Culture & Entertainment Notebook: Jessie Ritter: From Cape to Nashville

Notre Dame Regional High School graduate-turned- budding Nashville recording artist Jessie Ritter is enthusiastic about returning to her hometown this weekend for a release party in honor of her first full-length album, "Coffee Every Morning."

"It's definitely a totally modern country album, but I feel like it has those more traditional themes," Ritter said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Ritter described her album as containing "all real instruments," lending a bit to a "more traditional sound."

"It's an album of love and sunshine," she said. "I wanted to make something that could make people happy."

The album was released July 27, containing songs Ritter wrote before marriage, she said.

She is more than ready for the release party at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at Keller's, Isle Casino Cape Girardeau to celebrate her success, only made possible by the support of her community, she explained.

"People in Cape Girardeau have seen me grow up, so they've seen me sing Taylor Swift at the Heartland Idol Competition, in the Notre Dame musical and at the coffee shop when I was 16 starting to write my own songs," Ritter said. "So I'm really excited to come home and be like, 'OK, now I'm 25. This is what I'm doing now.'"

Saturday's show is free to attend, which Ritter said is "almost like my gift."

"Let me show you what you've helped me do," she said.

Since the album release, Ritter has received numerous comments, she said; mostly from people "happy to hear country in country music."

"And a lot of people saying that the songs are really relatable," she said.

The fact that people are able to find "a depth of experience" in her "very short life experience" means a lot to Ritter, she said.

The first three songs on the album she described as "pop country" and considers them "happy love songs."

The album easily transcends into a "blue-grassy," traditional, country type of sound, she said, along with a few "stripped down" acoustic songs later in the album.

"So as you listen," Ritter said, "I hope that it keeps getting more interesting."

The first song on the album, "Meet Your Mother," is Ritter's rendition of "I like you and I want to know what your family is like and see where you come from."

Ritter's last song on the album, "Where You Go," she described as the feeling of "I know I want to be with you and I would follow you anywhere in the world."

"I have been singing forever," she said. "There is a video with me singing 'Can You Feel the Love Tonight?' on the front porch when I was 2."

Ritter said she took her first guitar lesson at age 13, which is when she began writing songs "in a way that made more sense musically."

Her musical influences over the years are Miranda Lambert and Dolly Parton, Ritter said.

"Jolene," one of Ritter's singles from the album -- made famous by Dolly Parton -- was the only cover on the album, she said.

"I think I sang it in a competition for the fair when I was 13 for the first time, so that song has been with me for a long time," Ritter said.

After graduating from Belmont University, Ritter sang on cruise ships for two years, using that time to gain experience and to figure out her path in life, she said.

"It was so much stage time. You get to learn from musicians from different cultures, which is really cool," Ritter said. "In Nashville, pretty much everybody likes country and everybody is from somewhere around the state. And this was a totally different ballgame. We played all different kinds of music."

During that adventure, Ritter said she was able to reconnect with her future husband, Brian, and moved to Florida.

"I got married in Cape; I came home. I said if we're living down here, we are going home for the wedding," Ritter said. "We actually met when both of our families lived in Missouri, when we were both 3 years old."

Her immediate goal now, she said, is doing whatever she can "to make this album get heard as much as it can."

"So hopefully some good stuff comes from that, if people like the show this weekend," Ritter said.

jhartwig@semissourian.com

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