For Happy

Singer/Songwriter, Bess McCrary, started her life in North Carolina and was a performer from birth, first off-stage, then on. She began writing her own songs at the age of thirteen, and moved to New York City when she was 24. 'For Happy,' is her first commercially-released studio album of all original songs. It is dedicated to Ms. McCrary's mother, who died after a long battle with cancer in 2008. Bess began work on the rest of the songs on the album shortly after her mother's death, but was sidelined from gigging and recording in 2011 with a hard-hitting discovery: Bess had cancer herself. During the surgery to remove the cancer, Miss McCrary sustained nerve damage to her vocal cords and suffered a debilitating blow to her ability to sing and speak: a loss of literally half of her entire vocal range and a lessening of tone quality and consistent breath support. Determined to sing again, she worked with a speech pathologist and has been lucky to experience some re-innervation of her vocal chords. Bess McCrary will sing professionally again, and she has already written some songs for her next studio album. She and her musicians are looking forward to gigging again once Bess's voice is in fighting shape, and Bess has found that there are many things to be gained from life's challenges and from starting over with a new vocal instrument. Bess is currently booking dates in New York City and elsewhere for the Summer of 2013 and beyond. She looks forward to sharing her new voice and her new songs with fans.