Kelley Jakle preforming in the Student Center
By: Allison Upchurch, Staff Reporter
After a full week of school and work, what better way to kick off the weekend than with a visit from a singer and actress straight from Hollywood. Kelley Jakle, most notable from her role of Jessica in the Pitch Perfect movies, performed on the Walker’s Pub stage last Friday February 8, accompanied on the guitar by her songwriting partner, Tom Strahle.
To start off the show, Jakle performed a cover of the song “Trampled Rose” by one of her favorite performers, Alison Krauss. She followed up this song by performing two songs that she and Strahle had written together, “Sparrow” and “Lead Me Out.”
“We wrote ‘Lead Me Out’ at a shifting point in my life,” Jakle said as she explained how she is experiencing the transition from being in her late 20s to her early 30s. “It is about learning to let go of the parts of myself that are not coming along for the next ride.”
Jakle and Strahle also treated the audience to a selection of new songs the pair had a hand in working on for the upcoming Netflix movie Walk. Ride. Rodeo. It was the first time that those songs of “Cry Baby” and “Late Bloomer” were performed live in front of an audience. “Cry Baby” in particular was significant for both Jakle and Strahle as they each recounted personal life experiences of isolation and separation that eventually worked their way into being inspirations for the creation of the song.
During a song transition, Strahle recounted how he and Jackle had met two years ago at a party in Hollywood. “I’m not very good at socializing,” Strahle admitted, “but I just sat down and started chatting with the person next to me, who happened to be Kelley.” They talked together about their careers in Los Angeles, and decided to meet up again to see if they could write some music together. “When we met up again, we wrote, or at least started, 5 songs in about 6 hours, and we’ve been collaborating ever since.”
Other songs performed that night included a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”, “California” by Jakle’s Houston based band Robin Alice, and “Home to Mama” which Strahle helped write for Cody Simpson and Justin Bieber. Jakle even invited a member of the audience up to help sing “Home to Mama,” and the night ended with another Alison Krauss song called “When You Say Nothing At All.”
This show was put on in partnership with two non-profits based here in Colorado, Epic Experience, a program providing adult survivors of cancer a fun outdoor camp experience, and The Love, Hope, Strength Foundation which helps people get registered to be a bone marrow donor to potential save a life sometime in the future.