50 Years ... and Counting ... as a Professional Musician & Singer
- 50Plus
- 6 days ago
- 4 min read
Local Music Makers
By Peggy Ratusz
Last month marked my 50th year as a professional musician-singer. I say “musician-singer” because I still get asked, “So you just sing? You don’t play an instrument?” The level of maturity in my answer over the decades has risen, thank goodness.
I am no longer put off by the question. I just remind people who ask, that the voice is indeed an instrument. In fact, history concludes that the very first musical instrument is the voice.
This milestone beckons me to ponder why it is, that applause and adulation is what I’ve been earnestly chasing for this long. Here is my ever-evolving synopsis to address that seemingly self-centered pursuit.
I allow the applause to teach me to handle people with care and to always pay it forward.
I allow adulation to give me grace to be a better person.
The adulation also ignites my commitment to authenticity and my goal is that emotions will ripple and vibrate to those present. Vocalists recite in melody, the poems that they or someone else writes, in hopes that listeners walk away feeling more of what they came in expecting to feel.
I sing pop and rock songs to people wanting to have some fun. I croon a love song for couples; to conjure up romance for anyone needing to feel the warmth of a beautifully written ballad. The message- and folk- style songs I cover and write go out as an invitation to connect.
For the person who is sad and isolated, I offer something high and lonesome, because like the lyric in one of my original songs, “there’s nothin’ the Blues can’t heal.”
While the current implementation of statutes to shun diversity rears its ugliness within our system, the plethora of unyielding human singing voices permeates the din of sorrow, divisiveness, worry and anger.
Singers were sent here to bring joy and hope to audiences, because their collective choice to be where the singing happens and heals is deliberate.
Violins & flutes, banjos and mandolins, harmonicas and trumpets, drums and tambourines, harpsichords and vibraphones, bouzoukis and pianos, double basses and trombones, sitars and saxophones; we could go on and on.
The infinite number of culturally derived instruments is just another fine example of how diversity can never be extinguished and that music is the universal language that unites us.
In the 23 years I’ve been steeped in this community, the constant influx of musicians and musician-singers to this area brings a variety of genre aesthetics.
From Blues to Bluegrass, Classical to Jazz, Metal to Americana, Country to Hip-Hop, solo to orchestral, these seekers of truth through creating rhythm and rhyme and harmony, never cease to inspire me.
The first singer I heard in Asheville was Kat Williams. I witnessed her masterful conductor acumen. Her panache and bold delivery hastened my desire to put a group together and I gave myself permission to learn how to be a band leader, and to refer to myself as one, for the first time.
During those early years of living here, I’d go to hear Stephanie Morgan. Her somatic and melodic movements, her jazzy improvisational skills gave me impetus to learn a set of Jazz standards.
After all, for years my father’s question to me was always, “When are you gonna put on a dress and learn to sing like Nancy Wilson?”
Whitney Moore filled the house known as Tressa’s back in the mid 2000’s. Her mix of Soul, Pop, Latin, Blues and Jazz; English and Spanish lyrics, kept the listeners mesmerized and the dancers on their feet. I began to fulfill my own mission to be rooted in my art, but not pigeonholed.
One of the first area singers I became friends with was Laura Michaels. There is a 25 year difference in our ages, and back then, it didn’t even occur to us. I was mystified that she wasn’t already a known recording artist.
Her affinity for my voice and our friendship awakened my confidence because I considered her one of the kindest, best singers and songwriters I’d ever heard.
The first time I encountered Russ Wilson I was gobsmacked. His drumming and crooning are of course, legendary. When a musician has all that he’s got going for him, the cards and letters just keep coming. When he asked me to lead-sing in one of his bands, I knew I had arrived.
It slays me when a vocalist has a rasp-tinged voice, like singer and captivating songwriter Joshua Singleton. Listening to the soul pouring out from his vocal cords, I am restored.
Back when we used to perform together regularly, he encouraged me to write my own songs. And in 2009, I released my second album of originals.
When I saw the movie Bridges of Madison County, I discovered Jazz great, Johnny Hartman. I bought the soundtrack and listened to it regularly. When I heard Jesse Earl Jr. perform for the first time at a showcase, I fell hard.
He was Johnny Hartman reincarnated in my view. The rich long notes from Jesse’s luscious baritone resonated and gave way for deeper self-reflection. And now the compliment I appreciate the most is when listeners tell me they can feel that I’m feeling it.
All the professional touring singers who reside or base themselves in WNC know who Caitlin Krisko is. She breezed into town with sweet swagger, an infectious laugh, a glorious voice and plans for her band’s future.
The first time I heard and saw her was on a YouTube video. I was nervous and star struck to meet her. As my reputation in town was growing, I took a cue from her, and I gradually stopped being timid and apologetic and I started making bigger plans for myself.
My experiences collaborating with local singers from Tucson, Nashville and Austin, the places I lived before moving to Carolina in 2002, shaped who I was when I arrived.
Every day since, the copious number of astonishing singers I meet, work with, book or interview now, help me to continue to thrive at being who I’ve been for 50 years and counting; a musician-singer.

Peggy Ratusz is a vocal coach,
song interpreter, and songwriter.
For vocal coaching email her at
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