After a Health Scare, Cassie Holt Returns Home to Feed Her Soul

Cassie Holt has only one life to live, and she knows it. Following several face-to-face encounters with her own mortality, the sultry soul singer is now writing and singing for the people she loves. With over 100 songs in her musical catalog and a cross-country pursuit for success, the neurodivergent artist is taking hold of her health, her career and her music, one bluesy lyric at a time.

On Oct.10, for World Mental Health Day, Holt released her third EP, The Family Album, as a “heartfelt love letter to her Texas roots and family.” Featuring seven new tracks that morph from pop to country to soul, each song is a colorful tribute to each member of her immediate family. The Family Album marks Holt’s first EP since her Sevens album in 2016.

“I wanted something to leave to my family and the people who mattered to me,” Holt said. The album’s beginnings were birthed in a Long Beach hospital room, where the Dallas-based musician was overcoming yet another challenge from pulmonary edema, but this time, she was less than confident that she would pull through. In a cautionary state, she penned her farewell “just in case.”

“I am not done,” Holt reflected. “I have another purpose [and] I haven’t told anybody how much they mean to me. I can’t die right now without saying these things.” And thus, the track “People I Love” was formed, and ultimately culminated with notable producers like Dallas native Kevin Simon, and then Da Dreak, once she officially moved back to Dallas, well after 2021. Her brother, Joseph Holt, plays strings on the track. 

But it took several more life-altering events for the then 37-year-old singer to pull the plug, abandon her L.A. dreams, and trek back to Big D. “I can’t tell you why, but I had this gut feeling that I needed to go back to Dallas,” Holt said. After a harrowing miscarriage and a brush with death delivering her now five-year-old daughter Lily, coming home to family, friends and familiarity was as necessary as it was urgent, for the artist’s mental health and survival. 

Once back in Dallas, Holt’s premonitions began to unfold. Her father, who was already ill, was in active heart failure, and it was clear that time was not on her side. She married her then partner, Chris, in a backyard ceremony, with her father present and walking her down the aisle. “I would have missed all of this had I not followed my gut,” she said solemnly.

Shortly after, her father was hospitalized, and a week before he passed, Holt sang the chorus to “People I Love” to her father — a dream realized. Days later, he would smile at his daughter like a “little kid,” she remembers and then utter the words, “I’m going home.” These three words would be the soundtrack for her father’s dedication on the album “Going Home.” 

“It’s time for you to leave, but I ain’t got no say at all…I’m not ready for you to leave,” Holt begs behind breathy vocals and a harmonious chorale of cries in the song. An emotional yet powerful tribute, the ballad is indisputably one of the artist’s best works. “My brain processes emotions with music,” she said. “I needed to write out all of my emotions dealing with my dad, and this is what came from that.”

What also came from her dad was her overall love of music, a memory and deep embedding that continues to nourish her soul, and will never die. “I grew up listening to blues and soul…Al Green, Earth, Wind and Fire, and others,” she said. “My dad took me to see all of the greats [performing] live before they all passed: Aretha Franklin, Etta James and B.B. King. I mean it when I say, I grew up listening to a LOT of soul.”

Her roots are ever-present within The Family Album, which was recorded in Los Angeles, a place she credits with much of her growth as an artist, musician and songwriter. It was here that Holt moved in 2017 after performing in Dallas for 14 years, and where she sang for the likes of mega-producer Rodney Jerkins at a Grammy party, received an ASCAP award from Oscar and Golden Globe-winning songwriter Paul Williams, gained a potential album opportunity with Usher, and so many other accolades. 

She brings a taste of this Hollywood star power to her track “Spend My Life with You” by collaborating with Sharlotte Gibson, a legendary background vocalist for Whitney Houston, Kelly Clarkson and Queen Latifah.

“This process was so therapeutic for me,” Holt said. “I would love for one song off of this album to get placed on a TV show or a movie, so that the album gets traction and is listened to. That’s all that I want.”

For now, Holt is back home in Dallas, quietly expanding her therapy business while being a wife and a mom. She’s not above touring this latest project, but her anxiety is not up for the stage life anymore.

“I don’t have to be a touring artist because my autism hates that,” the licensed professional counselor said. “L.A. made me own my skills as a songwriter and I am good at writing. I have over 100 songs sitting in my catalog. I just want to see my music commercially placed, so that it feels like all of this was for something.”

Stream The Family Album on your preferred music service at ditto.fm.