BIOGRAPHY

In 2016, Kristian Dambrino & Fish Michie wrote and recorded a jazz / blues duet album of original compositions entitled, Bluer Than This, which was awarded the 2017 Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Award for Best Contemporary Music Composition. Dambrino and Michie's follow-up Christmas album, Tidings of Comfort & Joy, was released in November 2017. Michie and Dambrino’s third jazz & blues album, entitled Change of Heart, was released March 2021, and raised $6000 for displaced and houseless youth in crisis at the Oasis Center in Nashville, TN.

KRISTIAN DAMBRINO

After winning Miss Mississippi 2005 and competing in the Miss America Pageant, Kristian Dambrino completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design and traveled around the world singing and dancing as a Production Vocalist for Celebrity Cruises. 

Prior to this, Dambrino performed at benefits all over the United States to help raise more than $15 million in hurricane relief aid and sang on national television in the MSNBC hurricane relief benefit concert, Mississippi Rising. She has also appeared on CNBC’s The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch. During the past decade, Dambrino has performed and collaborated with numerous celebrities, including Morgan Freeman, Sela Ward, Faith Hill, Pam Tillis, Samuel L. Jackson, Delta Burke, Jean Smart, Mary Ann Mobley, Rita Cosby, Macy Gray, Ray Romano, Jason Alexander, Kathy Ireland, Brian McKnight, Gary Morris, and many more. In addition to this, Dambrino opened for Oprah Winfrey at her Boy’s and Girl’s Club in Kosciusko, Mississippi, USA. Dambrino’s original song, Pearlington’s Prayer, was recorded and produced on DVD to raise money for Dambrino’s non-profit organization, The Pearlington’s Prayer Project, and continues to raise more money for Hurricane Katrina victims today. A finalist in the Willie Morris Writing Competition and published author (Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember), Dambrino has written and copyrighted hundreds of original songs as well as two original plays. 

Kristian, who holds a Masters in Music Business from Berklee College of Music (Boston, Massachusetts, USA), currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee, USA (Music City). After working as a Graphic Designer for Brentwood Communications, as well as a freelance wedding and event photographer for years, Dambrino graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing with a Master of Science in Nursing. Dambrino currently works as a board-certified psychiatric nurse practitioner, implementing psychiatric assessment and medication management for disadvantaged, marginalized patient populations impacted by severe and persistent mental illness.

Dambrino performs regularly all over the United States and internationally each year, and is heavily influenced as a Jazz & Blues singer by the music of Bill Evans, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington, Peggy Lee, Nina Simone, Shirley Horn, Mavis Staples, Ella Fitzgerald, Julie London, Michel Legrand, and Ivan Lins, to name a few. She recently starred as Jacqueline in The Circle Players’ production of Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s musical, La Cage aux Folles, inspired by Jean Poiret’s play, and also played the part of Truvy in Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias in Nashville, Tennessee. A fluent Francophone, she authored and delivered a Masterclass in jazz improvisation and vocal science in Caen, France in May 2023, and performs there yearly.

FISH MICHIE

Jim “Fish” Michie was born in Greenwood, Mississippi and raised in Merigold, Mississippi. He started playing in local Delta bands at age 13 after learning some rudimentary blues progressions at Booga Bottom’s in Alligator, Mississippi. He graduated from Delta State University in 1974 with further piano study at University of Southern Mississippi.

In 1981, Fish founded the eclectic Delta band, The Tangents, along with Charlie Jacobs and Duff Dorrough. In 1993, Michie moved to Nashville and toured with Larry Stewart, former lead singer for Restless Heart.

In 2016, the Michie/Dambrino collaboration, Bluer Than This, was awarded the MS Arts and Letters Best Contemporary Recording. They released a Christmas CD, Comfort and Joy in 2018.

Michie continues to perform in Nashville with an eclectic array of musical genres. He has performed or appeared with Vince Gill, T. Graham Brown, Charmaine Neville, Gary Rossington, Lee Roy Parnell, Fred Knobloch, Fingers Taylor, Bernard Purdie, Bo Diddley, Sam Meyers, Percy Sledge, Tricia Walker, Willie Foster, Johnny Crocker, Vasti Jackson, Big Mike Griffin, David Bromberg, Buddy Miles, and a host of blues artists in Mississippi.