Jackie Venson

Jackie Venson was born in Austin, Texas. She grew up the youngest of nine siblings. Her father, Andrew Venson, worked for 40 years as a prominent professional musician before retiring. Venson's mother, Dr. Diane Brinkman, encouraged her to begin playing piano at age eight. Venson was not very disciplined in practice, noting, "It took me three years to put the focus in enough to where I could put my hands together on the piano, and it took me an additional two and a half to three years after that to even want to practice for more than 45 minutes at a time, which you have to if you want to learn how to do anything." It took Venson about three more years to be able to focus on playing for "three or four hours straight like a working musician."

Venson attended the Berklee College of Music, where she majored in composition and studio production. At a social gathering, Venson was inspired by the ease with which a schoolmate performed the guitar, noting that the student "looked like he was having so much fun, and I was like, 'Dude, I don’t have that much fun doing anything related to music.'" She decided to pursue guitar and began learning the instrument in 2011 during her last year at Berklee. Her piano studies and the music theory she learned in school helped Venson adapt to the new instrument.

In April 2014, Venson entered the Modern Southern Music Competition and won a headlining spot on the Belk Summer Tour. She opened for country artists Jason Aldean, Tim McGraw and James Taylor. She has also performed at the Austin Urban Music Festival. Austin City Hall declared May 21, 2014 Jackie Venson Day, and held a concert in her honor to raise money for an Austin music school.