Her childhood memories include going to the Darke County Fair, celebrating the famous Annie Oakley and eating Made Right sandwiches. Then in 2002, Raye’s mom was ready for a change, and she moved her daughter to Brandon, Fla. — a suburb of Tampa.
“It was mostly just me and my mom my whole life,” Raye said.
In 2007, Raye graduated high school, where she had been very active in show choir and musical theater, developing a passion that would eventually lead her to a successful musical career.
“I came from a musical family,” Raye said. “My aunt still plays in two bands in Dayton.”
For most of her life, Raye had been writing songs. She was accepted into a performing arts school in New York but quickly realized that trying to break into musical theater in New York was going to be difficult.
“Theater is so competitive,” Raye said. “But music is more subjective. You can always find people who like the music you play.”
Raye decided to continue on the song writing path that had defined most of her life. She auditioned for the Berkely School of Music in Boston but wasn’t accepted and decided instead to enroll at the University of South Florida. Still struggling with a career choice, she decided not to major in music and chose art history instead.
“I really enjoyed both art and history,” Raye said. “Then I asked one of my professors about job opportunities in the field and she pretty much said there weren’t many.”
In 2013, Raye nonetheless graduated with a degree in art history but felt disheartened. She knew she wanted to write music so she started writing again, feeling like she was back at the beginning, still unsure if she could support herself.
“I went back to school and thought about teaching because it would be stable and secure,” Raye said. “I was still writing and going to local open mike shows on the side.”
Raye developed a following and started getting offers for paid gigs at local bars. During that time, she met her now drummer, Frank Dancey, and described that meeting as “lightning in a bottle.”
“He was teaching me songs and we just clicked,” Raye said. “Within six months we were gigging all around the Tampa Bay area.”
The duo created a press kit and sent it out and the gigs kept coming. This kept Raye so busy she didn’t have time to look for a teaching job.
“When I was very young, I made songs out of anything and walk around the house singing,” Raye said.
Raye taught herself to play guitar when she was in middle school. With her mom’s help, she improved and even started recording herself singing some of her original songs.
With Dancey, Raye started meeting other musicians and networking. They used social media to connect with people and had an opportunity to host an open mike night, which helped them book more gigs.
“You don’t know where the next opportunity is going to come from,” Raye said. “So you just keep talking to people.”
Before the duo knew what was happening, they had full calendars and have been performing now regularly for a decade. They learned how to wait for opportunities by putting themselves in a good position to be heard and seen.
“The first 5 years we ... stayed very local in Florida, but the past five we started getting more opportunities out of town and state,” Raye said. “I also started doing song writing festivals about five years ago.”
After attending a national trade association convention for the music industry in Anaheim, Calif. in 2020, the duo was offered a gig in Los Angeles. They were also invited to perform at the Bitter End in New York City. Mostly, though, the local gigs are Raye’s “bread and butter.”
Credit: Picasa
Credit: Picasa
In 2019, Raye released her first album — “Brave.” Since then. she has been consistently releasing singles, which is the way most artists work in the industry today.
“People aren’t listening to albums start to finish like they used to,” Raye said. “I still like the idea of having a single album of four or five songs. I get impatient because an album takes so long and when I finish a song, I want to release it!”
Raye’s boyfriend of seven years, Brandon Freitag, is a bass player and also helps her with production.
“I still ask myself if I’m going to use my college degree,” Raye said. “But as long as I’m doing so well with my music, I don’t want to quit.”
HER MUSIC
Check out Frankie Raye’s sound at frankieraye.com.
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