Jenny Bruce was born in New York, New York to parents Duncan and Tamara Bruce. Her father, Duncan Archibald Bruce, was an author and her mother was a writer. Bruce taught herself to play the piano at age five when she wrote her first song, and later taught herself to play the guitar in her early twenties. She attended the all-girls Chapin School in New York, New York from grades 1-12. During high school she became the class pianist and also performed in musical theater. She attended Barnard College in New York, New York and completed her junior year in Paris, as part of Columbia University’s Reid Hall program where she also began working as a jazz singer and waitress at The Hollywood Savoy. She joined the band, SAY which received radio airplay and had a local following. In 1990, Bruce returned to New York and finished her senior year at Barnard College, and holds a bachelor's degree in European History and a minor in French Translation. Bruce is fluent in French and English.
Music career
During her junior year in college in 1987, while studying abroad in Paris, Bruce began performing in nightclubs and restaurants. She joined the French band, SAY which garnered airplay and had a local following. Upon returning to New York, New York, she began performing in clubs and festivals and started writing songs for her first album titled, Jenny Bruce.
1990s
Bruce released her debut, self-titled album, Jenny Bruce in 1997. Tracks, "Music to My Ears, was featured in Dawson's Creek''.
2000s
Bruce created a local following in New York and performed at clubs and festivals as well as opening concerts for Sophie B. Hawkins, Gavin Degraw, and Avril Lavigne, among others. She garnered a following and continued writing songs and released four more albums. In 2001, she released, Soul on Fire and she was approached by a Los Angelespublishing company to license her songs in film and television which successfully placed many of her songs in major network television shows. In 2006, Bruce released, Left of July.
2010s
Bruce took a break from her music career beginning in 2005 citing, “It’s such a long story. To sum it up, I didn’t write for myself for over a decade. I Bottled everything up and locked it up in a jar. Especially the feelings of loss after my mother died. That loss broke my heart and hurt so much that I kind of shut down. Thing is, I became a mother around the same time. It was a very confusing period in my life. These songs are little life rafts that I wrote to pull myself up and out of a numbing sea" Bruce released, Firefly in a Jar in 2015.
2020s
In January, 2020, Bruce released the album, Ghoste.
