“Music is so many things to me. It is my therapist, best friend and my lover. It evokes both laughter and tears…often all at the same time. It comforts me. It both quiets and excites my thoughts and feelings. It gives me strength to endure. Music is the canvas on which I paint my soul. It is my passion and joy.”

Shelly Rae writes and sings songs about complex things: passion and pain, self-love and strength, resilience and survival. Phrases turn, emotions connect, melodies soar. You feel compelled to sing along even though you’ve never heard the tune before. Shelly delivers her vocals from a perspective of distances, of interludes between lovers and lives and the roads that lead from small towns to big cities.

Shelly grew in up Black Diamond, Washington, a small town located about an hour from metropolitan Seattle/Tacoma in the shadow of iconic Mount Rainier. She credits her mother, Cathy Rae, for developing her love of music. “Mom learned to play guitar when I was 5 years old. She had a great voice. She would pull out her 3-ring binder and sing music from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s artists like Phoebe Snow and Jim Croce next to the ceramic wood stove in our living room. She played from typewritten lyrics with the guitar keys handwritten above. I still have that binder somewhere. She could never ignore her creativity- it was part of her soul.”

Shelly continued to develop her musical talent and education in high school studying music theory, vocals and guitar while performing on stage solo and with choirs. She then went on to majoring in music at Whitworth University a private, liberal arts institution in Spokane, Washington, while performing with various bands.

After years away from the music business raising a family, Shelly Rae returned to the music scene with a fuel that burns full-throttle, ignited by the heat of her soulful voice and the power and passion of her performance.