Drive by Eleanor Fye

She followed her heart, leaping off the company fish ladder and into the sea of creativity. Six months after leaving a seven-year career at Microsoft, Eleanor releases her debut album of ten original songs. 

It's not that Eleanor always dreamed of being a singer and songwriter. She never expected to be writing popular music at all. Trained as a classical singer and pianist, she always was a talented choral and church musician with a day job. She studied voice, piano, harpsichord, organ, and even completed a couple of choral compositions. While she was most successful as a soprano in early music, she still didn't feel a true, full fit in the classical choral realm.

The exception was doing choral recording sessions for movie and video game trailers and soundtracks, so in mid-2005 she cleared her musical calendar of everything but that, and waited to see what else inspired her. She found herself drawn to a couple of jazz workshops, and singing the Broadway and jazz standards she had always played on the piano to accompany her father, the self-proclaimed "bathroom baritone" with Vic Damone stylings.

Then that fall, after the end of a relationship, the first song came. The lines just started coming out of her, and she could barely keep up with the flow of Post-it notes onto the dining room table. Eleanor decided not to censor anything and to just let it flow - nothing was out of character and there were no mistakes. Singing, writing, and playing were the only things that made her feel better.

By mid-2006, she was learning how to record on an Mbox 2 in her living room, and un-learning enough vocal "training" to allow the real voice to start coming through. That fall she decided to quit the day job to make more room for whatever needed to happen with the music. She had no idea that it would take the shape it did.

In January of 2007, she found herself in Nashville visiting some old friends. In her spare time she stopped by some studios to check out "how recording is really done." When she came across Studio E at the Sound Kitchen, it was clear to her that she had to record there. She followed her heart and instincts, and after a series of auspicious connections, not to mention disconnections, a band of players came together. A month later, just after Valentine's Day, she was back in Nashville for a three-day recording session.

Eleanor decided not to stress herself out by arranging every part of the vision she had in her head. Instead, with the help of Craig Young she chose players - an amazingly talented herd of cats - who could improvise and make the most of the moment, who weren't afraid of a creative, collaborative experience. Collectively, they found the vibe on ten tracks in 2 days, and strings and vocals were finished out the third day.

The resulting record is a great snapshot of Eleanor's journey at that point in time. As a musician she feels in some ways like she's making up for lost time. In other ways, she feels her experiences and work to date have prepared her to follow her instincts to places she never dreamed she could go. One of the biggest lessons: it's never too late to follow your heart, and by doing so, you can inspire more than you ever could by trying to inspire.

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