Jackie Bristow's singing career began at the tender age of eight when she took a shine to church hymns at St Mary's Primary School, inspired by her music teacher Mr. Walter Hailes. St Mary's was Jackie's local school in her hometown of Gore, a small rural community in the lower half of New Zealand's South Island, and home to New Zealand country music's Gold Guitar awards.

Encouraged by their grandmother, piano teacher Molly Scully, Jackie and her younger sister Katrina entered the Gold Guitar awards, and by the time Jackie was 11, the duo were sweeping up a string of awards in various categories. By the age of 14, The Bristow sisters were gigging regularly thoughout the South Island.

Around this time, Jackie began to mine her parents' record collection, discovering classic songs from Elvis Presley, Linda Ronstandt and even Solid Gold Hits! Jackie began to write her own songs, a secret passion that would remain hidden from the world for the next seven years.

At 17, Jackie left high school and enrolled in the Invercargill Polytechnic Music school, where she hooked up with local musicians and spent the next 18 months singing regularly in pop and cover bands all around New Zealand. The professional Bristow had by now immersed herself in the original music of Ricki Lee Jones, Bonnie Raitt and Crowded House.

Performing was fun, but Jackie could no longer ignore the desire to write and perform her own material, which had been growing steadily since leaving Invercargill. In 1994, Jackie left for Sydney, where she would gradually write, record and perform her original songs, playing late night bars to empty rooms, saving pennies and working as a nanny to make ends meet.

It was in Sydney that Jackie met her now long time friend, Mark Punch, who provided Jackie with great perspective and the musical career guidance she had been missing up until then. Mark helped Jackie record her demos and turned her on to inspiring songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Shawn Colvin. Eventually, her demo made its way to Australian industry legend and Mushroom Records founder, Michael Gudinski. Jackie's original music career was truly underway.