEY. Again, when I talk about artists taking free gigs, I remind them of the cost of their guitar. The lessons. The tuner, the cables, the pics. The cost of your time to prepare for the show. To come up with a solid set list. To rehearse with the band.

And most painstakingly TO PROMOTE.

So, if you ever pass by someone with a guitar case open, throw in a couple bucks. They’re playing for free. Tips are good karma. You won’t notice that $10 missing, but I guarantee you it will matter to the artist.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

To Unlearn: There’s Only Room for One of Us.

Such a lie. When I get stuck in this loop of competition or comparison, I have to go back to the simple fact that there are no two people on this floating rock that are the same. Not even identical twins share identical experiences or passions or taste!

When I was 16, I made a record with my high school band, Hearsay. My Dad – sound engineer Donivan Cowart – recorded us in the same studio with the same mics and console and booths where he made records with Dolly, Willie, and Johnny. I did NOT appreciate this at the time, needless to say.

YEARS later – after the fatal blow that was high school graduation, took on our less than a year old band – I ran into a girl that bought one of the 100 copies of Hearsay’s freshman and final record. Songs that I thought had long since passed away in the era of streaming and had NO place in todays market or on peoples hearts. Yet, this chick that I didn’t know told me that she listens to that record to this day. And that it holds a special place of sweet nostalgia that she visits when she’s feeling down.

If you are making art from the heart, you are deriving from the collective soul. And the collective soul is longing to be touched. To deprive humanity of it’s own yearnings and light with comparison and competition sucks the life out of us… Literally.

Nashville is the most cut-throat of all the music towns, unforgiving, and judgmental. Every waitress is also a moonlighting songwriter. Which means the market is completely over saturated. This is the dark side.

The beautiful and more real side is that Nashville pushes songwriters to find THE best lyric. THE best hook. The BEST performance, which makes all of us better at our craft. Every writer’s round I’ve been a part of has taught me a lesson, if not seven. The amazing artists that fill this town support one another and lift each other up! It can be a beautiful thing to admire someone’s talent, without a tinge of jealousy. It can be hard when the world points to certain expectations. But there are flowers that bloom over shared love of art and song. And to witness someone else tap into the same spirit of song, connects us.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jolenedixon.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/jolenedixon
• Facebook: facebook.com/jolenedixonmusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jolenedixon9295