Overview

Hello music friends and music lovers! My name is Helen O’Shea, and I am a singer-songwriter here in the beautiful town of Princeton, New Jersey. 

As a young girl learning to sing “a capella” story songs from my mother back in Ireland, I dreamed of being a singer. I was part of a duo in high school but when I was offered a singing gig in a band, my father made it clear that I would be going to medical school so I could get a real job. So I turned my back on singing for years until my father passed away and then something made me turn back to singing again. After learning how to perform on stage and lots of vocal lessons, I connected with two time Grammy winner Marc Swersky at the Jersey Shore on a beautiful September day and life was never the same after. That meeting marked a clear turning point and in that room I made the decision to dedicate myself fulltime to the pursuit of a career in music. It was during that first session that Marc and I wrote our first song together “Moments” so I have a tangible memory of that wonderful day, where I definitely felt my father’s presence in the room.

In that moment, it felt like my father, who would not hear of a career in music when I was 18, was reversing himself by putting me in the hands of such a talented producer and co-writer as Marc Swersky. Marc has now been my partner in music for six years, and we have become great friends. My father loved to hear my mother sing – those times remind me of pure happiness, no instruments, just the sound of her beautiful raw and poignant voice. I always knew that one day, I would be brave enough to create an “a capella” project in their honor. At the same time, the grief I experienced when I lost my father in a car crash was completely overwhelming and the only think that could even touch my pain in those dark days was music, so I went everywhere with my iPod replaying the same two songs over and over to soothe my tattered soul. I knew then that one day, I would create a project especially for those who are deep in grief as a way to help them through it or at least walk beside them in song. Then when my mother passed away unexpectedly two years ago, the grief was completely different – intense, devastating, locking me in a crater that I could not rise out of. At the time I was in a songwriting course with Cari Cole in New York which I wanted to leave but Cari encouraged me to stay and pour my grief into my songwriting. Not only did I take her advice but I found the act of songwriting about my grief was even more powerful than listening to music in lifting me out of the depths of grief so that I could go on. Out of that dreadful time and that poignant songwriting experience, we have the duet “Stay Here Now” a vocal collaboration with my daughter Lauren in honor of my mother Josephine. In my previous career in mother and child medicine, I came face to face with grief at least on a monthly basis for many years and it always bothered me how little medicine has to offer grieving families as we are trained to save lives but at a loss to help the families of loved ones who have lost their lives. This became even more poignant when during the pandemic, many loved ones had to die alone in hospital without their loved ones present due to legitimate concerns about the spread of the virus, making the grieving process so much more difficult to navigate. My ultimate goal in life is to merge the healing I learned and taught in medicine with the healing power of music. It is said that “When words fail, music speaks” and that will never be more true than in the dark corridors of grief, where we desperately need to bring light… and music.

The material is ready, and the vocalists are waiting - this Plaid Dog Recording Campaign is the final step toward creating my first ever, professionally produced “a capella” studio album.

This campaign is raising funds for my first professionally recorded “a capella” album with Carter Sanders in Boston, MA. Carter is a Boston-based producer and engineer with experience working with both established and up-and-coming musicians. Together, Carter and I are digging into my original material, selecting the most poignant songs created about living through grief, writing original arrangements, and reaching out to superb local vocalists to bring these special songs to life. We have already been able to cover the costs of recording and producing the first song in this project,  which is ready for you to check out right here on this page. This first song is called “The Hereafter” (Jude Johnstone), and you can check it out now - below!

While we have been able to fund the recording process for “The Hereafter”, with the support of a select few generous pre-pledge supporters, the studio costs to create a full album of songs of this superior quality will add up quickly. With that said, this campaign can give us a unique opportunity to collaborate and make great art together. Your donation covers these costs of this special “a capella” project, about grief, for the grieving:

1. Pre-Production: This is where everything starts. Carter and I will start crafting the arrangements for each song slated for the album. We’ll hold rehearsals to fine-tune the songs and arrangements and talk through new and exciting ideas for how to approach the recording process.

2. Recording: This is when we enter the studio and start capturing the music and where the songs become what you'll hear on this album. This campaign will play a huge role in making sure we have enough time to capture great performances from every member of the artist team..

3. Mixing & Mastering: Each track will get mixed to create the right balance between the different voices, texture and color that make up a track. As a final step, the album will be mastered from beginning to end so that the listening experience is cohesive and carefully choreographed from start to finish.

And what do we have to honor your generosity and your support? 

So many awesome things!

I am so appreciative and grateful for any help or support you can lend to this special campaign. With thanks for your generosity, I have put together a really exciting group of gifts that are only available exclusively through your participation in this campaign. Check out some examples below and a full list to the right!

Single Cover Credit to: Jesse Caruso Designs, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

It is hard to express how much your support in helping me complete this project would mean to me. It is, in one way, a nod to my past and will result in an album dedicated to the memories of my mother, the beautiful Irish “a capella” singer, and my father, the practical man who wanted only the best for his daughter and whose spirit guides my way still every day… On the other hand, my hope is that this album gets to those who really need to hear it so that these “a capella” songs about grief and hope might wrap around them like a blanket in their challenging days and help to soothe their tattered souls…

The pandemic made us all face death and grief in a way we never had before. Somehow during the pandemic, I had a chance to take a step back and think about where I wanted to take my music next. I had learned a lot about wading through grief at that stage and it seemed that the whole world was grieving losses every day in terrible circumstances and there needed to be some resources created to soften the process in some small way. Music immediately came to mind as something that could help this mass grieving process. You can't take the grief away from the grieving but you can accompany them and I would like to see if we can accompany the grieving through music. In terms of the “a capella” approach, we needed to strip away the instruments and get down in the dirt with the grieving to in order to really empathize to align with them and to walk through the grief beside them.

The success of this campaign would mean the world to me. First, on a personal level, I would love to bring attention to the importance of music in helping to soothe our overwhelming grief and help to get us back to life. Second, on a wider level, I would like music to be as important at funerals as it is at weddings and have celebrations of life filled with the music of grief and hope – but mostly to provide the songs that the grieving can curl up with in grief and get up from in hope, a little more one day at a time…

If you're ready to support the creation of this album, just click the "Back This Project" button on the top right of this page! Every little bit counts, and I am so grateful for anything at all that you can contribute - your help and support mean the world to me.

If you have music friends or music lovers in your network that you think might be interested in supporting the creation of this album, please feel free to share this page with them.

Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my campaign page. I cannot wait to share the other songs in this very special album with you.