Senoia Downtown Development Authority (DDA) will present a free outdoor concert July 16 featuring country music recording artist Erica Nicole in a debut CD release concert. The concert will begin at 7 p.m. in downtown Senoia. The opening act will be the Southern Pride Band.

Nicole and her debut CD have a connection to Peachtree City. Rebecca Single, a music teacher, songwriter and two-time cancer survivor from Peachtree City, wrote a song called “Drive It Away.” Tied in to Le Petit Elegance, a Lemans event hosted by Dr. Donald and Nancy Panoz for the Emory University School of Medicine, the song is about driving away breast cancer.

Charlie Filkins of 92.5 FM The Bear interviewed Single during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. A month later he interviewed Nicole, a Woodward Academy graduate, when she was back in the area to play the Cattle Baron’s Ball, which is a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, and gave her his personal copy of the song. Single called in to Nicole’s interview and Nicole invited her to attend the show the following night. The two hit it off and Nicole stated she would bring the song to her producers.

Single thought nothing of this claim until she was contacted several days later by Nathan Lam and Michael Lloyd, both of whom have worked with legendary recording artists like Rod Stewart, Barry Manilow, Frank Sinatra and The Righteous Brothers, among many others. They told Single they wanted to put her song on Nicole’s debut CD and Single just laughed.

“It was just so overwhelming,” Single said. “They were trying to talk business and I just kept laughing. When all is said and done I will have had 14 surgeries. I had gone from my lowest point to perhaps my highest point.”

Nicole’s CD gets released this week and the kickoff will take place in downtown Senoia on Thursday. Single will once again hear her song performed live and soon countless other people will hear the CD and the emotion that Single put into writing it and Nicole, who has also had her family touched by cancer, put into performing it.

“It’s very exciting for a country singer and a country songwriter who are both just starting out to come from the same place to find a connection like this,” said Single. “It’s what dreams are made of.”

For more information on Erica Nicole, visit www.ericanicolemusic.com

Those attending the concert on Thursday evening are encouraged to bring chairs and blankets.The concert is an effort of DDA, The Car Guys and Marketing Sense.