Recovering with music: Clovis woman’s single hits the airwaves.

It’s hard to pinpoint when Heather Layne’s life began to fall apart. On the surface, she looked fine. She had been a co-valedictorian in high school. But she was also involved in a mentally and physically abusive relationship with a man 10 years older than she was. While everyone expected great things from her, she secretly battled an eating disorder. Later, with a different man, she was a mother of two and working as a successful, high-powered sales representative while her marriage fell apart. Although not an alcoholic, she drank often to numb herself. It got to the point where she began crying, non-stop, for seemingly no reason at all.

“Even though I wasn’t an addict, I was fully numb and most addicts are numb,” she says.

She felt shattered, empty. She needed something. Although she had not been raised in the church, she felt God was what was required to make her whole.

She started attending a women’s Bible study class and a 12-Step Program. From seemingly out of nowhere and with no previous experience, she started writing songs about her experience. She’s now written more than 400 songs and next month her first single will be hitting the country music airwaves.

“I just wrote what I was feeling and what I was going through,” she says.

She sang her songs for her recovery group and soon she was asked to sing at other locations. Her music, while it reaches out and touches many, is hard to define. Layne calls it “recovery music.”

“Worship songs can turn someone off because they didn’t have a good experience with church or have never been in to it,” she says. “That’s what makes my music different. It sounds secular, but it’s Christian based. My producer can’t put his finger on what I sound like. It’s just how I write, what comes out.”

As word spread about Layne and her music, she found herself playing at prisons and churches as well as recovery groups.

“Whenever we go and play, people are impacted by the music,” she says. “It’s really impacted me. The music penetrates the hard casing around the heart. At women’s prisons, women are literally sobbing and falling apart at concerts. It’s really hitting home for them. There’s some kind of common ground that pulls at their heart, pulls at their life experience.”

She met her husband Dennis while playing. They met when he stepped in as a fill-in drummer for her backing band — and has been a part of her life and music ever since. And it’s become a strange adventure for them, especially since it’s now gotten to the point where some of Layne’s music has been published, a CD has been recorded and her first single is hitting the airwaves.

Recording was an amazing adventure in itself. It all started with a demo that Neal James, producer of such acts as Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Dottie West, heard.

“He called and said, ‘I don’t want to record the song, but I love your demo singer and I’d to record her’,” Layne says. The demo singer was Layne herself.

The recording sessions featured an array of distinguished musicians, including Bob Babbitt, the Motown bassist, country music star Gretchen Wilson, and Dean Hall, son of Tom T. Hall.

“It was first class all of the way,” Layne says.

Although her first album, “The Nashville Collection,” has been out for a while and is on an independent label called Applause, word is spreading about Layne and her first single, “Close Your Eyes.”

“I wrote it in 5 minutes,” Layne says. “I heard that song — it was just in my head. When you first hit rock bottom, you’re always looking over your shoulder, sleeping with one eye open. It felt like for the first time in my life I could sleep with both eyes closed. Some people can interpret it as a love story and that’s okay. I wasn’t thinking any of that when I wrote it.”

The song was given a test run over Internet radio in March and was rated No. 2 out of 100 songs featured that month. “Close Your Eyes” will be debuting on country stations in September. It was shopped around to Christian radio stations but the Christian stations passed on it.

“They say it doesn’t fit,” Layne says. “It sounds like country. I grew up with country. We’re already getting calls almost daily for concerts.”

Layne has continued to perform frequently in the prisons, churches and the recovery groups she started in. She is now out on tour to promote her single. The single and her CD are available through Amazon.com, iTunes and her website http://www.heatherlayne.com.

Though she could be on the brink of stardom, the possibility of becoming a celebrity is the last thing she is looking forward to.

“It’s not about fame at all,” she says. “It’s about helping people through music. I think the recovery world is very excited about this because they see me as their voice.”

Just as she has done in her recovery program, Layne is taking this new career one step at a time.

By Shawn Gadberry / Clovis Independent