Francine Honey: "I Carry On"
“I Carry On ” the latest single by Francine Honey is a testament to the human spirit and its ability to overcome the challenges that life throws our way. Where does this courage come from? When the path through is unclear, there are unexpected heroes that appear with help. Whether it is a partner, a caregiver, a parent, a child, a friend, or one’s faith in something larger than life, this song expresses gratitude to those that light our world and help us through. There is nothing like seeing the light of love beaming from someone’s eyes when we need it most.
“I Carry On ” is the second single being released in anticipation of her upcoming fifth project entitled 2020 Vision ; a chronicle of her life story so far in song, as a double album due out later this year. It follows the single “Red Sky ” released in Oct 2019 and a full-length Holiday album entitled Take Me To The North Pole released in December 2019.
“I Carry On” was co- written with song writing friend and neighbour, Robert Gray. Honey says “I have had my share of challenges in life struggling to make ends meet as the sole provider for my two children and somehow I always knew I’d get through them. Robert and I were outside chatting one day as neighbours do and he told me he was going through a major health challenge with cancer. We bonded over our mutual feeling about overcoming challenges with the help of a positive attitude, gratitude, love and song writing! We talked about how others have inspired us in the past. We wrote about how people are there for you when you need them and the strength that we as humans find to survive and overcome our challenges. You just do what you have to do to get through it.”
It took the duo a few months to find the time to sit down to write this song that they had talked about writing. When they did finally meet, it came together pretty quickly. In fact, Honey was headed down to Nashville to record her recently released Holiday album, Take Me To The North Pole . She loved the song so much that she asked producer Neilson Hubbard if they could record the song for release in 2020. So, Honey invited Gray to Nashville to be there if he wanted to see the song being recorded. After recording the song, Francine asked if Robert wanted to take a stab at singing the song himself in the studio. Luckily, he agreed and found his way to the vocal booth and sang the song. It became clear that a duet brings new meaning to the song. For this reason, there are two versions of “I Carry On ” being released together. The solo more country version with Honey’s vocals and a duet featuring Robert Gray which adds another dimension to the song.
Honey is not new to dealing with adversity and finding a way to “carry on”. Her path through life and into song writing has been years in the making. A mother of two and former federal civil servant is finally living the dream. She has the love of her life, and the career she long denied herself . Little did she know she'd ever be a professional songwriter. Although she's made music since childhood — "I wrote my first song in 1976" — Honey never dreamed of making it a career. Instead, she studied math and computers, got married, had kids and worked as a project manager. Her life seemed perfect. Then a near-simultaneous breakup and job loss forced her to re-locate, find a new career and raise a family alone. Music went on the back burner; she never stopped writing, but songs went unfinished — until her kids fixed that.
“When my 18-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son kept telling me to "Get a life, Mom!" they really were showing wisdom beyond their years. After spending time thinking about what my life would be after they left the nest, I realized I had stories to share, and there was still an opportunity for me to at least try and turn my musical hobby into my profession.” So, she left her federal government job in 2013 to pursue music full-time under her maiden name Francine Leclair.
Along the way, the down-to-earth artist has displayed extraordinary dedication to her craft. Francine’s debut self-produced (in her living room) album An Ordinary Woman came out in 2008 and was followed in 2014 by Re-Drawn , produced by Lang Bliss in Nashville. The latter includes the song "I Soldier On" and its French partner "Je Vis Sans Limites ", in support of the Soldier On fund in Canada. In 2015, she also re-recorded many of her early songs for the EP An Ordinary Woman (In Studio) with Mark Plancke of SharkTank Productions in Windsor, ON.
Honey took a few years to work on her craft, studying, exploring and chasing her sound, until 2018, when Honey began working with Grammy-nominated producer Neilson Hubbard in Nashville TN. Honey recorded her full-length album to be continued… live off the floor in 6 days. to be continued… has received critical acclaim internationally. Her song “Stay” is a finalist in the 2018 International Songwriting Competition in 2 categories. Honey’s song writing was recognized from more than 19,000+ entries around the world, receiving semi-finalist nominations in both the Americana and Blues categories. In addition, “Stay ” was a semi-finalist in the 2018 Canadian Songwriting Competition (Folk/Singer/Songwriter). The Austin Songwriting Group out of Texas awarded first place honours in the Country Category with “Stay” and first place in the Singer-Songwriter category for “Can’t Break Through To You ” in April 2020 along with 5 other song placements including a 3rd place for “I Carry On” in the Inspirational category.
2019 saw Honey release a few singles starting with “Flocons de neige sur mes cils”, the French counterpart of “Snowflakes On My Eyelashes”. This was followed by “Chez mon oncle Lucien”, a song written around the Hangman’s Reel that her Grandmother used to play on her violin, is a traditional French-Canadian song with the memory of doing maple syrup at her Uncle’s farm. “Red Sky” was released in October 2019, described is a gritty and dreamy flight through change.
Honey’s music has received critical acclaim and sees airplay on CBC, Radio-Canada, AM800, CTV, SiriusXM, Folk Roots Radio, and more across Canada, the US, UK, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands. Her over 20k+ fans online are very happy she left her government career to pursue music full-time. She performs regularly on-line with her series “Honey In Your Coffee” and streams almost every live venue performance. Her belief that music gets you through life and her commitment to helping people feel less alone by sharing life through song connects people across the world to support each other. Her campaign last year to touch those suffering with grief through the holidays with her song and video “Snowflakes On My Eyelashes” and the French counterpart garnered over 1.5 million views, but most importantly connected people grieving from all over the world. It’s no wonder that the video for “Snowflakes On My Eyelashes” was a finalist in the UK Songwriting Contest.
As a graduate of the Berklee College of Music Professional Singer-Songwriter Certificate Program, Francine regularly makes the nine-hour drive from Ontario, Canada, to song-writing workshops in Nashville, where she has been mentored by icons like Beth Nielsen Chapman (who contributes backup vocals to Honey's Snowflakes On My Eyelashes ), Mike Reid (I Can't Make You Love Me ), Mary Gauthier (Mercy Now ), Verlon Thompson (Boats to Build ), Gretchen Peters (Independence Day ) and Jonatha Brooke (Put the Gun Down ). Francine is a member of the Americana Music Association, Songwriter's Association of Canada (SAC), Nashville Songwriter's Association International, and Canadian Country Music Association. She co-ordinates the SAC’s Leamington &Windsor Regional Writer's Group, mentoring other songwriters. She has showcased at the Texas Songwriters Symposium four years in a row, NSAI Tin Pan North Festival, Hugh’s Room, the WinterFolk Blues and Roots Festival in Toronto, the Kingsville Folk Music Festival and the Folk Music Ontario conference. Francine’s music and songwriting have not only taken her through Canada and the U.S but to the U.K., Switzerland and Italy.
She continues to co-write with other artists, aiming to have her music recorded by fellow performers and licensed for TV. "If I could get a song on Grey's Anatomy or another TV or Netflix series, that would be cool," she laughs. "But really, I just want to keep going, writing better songs. I'm finally a songwriter and I know I'll do this the rest of my life.”
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