Hi there! My name is Kelly Dupuy Schmitt. I'm a singer/songwriter and I have a big story to tell. My calling has always been to write and share my music.

As a kid I would compose my own songs for piano recitals, convince my friends to write and record jingles using my dad's cassette tape recorder and write lyrics to the instrumental side of my sister's 45 single records.

I took a brief detour to be a trumpet player with the Canadian Army Band of the Ceremonial Guard and another longer 22 year detour teaching elementary general music. As a teacher, I incorporated original songs and musicals into my curriculum. Through teaching, I met my friend composer/author James Kocovsky, who introduced me to my friend and producer, Terry Sweet.

Terry is an Emmy Nominated jingle composer and Award winning composer based in Nashville, who challenged me to write an album. I challenged him back and took him up on it. The outcome was my first album "Freight Train" and Terry's first album "Listen To The Bars." We were both going through some huge life challenges at the time, so the subjects are pretty relatable to most humans.

Since then (4 years ago) I've toured with Maverick City Gospel Choir, Become a member of my church worship team, Joined and write with SongShare Music, become the lead vocalist with The J-Ryan Trio and completed a 22 year teaching career to pursue a full-time freelance music career.

Honestly, teaching is an honorable and needed career, but it's just not me. I taught in five different schools, loved the kids, but there was less and less freedom and when my last school district cut my position, I figured God had finally pushed me off the plank that I had been wanting to jump off of for a while.

This journey has not been easy. It's been a lot of tears and sacrifice and eating humble pie. Truly, the deeper I get into the music world, the less I know and the more talented and amazing everyone else but me appears to be. It's kind of like you finally think you've mastered something only to find out you could have just asked AI.

It feels so strange to let go of a steady paycheck and just trust the process. Those of you who have supported this journey since "Freight Train" know the financial reality of being an artist: You can't survive without a second or third job and then some. The proceeds of this fundraiser will be used to help me pay for studio fees (1200.00), engineering/mixing fees (1200.00), mastering (750.00) and to pay my session musicians (5 musicians x $650.00 = $3250.00.) However much you can give, every little bit helps and every cent is appreciated. The cool thing is that your support isn't just helping me, it's helping to keep real live people playing real live music. That in turn will hep to preserve the true hearts of the music industry.

My goal is for you to get to hear my stories through song. Knowing what I have learned about the music industry, that means all the writing, editing, copywriting, promoting, music videos, lyric videos, social media content, and a million other things need my full time attention. I have the greatest Nashville musicians waiting to help bring my songs to life, but gigging doesn't pay much, freelance is unpredictable and life is just darned expensive! So please check out some of my recent work and thank you so very much for considering to support this project. I would love to meet some new faces and friends on this next leg of the journey. God bless you all and I pray that you continue to enjoy the ride!