"If you have a dream and you are too scared to follow it, it's never too late to make something happen so there are never regrets," says Thacker, 42, who has lived in Saratoga for the past eight years and grew up in the South Bay.

Thacker's inspiration and life-changing experience came because of a giving friend, Patti Stoesser, whose relationship with Thacker developed during their younger days at Archbishop Mitty High School. Thacker is a 1979 graduate of the school.

Stoesser supported Thacker in her ambitions, but was stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—a fatal disease characterized by progressive muscle weakness resulting in paralysis—and died about five years ago. Thacker realized life was too short to let it pass her by. She says music became her "comfort food" that she could use to make a positive impact on people around her.

Now she performs frequently at fairs and festivals, the Borders bookstore at Old Town in Los Gatos, Big Basin Bistro in Saratoga Village and outdoors at Santana Row, weather permitting. Along the way, she's gathered a loyal base of fans who attend her performances and purchase her CDs.

"It's so gratifying and satisfying," says Thacker. "It's that one-on-one connection you make with another human."

Thacker's first, self-titled CD, released in 2002, features original songs such as "Where Is She?" about her own inner mourning and loss of Stoesser, to whom the album is dedicated. There are also more cheerful tracks such as "I'm in Love With You," a song that captures that split second in time when a person knows he or she is in love. The song was recently discovered by a publisher in Arkansas.

"I picked up a guitar when I was 12 years old," Thacker says, "and it was a spiritual experience. Something inside me just went, 'Yes!' It was my brother who taught me my first chord."

While Thacker has played with bands in the past, she went solo in 2001, creating music to sound like a big band—without being one.

"It's do-it-yourself karaoke, but it sounds really good," she says.

Thacker taught herself how to record music digitally using software at home on the computer, even though she had no prior recording, producing or engineering experience.

"I do all my own background tracks," Thacker says, "so I'm not cheating. I'm doing my own solos."

The computer software allows Thacker to lay down songs track by track, starting with percussion, then adding the bass, vocals, solos and other instrumental accompaniment.

"I've had a lot of people say that they really like the variety, going from the old standards to the Eurythmics," she says. "And it's feel-good music."

With little training in how to properly read music, Thacker plays by ear on both the electric and acoustic guitars, plus does some keyboarding. She has a mezzo-soprano voice range.

Thacker's second CD, My Favorite Things, is composed of classic covers. And she ends every live performance with the last song on this CD, Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World."

When she's not strumming her guitar, Thacker works in massage therapy at the Forrest Health Center—a chiropractic business that combines body, mind and spirit—on Monterey Avenue in Los Gatos.

To hear Deborah Thacker, catch her next performance, on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14, 5­8 p.m. at Santana Row on the Park Valencia stage next to Starbucks. To purchase Thacker's CDs, visit www.debmusic.com or call 408.868.9004.