BIO

Guitarist Jamie Stillway grew up on an apple orchard in rural Minnesota, and didn't begin her quest to play the guitar until she was 13 years old. As the old adage says, "better late than never," and indeed this held true for Stillway, who started studying classical guitar in high school while still attempting to master the great guitar riffs of the seventies. After receiving a degree in film studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara, Stillway put her dashed dreams of being an Oscar winning cinematographer aside, and began to study with the great ragtime and blues picker Kenny Sultan.

After a brief stint in Denver as a rhythm guitarist in a gypsy jazz group, Stillway relocated to Portland, Oregon. In 2002, she formed an acoustic guitar duo with resonator slide man, Ben Bonham, and the duo snared serious accolades from all corners. As music critic Don Campbell of the Oregonian aptly reported, "Jamie Stillway not only comps big, fat, swinging and expensive jazz chords but picks with a ferocity that would make Django proud. If she's not grinning ear to ear during her solos, she should be. Her technique is commanding and artful, and she possesses a gypsy soul that would be at home in 1930s Paris, or busking on the streets of Dallas".

In 2005, Stillway released her debut solo CD, "Mell of a Hess," which featured several guests musicians, including upright bassist Tim Renner and drummer Sean Moultrie. After a successful solo tour of Austria and Germany, in which Stillway received an endorsement from Stevens Guitar of Munich, Stillway returned to the states, and has been appearing around the Pacific Northwest with Renner and Moultrie as the Jamie Stillway Trio. Although the three musicians have been working together only a short time, the group has been garnering great reviews, and not just from family members. Hopefully, the trio will soon be appearing in a town near you. Meanwhile, Stillway spends her time in Portland drinking copious amounts of coffee, juggling clubs (when it's nice outside), and attempting to illuminate the path to Shredsville for other guitarists; if you're interested in taking some lessons, click on the contact link.