Madison King Gray / Photo by Breonny Lee
By Taylor Adams Cogan
When Madison King Gray picked up a guitar at age 8, she was taking a simple step that would shape her future in Dallas, first as a musician, then as a culinary talent.
Going to a private school downtown, Madison and her group of musician friends started going to shows at The Door around ninth grade. From that moment on, Deep Ellum became her second home. By age 20, she was performing her own music in shows throughout the neighborhood.
The singer/songwriter and guitar player would go on to release two albums, several singles, and an EP, carving out space for herself in the country genre. As the Dallas Observer once wrote:
“In a traditionally male-dominated Texas country music industry, Madison King is a guitar-picking lyricist who, as we pointed out in April 2014, ‘brings a unique timbre and color to the state that sets her apart from the rest, especially in soulful tunes.’”
Her first album release show was at City Tavern – when it was still on Main Street downtown – and her second was at Trees.
“Deep Ellum has always been our gathering place, and a place where, if you were the odd man out in your corner of the world, you felt accepted,” she says. “You saw people who were like you, but just as different as you were, or more. It was inspiring and affirming for me, being very much the black sheep of my very Christian community, but seeing this whole world of people over there.”
Her beautiful sound carried her from West End to Exposition Avenue, and soon beyond Dallas, playing short regional tours and sharing the stage with the Old 97’s.
“I toured for just about a year. I was mostly local all over Dallas, but I could never really get on board with the road life,” she says.
She had realized this before the pandemic hit, slowing down her touring. When COVID landed, it pushed her into musical retirement.
“I didn’t really get my grand exit, but it was fine,” she says. “It was good while it lasted.”
Even during her music career, Madison was known for other talents, like making one of the best Manhattans in the city at Twilite Lounge on Elm Street.
“I was Day 1 at Twilite,” she says, where she’d also meet the great Chef Jennie Kelley.
At the time, Jennie – a musician herself, having been a founding member of The Polyphonic Spree – was running Frank Underground, a pop-up dinner series that an email list of 20,000 people would try to snag seats to experience.
“She was like, ‘Hey, would you like to come help me out? I’d cook,’” Madison says. “I worked there four years – I was their sous chef.”
Later, Madison helped Jennie and her husband open Fond in Dallas, but for only a few months, so she could focus on her own project: not a craft cocktail concept in Deep Ellum, but a soon-to-be restaurant in Casa Linda, Be Home Soon.
“Everyone I’m doing this with, I met at Twilite. It brings me such lasting diverse relationships with so many like-minded people, being in an artistic community, I think,” she says. “You’re all drawn here for a reason, you meet good-hearted people who want to help you later down the road.”
These days, she’s building the restaurant – and raising her 2.5-year-old – with the same spirit that carried her through Deep Ellum’s stages and bars.
