Article written by Daniel Jewett and featured in Marin Living Magazine:
Essence Goldman, whose family has roots in San Francisco that pre-date the Gold Rush, was having a hard time processing her parents’ divorce. But then her father gave her a gift that would change everything: a Walkman and a notebook.
“I was pretty distraught about the divorce and my dad gave me a notebook he called the ‘book of feelings’ and told me to write what I was feeling and give it a place to live on those pages — so I did,” Goldman says. “I felt a bit lighter when I did it and that was, I think without realizing it, when I first started writing lyrics.”
Goldman grew into a talented musician and songwriter, but success would elude her: she was signed with and then eventually dropped from three major labels, leaving her unsure about her career. She turned to vocal coaching in 2004. “I started teaching just to support myself, and I loved it,” Goldman says. “At first it felt like failure, but it actually became life-defining.”