Verese Vassell-Bowen has been in and around music all her life.
From her Jamaican home to the church where her father was the pastor, then later as a backing singer for countless reggae bands both in Jamaica and later touring the United States.
More recently it was in her Kingdom Life Fellowship Church and as a member of the Guelph Little Theatre.
After being encouraged and urged to record her own music for years, she has finally done it.
The result is Forever Praise, a nine-track gospel album now available on all the usual online outlets.
Vassell-Bowen wrote all but one of the songs, a mixture of up-tempo and mellower tunes of faith that includes one duet.
"Music was always the first go-to for me. If I could sing nine to five every day, I would sing nine to five every day."
Vassell-Bowen was living in New Jersey when "the love of a handsome boy" led her to Canada 10 years ago. She just had her third child last February and was on maternity leave from her job as a financial advisor when she decided "it's now or never" when it came to putting out an album.
A very serious medical scare helped influence the songs she wrote.
"I had my baby in February and ended up with clots in my lungs," she says. "I said to myself 'if I came this close to not making it, let me just do this one thing I've always wanted to do,'" she says.
She threw caution to the wind and wrote eight songs in a year, many of them heavily influenced by the birth of her daughter and subsequent health scare.
"They're just a 'thank you,'" she says. "The last song on the CD was actually written while I was in my hospital bed.
"It was always my dream to have my own CD and here it is."
The wonders of the internet made the album easier to make, from using the Apple resource GarageBand to help write the tracks to sending them to a studio in Toronto for mixing and final touches.
Jerome Anderson produced the album and it was engineered by Brad Dugas at Revelation Sound in Guelph.
"It's a virtual record as opposed to all parties in the room at the same time," Vassell-Bowen says.
Vassell-Bowen, who is regularly on stage with the Guelph Little Theatre, will perform her album Oct. 22 at her Kingdom Life Fellowship Church on Margaret Street as part of the official album release party. The show starts at 7 p.m.
"The response I've been getting is amazing," she says.
The album is available digitally on Itunes, Amazon, Spotify and CD Baby and in CD form at Vassell-Bowen's performances.
