Haley Montgomery:
The Healing Power of Christian Music
By PHIL SWEETLAND Music+Radio contributor
NASHVILLE – The beautiful San Diego-based singer and songwriter Haley Montgomery grew up with two very different passions in her young life: figure skating and piano.
“What little girl wouldn’t want to stand in the middle of the ice in a pretty dress, and have thousands of people clap for you?” she says of skating.
Haley was both an excellent athlete and a fierce competitor, winning countless medals at Regional and even National events. Then something totally unexpected happened.
“It was at Nationals in Boston, and I was in front of thousands of people – the biggest crowd I’d ever skated for – and I’d never really fallen in competition before,” she says. “That day when my butt hit the ice, God was calling me to do so much more.”
The Father was pointing Haley towards music, but Lord knows that for Haley at first it was a tough choice.
“It was intense, I was disappointing a lot of people,” she says of the decision to end her competitive skating career. “For six months I went through some Depression, because my skating – my identity – was gone.”
But with the Christian love and mentoring of her mother Paige and of Worship Pastor Ron DePuy at her home church, Canyon View Christian Fellowship, something else happened to Haley. She began to find her musical voice.
“It was in those really hard six months that I wrote all my very first songs, all five of those songs that are on my EP,” she says. “I came out of that period with all of God’s blessing and anointing, because I was willing to surrender all the things I had been holding on to in this world. I started developing as a musician and as a worshiper.”
She had actually begun studying piano at age 5, and the same competitive drive and work ethic that took Haley to the highest levels of skating helped her become an outstanding pianist with a strong background in music theory.
As she transitioned from skating to music, she was also given a guitar. The instrument was completely new to her, but Haley quickly became proficient enough that she was writing on guitar as well as piano.
And while skating is an individual sport, worship teams and Christian music are group events. Haley soon discovered that she had a natural gift for leading and mentoring others. These days she often appears at several churches and conferences in a single weekend.
An early musical hero was Haley’s fellow Southern Californian Crystal Lewis, who has won multiple Dove Awards and achieved crossover Christian success recording albums both in English and Spanish. “My Mom’s heart for worship was and is an influence to the kind of worshiper I want to be,” Haley says. “I grew up singing in the church, love Gospel music, love jazz and Ray Charles. I love hip-hop.
Clister is one of my favorite Christian rappers.”
Clister is a young artist who had grown up hard on the mean streets of San Diego.
Haley fused all these diverse influences, along with a very personal Christian message, into music that is both extremely accessible and powerfully uplifting. And for kids who are Haley’s own age or but dealing with grown-up crises, these songs couldn’t have come at a better time. Haley recently returned home from her first-ever musical trip to Nashville, where she met and impressed many of the leading label executives, music publishers, and songwriters in the Christian music industry. Back home, she and
Clister are also co-writing.
“I’m writing and preparing this next album, which is about our identity in Christ,” she says. “It deals with the different dimensions and aspects of God’s character, and how we all reflect who God is.”
Haley Montgomery’s music and message have always reflected who she is, and we are all blessed to share her musical and spiritual journey.
