Tracy Dawn first performed publicly by singing before the congregation of a church in her small Kansas hometown when she was four years old. Years later she moved from Kansas to Los Angeles with the goal of building a career as a singer and songwriter, although her earliest professional work came instead through modeling and acting. During that period she slipped into destructive patterns that preceded a return to religious faith. Her September 2000 press biography described the shift in these terms: "[T]he city's seductive temptations began to fill a void Tracy Dawn didn't even know she had. The solace and serenity she was missing drove Tracy Dawn to a place of desperation and a deep search for spiritual fulfillment. It was only by stepping away from sold-out shows at the Roxy and the Troubadour, isolating herself from harmful influences and people that Tracy Dawn was able to finally find the solace she longed for in a God she had once known as a child." The conversion prompted a corresponding change in her musical direction, moving her from folk toward rock. Warner Bros. Records signed her and issued her debut album, Poetic Aftermath, in October 2000.
