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 Winner of Female Artist of the Year & Country Artist of the Year at the 2003 MIANS Music Awards - NS, nominated for 2004 Female Artist of the Year and 2003Country Artist of the Year at the East Coast Music Awards – NS, nominated for Americana Song of the Year at the 2003 Just Plain Folks Awards – USA, RyLee Madison plunges forward with her aptly titled debut album, the life of rylee.
An impressive collaboration of creativity, the album offers personalized roots music filled with both sensitivity and colour. The songs are well crafted and cover a range of melodic and thematic styles, allowing them to reach the listener through their stories and imagery.
Compared to the sound of Jo Dee Messina and Mary Chapin Carpenter, Madison’s vocal talents and songwriting skills have earned her recent major label interest and a growing respect from the country music community. This interest continues to grow with Madison’s singles ‘It All Comes Back 2 U’, ‘Family’, ‘Simple Life’ and ‘Life is Good’ released to radio in August 2002, January 2003, May 2003 and September 2003 respectively.
Well-known Canadian producer Tom McKillip, produced the recording at the Bathhouse in Ontario. McKillip’s studio projects include work with such Top 20 artists as Lisa Brokop, Amanda Stott and Arron Prichett. “I considered the life of rylee to be an extremely viable project with strong material and every expectation for success at radio,” says McKillip. “RyLee is a focused artist with great business skills, which is undoubtedly an important ingredient when building a career in today’s music industry.”
An impressive collection of musicians joined Madison on the life of rylee project, including drummer Mike Kennedy (George Strait), bass player John Dymond (k.d. lang, Natalie MacMaster), fiddle player Don Reed (Dwight Yoakam), and guitarist Mike Francis. Award -winning ECMA artists Lennie Gallant and Kendra MacGillivary also made appearances on the recording.
Madison penned all ten songs on the album, which included collaborations with such stellar songwriters as Steve Fox, Jamie Warren and Lennie Gallant. A skillful writer, RyLee co-wrote the latest Top 20 national single for Diane Chase, “Crazy In Love”.
RyLee, who was born and raised in Halifax, traded her love for music shortly after high school to secure a full time commercial design career. However, shortly after completing her diploma, her life experienced a twist of fate. She was involved in a severe car accident while returning home from her first on-site inspection as a designer. The next five years were spent recovering from a permanent back injury. Fortunately, her voice and her creative talents were only temporarily silenced. "I believe that everything happens for a reason,” says Madison. “That was someone’s way of putting me back where I belong, with my music".
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