Singer Jaira (pronounced Jair-ruh) Burns discovered her voice the old fashioned way — in the shower. A precocious 9-year-old, who was always cranking up the radio and warbling along, she challenged her mother to an impromptu sing-off of the Pat Benatar classic, “Love Is A Battlefield.”
The family home had one tiny bathroom so Jaira’s mom was always in the mirror doing her makeup and singing while her daughter bathed. “I can do it just like that,” Jaira remembers hollering back one morning. “My mom was like, ‘No way, come on!’ She sings a line and I sing it back to her. Then she’s like, ‘Sing this line.’ We went back and forth until my mom blurts, ‘Oh my God, Jaira, you can really sing.'”
Born and raised in Vandergrift, a small, rundown town 30 miles outside of Pittsburgh, the prospects for Jaira actually breaking into the music industry were slim. But that didn’t stop the blossoming powerhouse vocalist from putting in work. She honed her natural ability by belting out popular cover tunes over instrumentals she found on YouTube and eventually started posting videos.
