Amber Nicholson Bio

Mission, B.C. is as pastoral a setting as you could find, built on rolling hills falling into the ancient, mighty Fraser River, where the cattle and horses still graze lazily on a summer’s day at the edge of town. But as rustic and peaceful as the place is, it’s also home to a little typhoon of a talent named Amber Nicholson, poised to bust out and whip into a storming hurricane that could knock you flat.

Barely 18, already the recent high school graduate has played such prestigious events as the world famous Calgary Stampede and the massive Merritt Mountain Music Festival where she’s been invited to return a subsequent two times. She performed at Nashville’s Fan Fair to fabulous response backed by Tanya Tucker’s band, another former teen fireball of some note.

There, as everywhere else Amber goes, people were agog at her sparkling and easy stage presence - right after they tried to take in those powerhouse vocals. Give her her mark and a microphone and she exudes a bubbling, infectious joy just being up there. The kid, says everybody who sees her, is a natural.

All that joy is in marked contrast to a decidedly modest upbringing. She grew up living in a trailer home and earned her own pocket money selling chocolates door-to-door. She has a serious work ethic, does Amber.

At 11 she also joined a local program created to encourage talented young people, something called the Canadian Association for Musical Empowerment and Opportunity, better known by the acronym CAMEO. Here she developed her chops, got her moves down and flourished. At CAMEO, monthly awards are distributed to the best and brightest lights – Amber has a couple of fistfuls. She won their Teen Vocalist of the Year award twice.

And she did just as well out in the big world, snagging a recording deal at 17, releasing her Places We Go Through album and winning airplay across Canada with singles like “Diggin’ In The Dirt”, “Hold Me Back” and “Afraid To Love”. That made her a lock for the Ray McCauley Best New Artist award from the BC Country Music Association and amazingly, she went on to win Album of the Year.

Amber performed live last year at Australia’s huge Gympie Muster Festival and returned again in January of 2009 to play the premier Tamworth Festival.

For young Amber Nicholson the possibilities are endless, the horizon boundless. Consider this a storm warning.