Rachel Stacy can share stories about the road she’s travelled to get where she is today that would scare an outlaw straight or the stars right out of the eyes of the most optimistic young dreamer even contemplating a life in music. But believe her when she says that’s not her M-O. At this exciting point in her life and career, she’s far more interested in looking to the future — and using her music and voice as a beacon of hope rather than dwelling on the past.
“My goal now is to try to inspire other people — especially women — to continue in their endeavors with music and art. My mission is all about wanting to be a good example: not just for younger artists just starting, but for ones at that age — my age —where society might be telling them, ‘You’re too old for this, you need to quit.’ Because no, you don’t.”
Stacy herself is living proof of this, but her own go-to example is none other than the living legend with whom she had the good fortune of working with during the writing and recording of her newest batch of songs: Texas/Americana icon Ray Wylie Hubbard. The wizened and widely revered “Wylie Lama,” who didn’t even begin to embark on the most rewarding phase of his career until finding sobriety at age 40 — 20 years after writing the immortal outlaw country anthem “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother” — met Stacy early on in her own recovery and encouraged her to stay the course and to keep faith in her artistic purpose. That path eventually led to their rendezvous a decade later at the Zone Recording Studio, just outside of Dripping Springs, Texas, in the late summer of 2021 to track the best songs of Stacy’s career to date: “The Ghost of Lishe Jackson,” “Take a Little Time,” “Trouble,” and “The Night.”