Fusing folk, rock, and country, Jill Jack draws comparisons to such singers as Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, Natalie Merchant, "and any other chick with a guitar," she says. Jill didn't begin her music career until she was in her 30s, throwing over a high-powered accounting job to do so. She skipped the model-yourself-on-others part of her career, and she doesn't bother with categories. Jill is the winner of two dozen Detroit Music Awards, in three different genres, and her reach is steadily expanding beyond Michigan. She opened for Loretta Lynn in 2007, appeared at the Ann Arbor Folk Festival the following year, and recently played a three-night gig at the Americana Music Festival in Nashville. Says Belgium's Rootstime magazine: "Life is a battlefield, and this Michigan girl seems to have won the battle." Help wish a happy birthday to one of the hardest-working women in Michigan music!