Nikki Hornsby

Teenage years

Nikki Hornsby was born in Long Beach, California, but grew up in Fairfax County of Northern Virginia where she earned her first guitar selling flower seeds in the countryside door to door at age ten. As a young teenager, Hornsby was contacted to perform as a solo singer and guitar artist representing her boarding school at social events, hospitals, and TV broadcasts. She was paid to perform by Gulf Corporation at the newly built Reston, VA community Lake Anne Reston square for a solo outdoor concert. After graduating Fairfax Hall Waynesboro, Virginia college preparatory school, Hornsby attended Sacred Heart and Belmont Abbey Colleges North Carolina full-time, for three years while performing at <Sheraton Hotels and Resorts> The Sheraton Hotels and Resorts Lounge in Charlotte NC and other various local NC clubs. While majoring in Psychology and Theology she transferred to George Mason University in northern Virginia, Hornsby continued working accepting contracts for solo work as a singer and Musicians Union Local Washington DC Chapter guitarist. She worked as a stand up singer in a combo or duo with other professional union musicians. Some of these union contracts were at Marriott Hotels & Resorts Key Bridges Hotel Lounge in Arlington, Virginia. Nikki Hornsby in the early 1970s was the first female singer-guitar player performing on the Auto Train that traveled from Lorton, VA to Sanford, FL and also was contracted as a stand up singer with a union piano player that she met on the auto train. She also worked with some other local union musicians in many clubs in Washington D.C. The union piano player she met on the Auto-Train asked her to work stand up singer in the surrounding area, including Lucky Pierre's Lounge at L'Enfant Plaza, the Watergate complex in their main cocktail lounge. Nikki Hornsby was also a solo guitarist singer at Washington DC finest waterside restaurants.

1970s

In the mid-1970s, Hornsby moved back to California and worked full-time as a club performer, where she stayed building her life and career. Many clubs in the South Bay area of Los Angeles, CA, USA <List of paid jobs> like Portofino Inn, Blue Moon Saloon, Holiday Inn, Red Onion, Queensway Bay Hilton, etc. There are also many hard copy publications for verification for her work performances including TV appearances with examples of a scanned performance schedule from 1970s to 2006 in Spain. <[2]>.

1980s

By working full-time in music she purchased a home in Lomita, California in the late 1980s Hornsby received from a local Lomita California business owner, Ken Herbert, financial backing offer to record only her original songs under her own record label CJP-NHRecords. Quickly thereafter, Hornsby marketed her music to commercial radio stations making the charts and trade magazines throughout Europe and in the United States.

Only a few of Hornsby's original hundreds of performed songs were recorded and released for airplay on commercial radio stations in the USA and Europe. In Mallorca, Spain, the "ACM Newsletter" as well as other print publications noted Hornsby's song "One Way Ticket" as number one. During that same time "Hungry For Love", Let Me Take You On A Dream" and "Hot Talkin’ Big Shot" were airplayed in Europe. All four songs reached the top ten on commercial radio station charts.

In 1988, following Hornsby's releases of "One Way Ticket", "Hungry For Love", "Let Me Take You On A Dream", "Hot Talkin’ Big Shot", and "Shoe String And A Prayer", was the reason she was named Female Singer of the Year in Scandinavia. In 1989, "Shoe String And A Prayer" charted Top 5 in the USA IRC (independent) country singles, as well as in the Cash Box Top 100 USA National commercial radio programming charts.

1990s

In the 1990s again through independent investors, "Shoestring and a Prayer" obtained USA radio airplay from independent and major commercial radio stations as well as other commercial music trade publications. "Shoestring and a Prayer" was No. 1 the entire month of August on The Music Review Top 30 Independent Chart, NY, No. 3 in the Top 30 (IRC) Debut Independent Radio Chart, Nashville, TN, No. 11 on the Cash Box Independent Chart, and No. 14 Indie Bullet Mag. Top 100 Chart, Tyler, TX.

Hornsby was working full-time as a club performer, solo singer guitarist, plus leader of duo to full band, throughout the time of her first recorded releases. She worked at Marriotts, Sheraton, Hilton, Holiday Inn Lounges and many more throughout the USA. Nikki did her own contract work except for a few club contracts that were booked through her non-exclusive agency Castle-Hill Ent., Los Angeles, CA. Castle-Hill Ent. is Nikki's exclusive agent for all television and film appearances, i.e. Fox Network's Parker Lewis TV Show "Diner75" in 1992.

Nikki Hornsby and The Rangers

Hornsby formed her back up band "Nikki Hornsby and The Rangers", and together she as the leader performed in many annual concerts and at local Southern California venues including Alpine Village in Torrance Hornsby herself did all the contract booking and travel arrangements. In August 1991, Nikki Hornsby and The Rangers performed at Redondo Beach's Summer Concert in the Park. That summer, they drew in the largest crowd and were invited back to perform again in a series of six years in "Concerts on the Pier". Hornsby always focused on the solo songwriting recording aspect of her career, although still performing as leader of her band at different venues.

TV appearances

In the early 1990s, Nikki Hornsby appeared as a solo folk singer guitarist on the final show of Fox Network's "Parker Lewis Can't Lose". Shortly after, Hornsby had the opportunity to record as a solo singer-songwriter with Steve Duncan (Desert Rose Band), Jack Daniels (Hwy 101 Band), Jay Dee Manness (Desert Rose Band), John Jorgensen (Desert Rose Band) as well as Al Bruno who was a multi year Academy of Country Music (ACM, Los Angeles, CA) award-winning guitarist (CA Country Music News, San Jose, CA Vol 2 No. 20, Pg 9, April 1991).

Nikki Hornsby was nominated four different years (official ACM Ballot, composer category, 1991, 1992, 1994) for a position on the ACM's Board of Directors.

Hornsby acted as a judge for the California Country Music Awards and as a Music Industry Talent Judge for the National Colgate Talent Roundup from 1990s until 2003. Hornsby has been a consultant exclusive to the music industry since she obtained the business licence <page also shows all business licenses including current> in 1989.

Dr Laura Schlessinger used Hornsby's song, "Hot Talkin' Big Shot", for several years on The Dr. Laura radio program as cue music and also for a national radio commercial advertising Ms. Schlessinger's radio show.

2004 Performances in Europe

In late 2004 Hornsby co-produced and arranged ten original songs on a CJP-NHRecords CD called "Just Wait" with Marty Rifkin,<Showing source listed of studio work with Marty and Nikki with years >. Marty has worked on recordings with major recording artists within the music industry for many years including "Jewel" & "The Boss".

Hornsby traveled throughout many countries in Europe from end of 2004 to 2007 test marketing her "Just Wait" CD along with other original songs. This was done before CJP-NHRecords released "Just Wait" for airplay.

In 2006, Hornsby performed the break out song from "Just Wait" called "Money's Worth" at the International Automobile Associations Annual International Event in Frankfurt, Germany. "Money's Worth" and other originals were broadcast European wide through Truck Radio which reported this song as number one on the Truck Radio European Charts.

That same year a commercial radio station, Radio Eurohertz in Eastern Germany near the Czech Republic border, invited Hornsby to perform a live three-hour show of only her own original music which was only a small percentage of her large catalog.

In 2006, The International World Cup Soccer Games took place in Europe was telecast on CNN TV internationally. Hornsby's song "This IS America" written for Joan Milke Flores from the "Just Wait" CD was broadcast for the warm up game of USA vs. Italy which was held in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Hornsby herself was one of the VIP Hosts for that city's tourist center for the six games of the FIFA World Cup Soccer Championship held in 2006.

Hornsby appeared on TV in Spain IB3 April 2006 as well as performed live original songs including songs she wrote in other languages like "Yo Tengo Un Amor" on numerous live commercial radio telecasts in Palma. She did many on air live interviews at different radio stations like Una Radio, Radio Balear, Ultima Hora and Punto Radio in Spain that same week in April 2006.

While in Europe, Hornsby supported the US military community for several months. The work included such activities as performing on stage, instruction in guitar & singing, and judging in US Air Force Idol Talent Contest.

2007 Forward Additional information

As a BMI <This organization www.bmi.com has a listing of all professional writers through their site for verification> associated songwriter, Nikki Hornsby herself has written over 300 songs, some of which have been used on radio, TV, and in movies. Many of 34 recordings listed and 2 where the music written by Hornsby and lyrics by Weinberg co writing collaboration like a prior radio commercial for the "Tile World" business in southern CA. The Positive Christian country songs were released on the CJP-NHRecords "Reaching Out" CD.

Her family association with Jimmy Van Heusen, Emmy and Oscar songwriter for Frank Sinatra and others, influenced Hornsby at a very young age. Documents can be found in the Library of UCLA in Los Angeles CA holding Hornsby's first recordings and industry photos among the Jimmy Van Heusen collection.

Hornsby achieved commercial airplay success years prior joined the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences (Grammy's) end of 2006 as a voting member. The NARAS committee placed compositions of music from Hornsby's commercial charted "Just Wait" CD on the first ballot in 2007 in 8 different categories.

A European Military Community VIP base pass in June 2006 allowed access for Nikki while she was in Europe and she volunteered to play guitar and sing at the Kaiserslautern Germany Daenner Kaserne Chapel weekly for the military community church services for this Kaiserslautern Military Community largest USA European base. This was at the end of 2006 she was asked by phone to report to the Vogelweh Community Center main office at Vogelweh Facility of the Kaiserslautern Military Community. The administrator at that time said there was a two-year waiting list for music & vocal instructions and asked Nikki Hornsby to help at the community center for USA military men, women in service and their families. She believed waiting that long was unacceptable for USA Military overseas and made the time to provide one to one instructions with her own Nikki Hornsby beginning acoustic guitar and vocal method.

2007 for appointments and networking during Grammy week, Hornsby had to take leave to travel alone to Los Angeles, CA but agreed to be back in a few days. She was injured in an international airplane in-flight accident February 8, 2007. She was unable to continue to write or professionally perform her music afterwards and soon returned home to Los Angeles CA as injuries forced her to retire from future live appearances.

2009 CJP-NHRecords released "Just Wait Instrumentally" which is the instrumental version of the "Just Wait" CD released in 2006. 2010-2014 Video Support of Nikki Hornsby songs found on YouTube. DVDs made available through CJP-NHRecords.com

2014-2015 CJP-NHRecords released three singles of 1 pop dance uptempo and 2 pop orchestral of Hornsby music and lyrics from collaborative work with international talents. Singles found on iTunes and eStores worldwide. These three Hornsby pop singles were listed first ballot 2014 in the arrangement, instruments and vocal category of the 57th Grammy TV awards process for 2015.

Hornsby alone has carried on the Hornsby music family tradition as the granddaughter of the Columbia Recording artist Dan Hornsby who was a A&R representative for Columbia/RCA in Atlanta GA in the early years, was a radio program director, Radio WSB DJ, a professional musician, a producer engineer for Columbia and a singer-songwriter, a recording artist with many 78 full recordings.

Dan Hornsby was the first recorded voice of "The Arkansas Traveler" song. He recorded many other songs like "Take Me Out To The Ball Game", "Oh! Susanna", "Little Brown Jug" "Little Lisa Jane" and "Danny Boy". Hornsby never met her grandfather, who was inducted posthumously into the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame in 1986 for his lifetime of work in the music industry. The Grammy Museum, Los Angeles, CA in 2013 displayed Dan Hornsby's work for Columbia Records 360 event for a year-long. This Grammy Museum display was seen by Nikki Hornsby in a private viewing where she learned even more through the curators and Ex. Director of the Grammy Museum about the man whose work was before she was born as she carries forward in her professional lifetime career a noteworthy Hornsby music tradition.