Songs and Samples

Fly Little Birdie
Lil' Red Schoolhouse
Under My Roof
Paint Me A Picture
Come Down
Swallowed Glass
The Drumbeat
Why Didn't I Ask You More?
Nuthin's Sacred In This Town
Cornersburg
Out To The Sea
Four Eyes And Fatso
My Dear Young Captain
Little Girls
Sweet Little Henry
Kill Your Butterfly
Mladi Kapetane (bonus Croatian track)

Some Nice Things People Have Said

A mixture of acoustic sounds that can be best described as "folk collage." . . . The best of the Americana, spiritual, and European traditions . . .

About Jamie Marich

“It’s like Jamie has lived seventeen lives in her twenty-some years. Not only is she talented, but she is an inspiration. Her music touches people," muses Ben Houston, a cafe operator and open mic host in Nashville, TN. When it comes to the seventeen lives bit, Ben is not exaggerating.

Born to parents who met as teenagers at a national Slavic folk music festival, Jamie Marich was raised in Youngstown, Ohio where she participated in almost every extra-curricular activity imaginable (including Suzuki violin, figure skating, competitive speech and debate, among others) before graduating with her first bachelor's degree at the age of nineteen.

Plagued by problems in her personal life, Marich then decided to move to Bosnia-Hercegovina, bordering her ancestral homeland of Croatia, where she worked in both humanitarian aid and religious tourism.

While in Bosnia, Jamie was part of an international sacred music folk troupe where she had the opportunity to be mentored by Fr. Ciaran McDonnell (a former member of the Irish pop band, The Drifters), and to work with some big names in European music, such as world junior champion violinist Melinda Dumitrescu, and Maite and Paddy Kelly of the German pop band, The Kelly Family. While living in Europe, Jamie recorded her first CD to cater to her following in sacred music.

Marich returned to the U.S. in 2003 to complete a Master's degree in Counseling, and she contemplated putting her music aside to focus totally on her career.

She decided to limit her music to participation in her church's folk choir, but it was there that she met and teamed up with Jim Stafford (no relation to the one in Branson), who Jamie sites as the greatest personal influence on her musical development.

In their first year as a duo, they performed many sacred music jobs together, prepared and recorded Jamie's American/alternative country release Under My Roof, and got themselves ready for their launch as an acoustic duo to be taken seriously.

Jamie notes, "What's pretty cool is that I had the chance to work with some of the best musicians in Europe and the Middle East, and I moved back home and found the person I work best with right in my back yard...and that's quite literal, since at the time, Jim was living next door to my mother!"

Stafford, who Jamie jokes "has been playing guitar longer than I've been alive," is accomplished at several stringed instruments and had spent years playing is many different types of bands in the Northeast Ohio area.

Stafford's strong technique and masterful improvisational ability blend well with Marich's voice. Though they each have strong, separate musical influences (Stafford in a Beatles aficionado, whereas Marich gobbles down anything from Judy Garland to ABBA), they share a mutual admiration for the likes of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Lucinda Williams, Nickel Creek, John Prine, and Ricky Skaggs.

Jamie generally describes what she does as "folk collage," which has no doubt emerged from the experiences over her "seventeen lives." Jamie is creative and is always willing to try out new things with her singing, playing and writing; as duo partner Jim says, "I never know what to expect from her."

As a duo, Jamie and Jim have played at a variety of venues in Youngstown, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland (they recently gigged at The Flat Iron Cafe in the Flats, Cedar's Lounge in Youngstown, and the Sandy Chanty in Geneva-on-the Lake).

Recently, Jamie and Jim won the 2005 Community Street Festival talent show in Youngstown, and they have been performing regulars at the Lazy Bean Cafe in Columbiana and at Cafe MoJoe in Pittsburgh. Jamie has achieved radio play in the U.S., Canada, and in several European countries.

Since getting back in touch with her musical passion while in Europe, Jamie has played at festivals and conferences in Bosnia, Malta, and Orlando, FL and she has performed at events in several U.S. states (Maryland, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New York, Arkansas, Rhode Island, Tennessee).