Ashley Dupre, who came into the national spotlight as New York governor Elliot Spitzer’s paid companion, recorded at Austin’s Barnstormers Studio in 2004. The first release from that session is available at www.myspace.com/ashleydupresings. It was shortly after those recordings that she moved to NYC to pursue a career in music. Her recordings there were in the dance music genre.

     "I don't think this hip-hop sort of beat thing ... is the way she needs to go. She's got a real soulful, big blues voice to her." commented Jerry Cooper, the financier and guitar player for the Austin sessions. "I think she has the potential to sound good." Cooper was her boyfriend at the time and himself a musician. He heard her singing in the shower and encouraged her to sit in with his band at his gigs and eventually paid for her to come to Austin to work with Bruce Newman, the owner of Barnstormers Studios.

     “Music is what it’s all about,” Dupre has continued to say despite all the notoriety she has suddenly received. She is currently trying to stay out of the maelstrom, but has given her blessings to bring these recordings to light in hopes that her true ambitions can be realized.

     Newman has recorded hundreds of musicians at Barnstormers Studios. “I got into this business because I was a songwriter and I wanted a studio that would serve the song.. I didn’t want to be just a good recording engineer: I wanted to record good music. I don’t hesitate to tell people that they were out of tune or even that the song they chose wasn’t right for them,” he explains.

     “When Jerry brought Ashley in, we tried a few cover tunes and I was really impressed at how hard she worked at it and how well she took direction. I had a song that I’d written for a female singer, but hadn’t found its voice yet. She took it and made it her own.” That song was “Hello Stranger.” Dupre earned the ears of some record people in NYC and they were very positive about it. This was the right vehicle for her voice. She was instructed to go back to Austin and record more songs with this producer and this writer.

     “We got together for a several days in the studio and we put down a couple more of my homeless female songs and then co-wrote 3 or 4 more pieces in the studio,” Newman recalls. “I didn’t hear from any of the three until recently when Jerry Cooper called me up last week. He suggested that it was time to get these tunes out there. My lawyer advised me that I actually owned the tunes and could exploit them however I wanted, but that’s not what I’m about. I made a deal with Jerry and Ashley to split the profits equally and to continue working on more tracks. I would love to have an album of these tunes out by the end of the year.

    “Getting media attention because you’re a call girl is no free ride and for a sweet young girl from New Jersey, it can be really devastating. I'm amazed that she is who the newspapers are talking about. She came in and sang her heart out and then she offered to walk my dog. I mean, that was the kind of down to earth person she was. I’m hoping that the music will be solace for her as she reclaims her life.”

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