For as long as she can remember music has been a part of Nicole Oliver’s life.

As a young girl, she sang on the imaginary stage of her fireplace hearth, pretending an audience sat before her. The voices of George Jones, Waylon Jennings, Elvis Presley and The Mandrell Sisters played constantly through her rural home on the shores of Lake Ontario.

That connection to country music lasted as she grew into a woman, obtained a teaching degree and for several years taught children with special needs.

Then her passion for music and song led her to perform with several cover bands in the Buffalo area. She sang several genres, but always returned to her country roots, which helped her finish as runner-up in Buffalo’s Nashville Star.

In 1999 she recorded her first demo in Buffalo. She traveled to Nashville several times and studied voice with Renee Grant-Williams, a sensational coach. It was at Nashville’s famous Bluebird Café during an in-the-round songwriters showcase that Nicole uncovered another passion– songwriting.

She fell in love with the challenge of pairing and playing with words to create a song to connect with her listeners. Using a limited amount of words, she rises to the challenge of telling a meaningful story. Her words propel her audiences into a film-like world that helps them visualize the song’s tale.

Her songwriting goal is to create a lyrical story coupled with a powerful melody that taps into many emotions. Her greatest plaudit would be, “your song helped get me through.” With the talented producer, Danny Bailey, she recorded a demo in Campbellsville, Kentucky, where she felt at home in the studio

But then motherhood took hold of her life. “Being a mom has been an amazing and gratifying experience,” she says. “Sometimes moms forget there is an ‘I’ in their vocabulary. But at the same time she realized her dream of becoming a recognized singer/songwriter was slowly drifting away. “We forget to give ourselves permission to explore what makes us tick,” she muses now.

Success, she realizes, does not have a timeline and dreams don’t have ceilings. With that in mind, she’s now working on her debut CD, “All Roads Lead Here.” She recently went back to Campbellsville to record three of her own songs with producer/engineer Bailey. She had some of Nashville’s finest musicians play on CD, and now she plans to return to Campbellsville to complete her “All Roads Lead Here.”

What fortifies her passion is the belief that music transcends all things. It has, she believes, the ability to elicit almost every emotion in just about every human being.