Singer-songwriter Jackie Bristow, playing solo acoustic shows at the Henry Miller Library on Thursday and Plaza Linda on Friday, recalls composing her own music on the piano as early as the age of 15. 


“It wasn’t like a conscious thing for me to write a song,” she says from Austin, Texas, where she’s been living part-time. “I was in love and there was a bit of heartache and I used to make up little things on the piano and started writing songs.”


Bristow says that in the early days, she never really talked about songwriting. It was something that came naturally and she wanted to keep it that way, so she also kept the songs secret, not only because they were so personal, but also because she lacked confidence in her ability. 


“I had been singing since I was 11, but they were country classics written by other people, not original songs,” Bristow says. 


But as time went on, the young songstress gained more confidence about her own material and eventually started establishing a music career in Australia. 


“I had a major record deal that pushed me to be pop,” Bristow says. “But I’m not trying to be pop, I’m just being myself. I just write what comes out.”


On her most recent release Freedom, Bristow moves into more of a storytelling direction than her previous two albums, resulting in her most masterful work to date.


“I wanted to make myself sound more unique so I asked myself, ‘What’s unique about me?’” Bristow says. “I’m from the south of New Zealand and I wanted talk about where I’m from.”


Along with a grab bag of bluegrass, country and folk, hints of Joni Mitchell and Rickie Lee Jones are draped throughout the ten-track LP and Bristow’s sweet voice consistently breathes with an honest sensibility.


“Aotearoa” (the most widely known and accepted Maori name for New Zealand) recalls those cherished times – with some touching Bruce Springsteen sentiment – Bristow spent at the lake with her family. Over the sweet strums of a mandolin, she sings, “Barefoot on the beach tonight, the sun is glaring in my eyes/ I feel so alive.”


“Being surrounded by music all the time and living and breathing it has been very inspirational to all my work,” Bristow says. “And all the great musicians I’ve had the opportunity to work with over the years on each of my three albums are also an inspiration.”


In the past week, Bristow also began work on a new album in Louisiana, but says there is still a ton to do before she has any idea of its release date.


“The most exciting thing for me is the writing, the creating and the performing,” she says. “I find the promotion to be not as much fun.”


Singer-songwriter Jackie Daum, who not only shares her first name with Bristow but also has strikingly similar looks, will open and sit in on a couple of tunes with her redheaded doppelganger.


Another attribute Daum – who grew up camping in the Sierra Nevada Mountains – shares with Bristow is a love of the outdoors, and an ability to weave that adoration into her country pop ballads. 


JACKIE BRISTOW plays 7:30pm Thursday, Aug. 11 at Henry Miller Library, a quarter mile south of Nepenthe Restaurant on Highway 1, Big Sur. Free; donations appreciated. 667-2574 and 7pm Friday, Aug. 12 at Plaza Linda, 9 Del Fino Place, Carmel Valley. $10. 659-4229.