VALENTINE FINDS MUSIC HEART

Local native made shift from performer to mentor/manager for young singer

It’s taken a long time and a few detours, but Saratoga Springs native Margaret Valentine has found her niche in the music business. But it’s not as a performer, like she had originally planned.

This summer, country singer Carter Faith released her single “Leaving Tennessee.” Produced by and written in conjunction with Valentine, it’s been a success, premiering on Country Music Television (CMT) and landing a regular spot in the station’s rotation. It’s also racked up over 300,000 streams on Apple Music and has helped position Faith as an artist on the rise in Nashville.

For the 53-year-old Valentine, finding her role as manager and co-writer for an up-and-coming country singer has been the welcome, unexpected entrée into music she had been looking and hoping to find. To find it as a writer and mentor to a nascent 20year-old talent has made it more meaningful than she anticipated.

“I don’t know that I could have done this at 25,” Valentine said. “I’m at a really good age to do this; I feel an overwhelming sense of nurture with Carter and just want her to be OK. It’s really a privilege to be a mentor to someone younger than you.”

In the ‘90s and early 2000s, Valentine was a local solo artist, trekking around the state with her guitar and her songs, struggling to build a career.“my story isn’t really that different from other artists, I was doing the singer-songwriter thing,” Valentine playing all the clubs in New lot of money.

“I was a single mom and the money just wasn’t there,”

I got out of it and did other

After marrying and entering financial stability (her husband Orioles executive John Angelos), the itch to pick music back pursuing a solo career, she songwriting and relocated

“I knew I was not going artist in my 40s,” she noted. become Nashville. kicked just plugged

“You everything know

added. eye-opening,

it.”

In 2017, Valentine’s efforts Keith Stegall, producer for Jones and Zac Brown Band, Dreamlined Entertainment. that didn’t require her to “but gave me the freedom to as a creator.”

For Valentine, that meant female artist. That ended up who she learned about through husband’s family. Upon hearing felt an instant connection.