Vocal Powerhouse Adina Rey Unleashes Stunning, Moving Debut

Thick piano chords, plangent guitars and cantering percussion set the stage on “Hi & Lo,” one of six subtly challenging pop tunes on Adina Rey’s self-titled debut EP, which dropped Wednesday. It is the previously unknown singer-songwriter’s powerful, supple and emotionally rangy vocals, however, that grab the spotlight.

Rey’s voice, a warm contralto leavened with grit, executes a soulful purr, sustains punchy high notes and deftly segues into feathered falsetto flips, all in the service of the song’s lyrical shadings of darkness and light:

“Love has taken everything/ So I carved it into me/ No mistaking why I bleed…”

Here, as on the EP’s other tunes, Rey’s indomitable, full-throated vocals balance candor, confession and confidence as they weave through a thicket of electronic and acoustic sounds courtesy of producer and co-songwriter Drake Margolnick, known for his work as one half of Charlotte indie-rock duo Flagship. 

Rey’s achievement is all the more remarkable because six years before releasing her dazzling debut, Rey lost the ability to speak and sing, bringing her perilously close to a mental breakdown or worse.

Raised in Statesville, Whitney Adina Hensley began her musical journey at age 4 when her parents started entering her in singing competitions.

“I was a belter,” Rey says. “I was very loud.” 

While she sang showstoppers by Bette Midler, Gloria Estefan and Mariah Carey, her mother dreamed of getting her daughter on Star Search, the televised talent competition that aired from 1983-1995. Rey’s parents divorced when she was 9, sharing custody of her and her siblings from there on out. That set-up a lose-lose situation for the children. 

“[My mom] told me that she didn’t love me when I was 11,” says Rey, who was passed between parents. “My stepmother hated my dad’s kids and she didn’t like them to get any attention from him.” 

Between a mother who didn’t want her and a father who couldn’t, Rey felt she had no place in life. She started writing songs in middle school, but aside from high school choir, she kept her singing private.

A stranger raped Rey when she was 13, leading her to attempt suicide without any avenue for care or compassion in the wake of that traumatizing assault.

“I attempted to cut my wrist, and instead, I carved some obscenity on my arms,” Rey says.  The harrowing episode and its aftermath inform “Hi & Lo.” 

“It seemed like I was being drained by my love for everybody, but not receiving … love,” Rey offers. “That’s why I sing, ‘Love has taken everything.’ I carved … that into myself.” 

As “Hi & Lo” charges to its conclusion, Rey pulls free of despair, singing that nothing will hold her back.

“Destiny is shining bright/ Through the shadows I will let it hold me tight…”

That destiny, Rey believes, lies in using her talent to make uplifting, meaningful music. But before she could reach that destiny, more hardship was in store.

Love, family and debilitating health scares 

All that still lay in the future, however, when Rey finally found love. She met her husband Trent Johnson when both were 15. At age 16, Rey had her first child and the couple had two more by the time they turned 23.

The couple’s closeness and resolve were sorely tested when Rey’s lifelong health issues came to a head due to a disastrous medical decision.

Rey was born with a litany of health challenges including scoliosis, spinal stenosis, fibromyalgia and arthritis from her neck to her hips.

In addition to these potentially debilitating conditions, Rey also contends with digestive issues including gastroparesis, a condition where the stomach empties its contents too slowly, leading to symptoms like nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

Despite these challenges, Rey and her husband raised their children to adulthood. In 2019, with the kids out of the home, Rey knew the time was right to pursue her music career.

“I told my husband, ‘I’ve got to do something with this singing or I’m never going to do it,” Rey recalls.

That decision was derailed, however, when Rey’s gastroenterologist prescribed a medication called metoclopramide for her gastroparesis. Within two weeks, Rey suffered severe side effects from the medication. She encountered extreme difficulty speaking, let alone singing.

“My brain had slowed down so much that I couldn’t comprehend [anything],” Rey notes. “I could speak, but it was gibberish. You couldn’t understand anything I was saying.”

Both Drugs.com and GoodRX list neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) as a potential side effect of metoclopramide use. That life-threatening reaction results in muscle rigidity and altered mental status. WebMD says NMS symptoms often start within two weeks of starting the medicine. 

Drugs.com also notes that metoclopramide should be used for no longer than 12 weeks. Rey says her doctor had her on the medication for seven months. 

As the symptoms worsened, Rey and Johnson prepared for the worst. Rey’s mother had died at age 59 after suffering from dementia and Rey thought she was experiencing the same condition.

“There were several times we thought I was not going to wake up the next day,” Rey says. 

After getting a second opinion from a neurologist, Rey stopped taking the medication and slowly clawed her way back to comprehension. Johnson stopped working for months to care for his wife full-time. 

To help Rey’s mind recover, he gave her elementary math problems from their children’s schoolbooks to solve. Moving on from math problems, she would play part of a song, write down the lyrics and focus on them. She slowly started being able to understand the words and sing them.

“That’s how I got back to singing,” Rey says. “It’s taken me six years to get to where I am now.” 

Adina Rey finds her voice

The song “Like a Drug” from Rey’s debut EP is partly based on her medical ordeal. Riding propulsive bass and keyboards, the moody new-wave rocker pulls Rey into the upper end of her range, soaring to a precipitous high before diving to a low wildcat growl.

“Dancing in the dark/ I feel like I’m in chains/ But I know I’m not the same…” 

“[The song] is about being in chains, so you feel like you’ve changed,” Rey explains. “It’s spiritual to me and also about breaking free of the medication.”

Following the encouragement of a friend, Rey started posting clips of herself singing cover tunes on social media. Through online exposure and mutual friends, she came to Margolnick’s attention.

After hearing Rey sing, Margolnick told her that she had a vibrato comparable to Stevie Nicks. Rey told Margolnick that she didn’t know whom he was talking about. 

When Rey’s youngest daughter brought up other singers like Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga and Kesha, artists with impressive vocal ranges like Rey’s, she also drew a blank. 

“I know nothing about music,” Rey maintains, adding that she’s never gone to a concert. 

Rey insists she doesn’t sing a certain way because she heard another performer sing it. Instead, it’s something that comes from inside her.

“I’ll hear a word and I’ll sing that word a million different times, a million different ways,” she says. “I love to hear and feel what’s going on in my throat, my chest [and] my body. I like the way sounds feel and I love to play with sound.”

Rey and Margolnick started working together at the latter’s Charlotte-area studio, with Margolnick playing all instruments and writing the melodies. Rey, still weak from her medical ordeal, would sometimes go home while Margolnick continued to work on the tracks.

“Drake would send [Rey] home and with the recording to … add her input,” Johnson says. “Then they would get back together and collaborate some more on it.” 

Over bright yet plaintive keyboards, Rey works in her lower register on the reflective slow burner “Guilt Machine.” The ruminative and ultimately triumphant tune is, in part, a kind of exorcism of Rey’s manipulative mother. 

“She had a lot of guilt,” Rey says. “I love my mother, but … she lied a lot, twisted things and … messed with me mentally.”

“Beauty queen/ Guilt machine/ Gave up on your girl/ Toxic games/ Played your way/ I want to shake your ghost…”

Rey says she forgave her mother a long time ago but regrets that neither she nor her siblings ever had a real relationship with her.

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She hopes that people who hear her debut come away with feelings of encouragement and the will to overcome obstacles.

“There is so much that can weigh on you and pull you down, but no matter what, there is hope,” says Rey, who harkens back to the depths of her illness. “Every minute I was saying, ‘It’s going to be okay. You can do this.’”

Adina Rey’s self-titled debut is proof of what can be achieved with perseverance and support from those we love. It spotlights her powerful, protean vocals in five incandescent tunes where heartache, hopes and memories sit comfortably beside irresistible hooks and memorable melodies.