Biography
James Mielke hails from Westminster, Maryland. Growing up in a household focused on literature and the arts he began piano lessons at age seven. By high school James’s musical focus had grown into it’s own. He picked up the guitar and started fronting a rock band. It was in this group James wrote his first songs and became comfortable with performing as a front man. The latter half of his high school career James took guitar lessons from locally renowned Tim Jenkins of the local McDaniel College.
James left home in 2004 and moved to Nashville, Tennessee to attend Belmont University where he moved in with a banjo playing roommate who showed him the world of bluegrass including Tim O’Brien, Tony Rice, Old and In The Way, and Hot Rize. By the end of James’s sophomore year of college he had become an accomplished bluegrass flat picker and was playing with local bluegrass band Angus Whyte and the Irish Rednecks.
Having focused primarily on Bluegrass until his junior year of college, James’s focus shifted when he met Texas songwriter Andrew Combs and, now manager, Bo Brannen during a session at historic RCA B in early 2007. Andrew introduced James to such legendary songwriters as Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, and Steve Earle. James immediately tapped into his songwriting talent that would lead him to where he is today. He currently lives and plays in Nashville with plans to tour nationally in the near future.
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