About Kori Jean

Kori Jean was born in Provo Utah, but definitely calls Austin Texas home. Kori Jean moved to Austin when she was 10 yrs old with her family who was relocating for work. Kori Jean became interested in music as a young child and started vocal and piano lessons at age 8. As Kori Jean developed her talents, she started to perform at local events in the Round Rock area. At the age of 14, Kori Jean traveled to New Mexico, Colorado and a number of towns across Texas performing as the lead vocal in a choral group. This experience solidified in Kori Jean’s mind that she wanted to try and make music her future career. At the age of 16, Kori Jean entered a contest called “Austin Idol” being sponsored by the Fox News affiliate in Austin. The contest was set in the American Idol format and was designed to select a few winners from this singing contest and follow them to Dallas Texas for the American Idol tryouts. Kori Jean finished second in the Austin Idol contest and was able to go to the American Idol tryouts in Dallas followed by Fox News. Although the experience for Kori Jean was invaluable, she quickly realized that making it in the music business required hard work and a well planned path to be successful.

Armed with the experience of performing for a few years and participating in local vocal competitions, Kori Jean and her family looked for a more conventional way to expand her musical career. Many options were discussed, but Kori Jean decided that cutting a full length record and then supporting the record with live performances would be the best option to move her career forward. The next big step for Kori Jean was finding a studio and producer to work with to get songs, musicians, and great production to complete a record. After speaking with many recording studios in Austin, Kori Jean ran across a studio on 6th and Trinity in downtown Austin Texas called Flashpoint Recording that felt like it might be the place. Kori Jean met with Bennet Spielvogel, who owned the studio, to discuss the project. After the meeting, Bennet decided that he would introduce Kori Jean to Paul Pearcy, who is a long time Texas artist and producer. Paul and Kori Jean met at the studio for a quick audition. After the audition, Paul agreed to work with Kori Jean and get a record completed. The recording process was a great learning experience for Kori Jean. She was able to work with some fantastic Austin musicians and songwriters. The short list included seasoned musicians and songwriters such as Walt Wilkins (We All Cry), John Hagen (cello on Reason Why), Kenny Grimes (Lead Guitar), Cindy Cashdollar ( lap steel and pedal steel), along with many others. The record named “Reason Why” was completed in the summer of 2009 and Kori Jean began to assemble a band to support the record in live shows. The band forming experience was another learning opportunity for Kori Jean, and after a few month process settled on four great musicians that complimented her style.

An additional step for Kori Jean was determining how to grow her fan base and get some traction with the larger country music business. Kori Jean realized, early on in the process, that she needed to get a Nashville connection going. The country music recording business for her style of music was heavily centered in Nashville. Kori Jean made a trip to Nashville in September of 2009 and met with a Vice President at Sony Music, some music publishers located on Music Row in Nashville, and a Vice president with ASCAP named Ralph Murphy of the song writers association. The meeting with Ralph Murphy of ASCAP was very enlightening and became the first step in the learning process required for making it in the country music world. During this Nashville trip Ralph, was able to get Kori Jean meetings with accomplished Nashville song writers and also get Kori Jean into to some private events, like the album roll out for Chris Young an RCA recording artist (and also recent Billboard number 1 artist with the song “Getting you Home”). Kori Jean had the opportunity to meet Pete Fisher, the General Manager of the Grand Ole Opry, at the album event and he invited her backstage to see the Grand Ole Opry live. This was an unbelievable experience for Kori Jean. She met and talked with Charlie Pride, Daryl Worley, Mark Wills, Sunny Sweeney, and George Hamilton IV. All in all, the Nashville trip really opened Kori Jean’s eyes to the possibilities of realizing her dream if she continued to work hard.

Now at age 19, Kori Jean knows that making it in the music business is not a stroke of luck. Making it requires hard work, perseverance, a thick skin, and the financial resources to move things in the right direction. To support the very expensive effort of being in the music world, Kori Jean works with special needs children during the day. She finds this to be very fulfilling and can see the effect that music has on them in their lives. Kori Jean also volunteers her time and works as a youth counselor to young women in her local church congregation.

Kori Jean is currently writing songs for her next project, and can be found playing live in Austin Texas and the surrounding region, as well as Nashville Tennessee. Go to www.KoriJeanOlsen.com to learn more about where Kori Jean is playing, buying the record “Reason Why”, or what is going on today in Kori Jeans’ life.