Jamie MacDonald’s Debut Album Chronicles Her Journey From Homelessness & Addiction to Spiritual Joy: ‘I Want to Bring More Healing Music to People’

As she gears up for the release of her debut, self-titled album on Friday (Jan. 23), Contemporary Christian Music newcomer Jamie MacDonald is already piling up milestones. Her debut radio single “Desperate” spent seven weeks atop Billboard’s Christian AC Airplay chart. Her follow up song, “Left It in the River,” is in its eighth non-consecutive week at the pinnacle of that same chart.

MacDonald’s soulful voice and unfiltered style of songwriting have led to a whirlwind of touring, awards nominations and radio hits since she signed her label deal with Capitol CMG in 2024.

“Even up until now — I mean, signing a record deal at 40, if I was waiting till I felt ready for all this, it may have been never,” MacDonald says. So just to jump into it and have it go really fast this past year, I think, the only way for me to really do it.”

But then, nothing about MacDonald’s journey has been typical. It was singing that caused MacDonald’s stepfather to kick her out of their home when she was 15.

“When my mom remarried, we moved into his house and he really loved our mom, but never really wanted kids,” she says. “So it was like he’d put up with us to have my mom and it was a time where we all had to become invisible. I wasn’t allowed to sing, because it was like an evidence that there were kids in the house. That was a big rule and I never stopped singing so I got in trouble for it a lot. I would perform in school and be celebrated for it there, then punished for it at home, so it made it really confusing for me. I’d go in the woods a lot and find a place to sing.”

Growing up in Michigan, MacDonald soaked in the sounds of mega-voiced pop queens like Mariah Carey, and was drawn to older, soulful sounds.

“I remember getting a Walkman for Christmas one year and getting the Mariah Carey Christmas album,” she says. “I remember hearing her do that first vocal run on ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You,” and I was like, ‘I have to learn how to sing like that.’ I just studied her voice and the choir arrangements. I’ve always loved the choir sound and it’s infused in a lot of the record. I love stacking harmonies. I got into Stevie Wonder and Otis Redding. I think just going through a lot of heartache in my life kind of cultivated a deeper, soulful sound.”

MacDonald dropped out of school, began hanging with friends who loved hip-hop and started singing the female vocal parts on friends’ rap songs. She eventually moved to Los Angeles, but was already spiraling into a battle with drug addiction and being homeless for a time.

“I saw a couple of friends overdose and that lifestyle, some of the hip-hop culture can be riddled with gang violence, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, all of that was a part of it,” she recalls. “I came to that place where I’d had enough of living like that, seeing friends overdose and go to prison. I was scared, and I said, ‘God, if you still have a plan for my life, that message I heard at a church camp at 12 years old that “God has a plan for you,” I’d love to know what that is, because what I’m doing right now cannot be the plan.’”

She committed her life to Christ, and at age 21, was baptized: “I was done with the lifestyle I was living. I just had an encounter with God’s presence, and I had known for so many years about the darkness and the dark side that I was hungry for the light.”

She made her way to Kansas City, Mo., and began writing her first songs at International House of Prayer. She soon began singing in local coffee shops, and during one performance, a patron heard her sing and offered to buy MacDonald her first guitar. She recorded a folk-leaning, independently-released project that would score MacDonald some sync licensing deals for television and film, such as ABC’s The Rookie, Oprah Winfrey/OWN’s Queen Sugar and ESPN’s College Football Playoffs. The record also began garnering attention from Nashville, and she was initially offered a label deal in 2019, though MacDonald was still trying to determine what direction she wanted to pursue musically.

But life soon threw another curve. She hadn’t seen her father, a former pro boxer, in many years after her parents’ divorce, but she discovered he was living in Atlanta and was struggling with Parkinson’s and dementia. Not long after, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. She put her music ambitions on hold, moved to Atlanta, and began a four-year journey of caring for her father through the final years of his life until his passing in 2023. During that season, she also spent time working at a women’s prison and singing with a choir at the prison.

Music continued calling, and MacDonald sang background vocals on albums including Anne Wilson’s My Jesus, Danny Gokey’s Sound of Heaven and Zach Williams’ A Hundred Highways, often recording her vocals remotely from Georgia, in a small closet in her father’s trailer that she converted to a makeshift recording studio.

“I feel like I got a sneak peek at the entire industry, through working with almost every producer, and all the record labels in town,” MacDonald says. “People would pass my name around, like, ‘Who did the vocals on this? Let’s call her.’ By the time I did get in the room as an artist, we had already broken the ice and knew how we worked together.”

Her initial release, “A Million Chances,” was inspired by her time working with the women in the prison and seeing their spiritual lives changed. She followed with her first radio single, the choir-backed piano ballad “Desperate,” inspired by her father’s passing.

“To introduce myself to the world with such a heavy topic was scary — but at the same time, really beautiful, because it connected me to so many people in such a deep way,” she says. “I was like, ‘Man, this is kind of a superpower to be able to write songs out of your hurt and out of your questions, and then to just connect with people in such a deeper way.”

Where “Desperate” elicited tears, the follow up “Left It In The River” was a joyous, danceable anthem of redemption and revival. The song also put MacDonald’s considerable vocal range to good use, as she recalls her co-writers Colby Wedgeworth and Jonathan Gamble urged her to challenge herself vocally.

“I remember thinking, ‘This is a really high song. I’m belting at the top of my lungs—am I going to be able to sing this live?’ and they were like, ‘Sing it higher. You can go higher than that!’ I’m glad they pushed me out of my comfort zone because it’s really fun to sing it live.”

Her debut album is filled with songs including “Somebody Set Me Free,” “Born to Fly,” and “Won’t Let go,” about finding hope, comfort, identity, and revitalizing freedom through faith. She uses the songs to chronicle her journey. “You Can’t Take My Song” is a passionate rebuttal to those early years of being barred from making music. “My Family” also vulnerably pulls back the curtain on familial struggles.

“I came in not okay and I was trying to be okay,” she recalls of the writing session. “I was meeting a new writer, Molly Kestner, and she just has a way of breaking down a wall. She got me telling what was going on in my life and suddenly I’m in tears and she’s giving me a hug and we wrote the song. The point of the song is to take that burden off, to know that this is God’s to carry. I think it’s such a complex topic and a lot of us have something we can connect to, with families being broken.”

She also teamed with another Christian music luminary, Lauren Daigle, for a collaborative version of “Desperate.”

“She heard ‘A Million Chances’ through my manager, who I think let them have a sneak peek at it,” MacDonald says. “It was my release day and I was at home in Nashville. I was feeling really vulnerable and I get a text from a number I didn’t know and it was in all caps, like ‘Girl, this is Lauren Daigle… I just want you to know I believe in what you’re doing.’ And she said she’d be open to doing a song with me, so a few weeks later we were looking for a feature for ‘Desperate’ and I think our teams were already getting the ball rolling… We’re going to perform it together a couple of times this year I think, in a couple of places, and I’m super stoked. And she has been incredible, just giving me words of advice as a new artist.”

As her songs have become hits at Christian radio, MacDonald’s touring schedule has picked up. This year, the UTA-booked MacDonald is spearheading her own headlining tour, in addition to opening tours for Phil Wickham and Tauren Wells. Along the way, she’s refined her approach to performances.

“It’s not about having a perfect performance as much as it is really connecting with people and speaking from your heart,” she says. “I’ve got rehearsals coming up and I really feel like I got my first shows under my belt and I’m like, ‘Okay, now let’s put on a really good show and think through some creative moments that really do something I’m proud of.’ I want to be all in and having a good time onstage and giving people something to talk about and want to come back and see again.”

As she gears up for tours and live performances, and begins looking ahead toward writing and recording new music, MacDonald says her goal remains constant.

“Music has been the main thing that has helped me with my walk with God and even transforming my mind and my life. The way that I’ve clung to other music, I just want to be that for other people. It’s such a powerful thing when a song can carry you through something. I just want to bring more healing music to people. That’s always going to be my fuel.”