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2011 will bring new baby and album for Rhaye
Telegraph Journal
By Sandra Davis
Jan 5, 2011

Photo By Jen Partridge

SAINT JOHN - Singer/songwriter Jessica Rhaye knows from experience that, despite the best-laid plans, it's the unexpected events that often turn the tide.

"Some things happen that you don't expect to happen and those are the ones that kind of make everything that much more special," the Hampton native said."I feel very fortunate that I've been given the opportunities that I have and the doors that have opened for me."

Connections made at ContactEast and Ontario Contact have resulted in a U.S. tour coming up in the fall; she has been invited to be part of the ECMA Songwriters Circle when the music extravaganza takes place in Charlottetown in April; plus, she's right in the middle of writing her yet-to-be named fourth album.

All that and she and her manager/husband Mark Marshall are expecting their first child in March.

"The ECMA's singer/songwriters circle is a pretty prestigious event," Rhaye said. "It's two weeks after I'm due. I'm hoping I can do it," she says laughing and adding that, by the time she starts her U.S. tour in the fall, the baby will be old enough to take along.

Rhaye was just five years old when she discovered she loved music. "My life, as I knew it, was transformed," she writes on her website. "My father brought home a microphone that plugged into our stereo and from that moment, I would spend hours singing and recording every song I knew. When I got to the end of my repertoire of songs, I would just make them up."

A freelance graphics design artist, Rhaye works on projects for others when she's not writing or performing her music. "I'm pretty much creative all the time," she said.

Her new record, which she describes as an extension of her last album Good Things, includes a lullabye - naturally - and a song about relationships she co-wrote with Ron Sexsmith. "I'm very fortunate to work with a lot of really great co-writers," she says.

Communicating experience is what drives Rhaye to write music, she says on her website. "The more I perform and the more I hear people connecting with my music, the more satisfied I am as a songwriter.

"I am excited about where all of my albums have taken me and where I can go in the future," she writes. "To me, it's not about the paper accomplishments, but more about the experience, the things I have learned and how I can open up and share my life through my music."