Music that brings encouragement to face life trials

For a woman who only took piano lessons as a child, recording an album of original songs was the last thing on her mind.

As a young graduate with a degree in English and French Education, Claudia Lofton Boelte taught language arts at Anderson Middle School.

Further education in accounting and she became an IRS agent. Finally, with husband Bill Boelte from New Orleans, she was co-owner of an oilfield service company in Houma. Music was in her heritage, but not her present reality.

In 1996 after selling the company, and returning to New Iberia, Boelte was sidelined for more than 10 years with complex and serious medical conditions. She found inspiration that has now transitioned into a concept music CD she hopes will help others find their “freepoint.”

“Most oilfield workers know that sometimes during the drilling process, the pipe can get stuck,” Boelte said. “Before you can go any further, you have to set it free. Life’s that way, too.”

For Boelte, being stuck included extended bed rest. Through yet another dark valley, she found encouragement and freedom through music she was hearing in her head. Whether Boelte was awakened in the middle of the night or driving along a road, the power of the words would force her to stop and write the lyrics down. She began to question her own sanity.

“I asked my friend who had been in the entertainment industry in Nashville if she thought I was going crazy,” Boelte said. “She told me, ‘No, Claudia, you’re not crazy, you’re just creative.’ ”

Boelte began “receiving songs,” words and music, the year her father died. Not until they started increasing in number did she realize the significance of that first tune that came moments before her brother called to say their father had died.

Soon the sheer number of songs “downloading into her brain” convinced her that she had to “get them out of her.” She met the challenge head on. The first 12 songs will be released this December with two more CDs to follow in 2016.

Initially, Boelte felt the songs were very private, for her alone. Then she began to share the songs during ministry or meeting strangers in her daily walk.

Words That Bring Hope

Clyde Adams works at the Dale Street post office and is one of the people that convinced Boelte the music was not just for her own healing and encouragement.

“It’s a miracle because at times when I was down, she’d tell me The Lord gave her a song and it fit just what I was going through,” Adams said. “She was a big encouragement to me.”

As the mother of two autistic children, Adams said two of Boelte’s songs, “I Will Be There” and “I’m Working My Plan,” gave her strength to accept the challenges after being told her children would not accomplish much.

Before they were even recorded and throughout the process, Boelte would sing to encourage her. The songs helped Adams to accept God’s plan and to work to find ways to help her children succeed.

“Sometimes it gets hard. They said my children would never be like regular kids, wouldn’t do this or couldn’t do that,” Adams said. “(My daughter) graduated in the top at NISH with an A-average, and my son, they don’t have any behavior problems. They don’t take medications. I trained them according to the Bible. It’s in “God’s plan.”

“If anyone believe in God, they would know God has a word for them,” Adams said. “I am so proud of her.”

Never Meets a Stranger

Seven-year-old Kyrie Touriac thought she saw an angel walking across the grocery store parking lot. She’s visually impaired but very spiritual, her mother said. She went up to the total stranger, Boelte, and gave her a big hug. Boelte responded in like manner and looked up into the car next to the child and asked the mother if they were also part of the girl’s family.

All of the children got out of the car and hugged “Miss Claudia.” Boelte herself suffers with eye pain and severe sensitivity and immediately recognized the sight problems the child was having.

“I told my husband she was like a guardian angel,” Keisha George Touriac said. “She laid hands on Kyrie and prayed for her like you’ve never seen. It was like she knew my family, never having met us before.”

After the prayer, Kyrie told her mother she felt different. Boelte gave her mother encouragement and Bible verses to believe for Kyrie’s healing.

Moments later, Touriac’s cousin saw them and came over to see what was going on, Boelte said. He spontaneously started singing “His eye is on the sparrow.” Before long, there were about 12 people clustered in the parking lot having church, Boelte said.

“It was beautiful. I wish it had lasted,” Touriac said. “We connected. Whenever I see her, she is always so friendly and bubbly. You just can’t explain it. My little girl asks for her all the time. Claudia is so anointed.”

Boelte said when she realized others needed to hear the songs, she was convinced they had to be recorded with professionals. That would be the evidence of God’s presence in the project. The challenge was how to go about finding the singers and musicians that could play the variety of music styles she was hearing. Boelte found help in her own hometown.

Learning to Let Go

The first song Boelte let anyone hear in a public setting was “On That Day” which was played at a friend’s funeral in January 2013. Ramsey Gulatto was the singer on the simple demo. Boelte first heard a 10-year-old Gulatto perform at Highland Baptist. Remembering the girl’s voice, Boelte knew Gulatto had the qualities she wanted.

“I’m really impressed with the transformation from where we started to where it is now,” Gulatto, 22, said. “The melody lines are all the same, but once you hear all the other instrumentation, the orchestra, everything, some of it countrified, some is soulful and some are complete orchestra, which I particularly love. I’m just amazed with the project.”

Gulatto admitted she didn’t think it was going to go like that. She thought it was something like a hobby. At the time, Gulatto was singing in a band and happy to be paid for singing on a recording. She didn’t think it would be what it has become.

“I asked her what she was going to do with it,” Gulatto said, “She said, ‘oh I don’t know. The Lord got me this far, He’s going to bring me through wherever else He wants me to go.’”

God’s Gifts, His Glory

A friend told Boelte about a maintenance man at Highland Baptist who played the piano. He was no stranger to music styling.

Ronald and Thelma Stanfield moved to New Iberia because of Hurricane Katrina. While living in New Orleans, Stanfield played music at their son’s church and Jazz professionally as Stan and the Grooves. Aaron Neville, Ernie K-Doe and others would often sit in.

“When she first contacted me, I thought, this sounds like someone who is in touch with The Lord,” Stanfield said. “I could hear it in her voice before we met. Her voice sounded like an angel to me. She’s very serious and religious about what she is doing. She would sing a song and I’d pick it up in my ear and play it.”

Stanfield, 73, said the way the music came out on the recording was just like he heard it, strings and all. The seven-minute song “I Will Be There” required a musician of exceptional skill to hear the key changes Boelte expected. Stanfield was the first to play it like she heard it.

“The gift part, it’s a connection you can feel when it’s from above. The notes just seem to come down from your brain and your ear, until you actually play them,” Stanfield said. “She has a gift and her lyrics fit in so pretty. You don’t get that kind often. She told me ‘I know where they come from and it’s not from me.’ ”

Stanfield said it was exciting to hear how the recorded musicians did the composition because he heard it before they did it. He said he heard the strings and the orchestra, almost as if he wrote out the notes. Stanfield said that let him know God was working through it.

Another piano player and friend of Boelte’s, Kerry Jackson, came to her living room and recorded on a cassette recorder two remaining songs that needed to ship to the producer the following day. Lack of technical expertise did not deter Boelte.

Nashville Bound

Boelte said she found just what she was looking for, “a man tuned into God.” He was not the only one. Meeting the right producer, singers and musicians like Tim Parton in Nashville were other acts of God, she said, another road untraveled.

The songs were to be recorded with band instrumentation, but Nashville producer Ronnie Brookshire realized three of the songs on the first album needed more. He introduced Boelte to the miracle of online recording.

The drama and complexity of orchestration Stanfield heard were captured musically thanks to Nashville arranger Robert Sterling. While Boelte listened from New Iberia and her producer gave guidance from Nashville, “I Will Be There” along with “Boundless” and “I Adore You” were recorded live May 3, 2014, by the Filmharmonic Orchestra Prague in the Czech Republic.

Boelte never dreamed of being a songwriter and no one is more surprised than she at the release of her first CD. “Finding Freepoint,” captures the music from her valley to mountain top experience. The song styles of the collection are as diverse as the people that have encouraged her to record them.

Sharing the Music

“The first time I got to listen to the CD, my grandson, Corgan who is 11 and very spiritual, listened to it with me on our way to church,” Rebecca Edler, 66, said. “The first song ‘Bayou Dip’ started and he and I got into it tapping our feet and singing along. In a little bit the song ‘I See Jesus In You’ came on and we started pointing to one another singing. But he kept going back to ‘Bayou Dip,’ he just loved it. I told Claudia, that’s going to be a hit, but they’re all awesome.”

The first time Edler met Boelte was through a mutual friend and later they helped start a local women’s group. The friendship came easy, Edler said, connecting in a personal way. Edler said she is grateful to be able to enjoy the journey.

“I remember one (early recorded song) she took me into her car in the garage to play it for me,” Edler said. “The tears were just running down my cheeks. I was breathless. It was so beautiful.”

Edler said she believes Boelte has brought a message from God and told her to go with it because if God meant for her to do this, the people would be there for her. Each step of the journey, Boelte has waited for God to take the lead.

“It’s hope; it’s faith. In these dark times, it’s hope to hear ‘I’m Working My Plan.’ You feel He’s got this,” Edler said. “You have to just trust Him and know He will take care of us. That song is an inspiration of hope.”

Listening Party

Next month Boelte will release “Finding Freepoint,” a 12 song CD as diverse as the people who inspired her.

To celebrate, the public is invited to an open house from 5 to 7 p.m. at The Shadows Visitor Center. The free event is sponsored by Education Value Entertainment, hosted by friends and fellow members of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution New Iberia Chapter.

“Education Value Entertainment promotes artists who promote Judeo-Christian values through music, dance, visual art, drama and writing,” said Marilynn Jane Debuse White, Education Value Entertainment board member and a member of DAR.

“We invite artists and others to come out because often people who have these beliefs are a little reserved in sharing them,” White said. “It is OK to be faithful and to use them for His glory. That is what Claudia Boelte has done.”

Boelte said she would prefer to remain nameless on the bayou bank, but as her song “Get Ready” implies, she said she feels more like the music is “about to be a hit.” She said it’s not about being a singer, which she is not, or a songwriter, but for being a “pack mule” carrying to others the music Heavenly Father sang in her own time of need.

For more on Boelte visit www.setfreemusic.net.