“Your eyes are no longer blue, they are veiled in grey.”
— Ondee
Legacy
Ondee's father was diagnosed with a rare form of dementia in the Spring of 2007. She watched his mind and body deteriorate and one day he forgot her name.
Ondee's family was desperate and unknowingly needed to find a way to process the pain. Overcome by grief Ondee would write poems and present them to her family over a 2 month period. Her mother would weep as she read the words that seemed to come from her own heart and then count down the moments until the next poem arrived. These poems were like small gifts of honor wrapped in sorrow. This collection of poems soon became songs, as Ondee sat at the piano to find healing through music. Ondee would sing these newly birthed songs through tears, as her daughter hummed along. Ondee was then inspired to record the songs as an heirloom project for her family.
Ondee released the tribute album entitled, “Lamentations for My Father", which became the family's soundtrack of mourning. The project is about hopelessness, loss, and a quest to find gratitude for legacy, love, and music.
Produced by noted rock drummer Chad Cromwell (Neil Young Mark Knopfler, Joe Walsh), arranged and engineered “Lamentations for My Father”. This collection gives voice to grief that is not just limited to dementia, an affliction Cromwell could relate to as his own mother succumbed to its ravages.
Ondee’s goal for “Lamentations for My Father” is to comfort families – patients and their caregivers – to give words to sorrow that weighs so heavily it's hard to lift your head and sing.
“Today I accept I'm losing you but it may take years. I'll try my best to be fearless. I will watch you die...TWICE.”
— Ondee
“I would almost sell my birthright to have you well. ”
— Ondee
Bio
Growing up within the picturesque confines of the San Francisco Bay Area's rich and diverse culture is what helped Ondee's parents, Paul and Mary - through their own musicianship - to purposely shape what would become a lifelong devotion and discovery of Ondee’s unique musical style, a style that embraces many genres including pop, gospel, rock, jazz, R&B, and folk. That devotion began at the tender age of three when Ondee first put pen to paper and wrote the lyrics to her first song (and her mother compiled tape recordings to prove it).
With music of all styles surrounding her – Ondee’s father constantly played hard core jazz on his guitar and schooled her on the history and pioneers of country music, while her mother exclusively listened to and blasted black gospel on an 8-track player from the kitchen – it was only natural that Ondee would take up the classical piano, but she also cherished an older cousin who would bring over the hardest rock records of the time and she became in awe of the soaring vocals and screaming guitars.
And it wasn’t just Ondee’s parents who recognized early on her desire to express herself through song, as her Grandpa, who pastored at a local inner-city church, would pick young Ondee up and place her on the altar for all to see while she sang with all her might and without the benefit of a microphone, teaching her the refinements of vocal projection, which her father explained to her is how “true” singers learn. He encouraged Ondee to blend registers, develop vocal texture, qualities, and color. “Singing came easily to me,” Ondee remarks, “but my dad would constantly push me to expand my range and to deliver a song with power, control, and conviction. Jesus gave me the gift and my parent’s cultivated it.”
The family relocated to Nashville, TN to be a part of Music City. Ondee remembers, "when I first moved to town my dad and I would write a song and then perform it that night at a singer/songwriter venue. I'm still in awe of how the community respects the craft of songwriting and how the audience responds to my storytelling."
Today, Ondee, who now calls her style alternative soul (a tag given to her by a blind man after he heard her sing “I Have a Dream” in a Nashville club), holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from California State University, East Bay and is known for her live emotional performances, resides in Nashville, TN, with her husband and daughter.