Every time May 5th comes around I smile a little extra. Eight years ago…. EIGHT YEARS ago…. I released my first debut album. I’ve always had a passion for writing and I think like most kids growing up in the 80’s and 90’s I shared a dream of being a recording artist. I couldn’t finish writing an entire song myself for the life of me and needed help but let me back up. I always wanted to sing for Jesus. ALWAYS. I didn’t care about being made fun of. I almost always minus a few times chose Christian songs for any chorus concert, May Day, singing competition. I also enjoyed challenging myself. I practiced difficult songs in other languages for Regional Chorus in High School and I was Dorothy in my Senior Class play The Wizard of Oz. I LOVE those memories so much! After High School I tried out for a few local singing competitions and I traveled around to local churches with my boom box. Oh those were the days. I learned to love speaking before the songs. Giving a testimony of what the song meant to me or what the Lord was showing me. I really enjoyed preparing for that. Then American Idol became popular so guess who had friends that drove her to tryouts? Yup… I tried out twice but this is where I started to become discouraged. My dream of singing started to shift. This is where I realized I was probably not cut out for the music industry. I saw some things that really disappointed and even disgusted me. Then I went to a networking event with the Christian music industry and the same thing happened. It didn’t seem much different to me than the secular industry. I still wanted to write songs, I still loved singing for the Lord, but my dream of becoming a recording artist was diminishing. Shortly after that I was asked to be on the worship team at the church I was going to. The neat thing is I was serving coffee at the time but super excited to sing again but I had no experience singing with a band. This was a completely different experience and I absolutely fell in love with it. I came from a background of hymns and music ministry time with my cassette backing tracks. HA!

I was still writing songs and couldn’t shake the desire to get them finished. After talking with a friend who encouraged me to reach out to a local artist/producer I gained enough courage to reach out. From there two albums were born. I went on a journey of becoming an Independent Artist. Oh what a journey that doesn’t feel finished. The entire experience felt like I was home if that makes sense. Like I was doing what I was put on this earth to do. I got a chance to have the most dreamy album release party sharing these songs with my most favorite people. I was able to continue sharing these songs around the community before the epidemic hit. The Lord had more heart work to complete within me, though this I now realize. Since then I have shut down my website and started focusing more on coaching while still Worship Leading at church. I’ve been writing songs, though. The desire hasn’t 100% completely left me in fact I have been holding tight to the vision of my next album. I have no idea what is in store for Bethany Nicole Music but what I do know is singing and writing is what I continue to hold precious and is that thing that I feel the most alive doing.

I still have songs to share….

If you would like a physical copy of either of my albums or even a YES I CAN T-shirt I still have those available.

The albums are still available to stream on most music platforms and I still have videos on my YouTube.

Comment below and I will share links to make it easier to navigate to.