For years, High Point native Harold Dickey was at the top of his game: He says he was working in Maryland and Philadelphia, recording jingles for radio and television commercials and doing background work for the likes of Stephanie Mills, The O’Jays, Grover Washington Jr., Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes and Teddy Pendergrass.

He admits the music industry was good to him. He never had to carry a suitcase when he traveled — he was able to buy at whim — and could afford two mortgages, in Maryland and North Carolina.

There was only one thing better to him than his career:cocaine.

An industry player who was scoring music for a Maryland-based recording company found himself riding the bench. He’d sustained injuries as a result of dependencies on crack, alcohol and prescription drugs that he took to elude the pain of the death of his wife of five years, Carol, a cancer victim.

He witnessed overdosed friends being carried away on stretchers as he approached their doorstep to indulge in nights of hard drugs and fast women. And there were mornings when friends would drive by and shout, “Dickey! You need a ride?” He didn’t need one. He had one — he just couldn’t remember where it was.

Dickey knew he was lost.

“There was a storm in my life,”he says. “Iwas surrounded by turmoil, dirt, smothering. Iwas high during this time and I can remember going to sleep one night, and there was a real storm outside, and it seemed like something was burning me right in my face. I don’t know what it was or how it was that woke me up. But I just stood up and I didn’t see anybody and I thought, ‘OK, I’m just trippin’.’ I laid back down and went to sleep. And I know my door was locked, but (the storm) just blew the door open. I stood up again and there was wind blowing and lightning, and I started crying and I couldn’t stop. I just went into the storm and I was standing there saying, ‘What is wrong?’ ”

Dickey says he started to walk in the rain. As he did, a song came to him:

“Be still and know that he’s God. When the storm of life is tossing you, here’s what you gotta do:cast your burdens upon the Lord, yes you must, ’cause my God can save you. Hallelujah, thank you Jesus, praise your name …. Be still ….”

“I started singing that song and I haven’t let it go,”he says. “It might sound strange to some people. but God (can let) you know in different kinds of ways and that was my way. He gave that to me, and ain’t nothing nobody can do to take it away.”

Dickey brought the song all the way back to North Carolina, to a rehabilitation program designed for veterans (Dickey served in Vietnam) at the Hefner V.A. Medical Center in Salisbury, where he met local jazz artist Ken Carroll during a Black History Month program in February.

“(Carroll) asked me if I’d like to sing (for the program) and I said, ‘Yeah, I think I could do it.’ ”

Dickey had been away from music for a few years and was apprehensive about being in front of an audience again.

“I walked in there, and there were a thousand people and I panicked!”he admits. “I was only expecting (a few) and when I walked in ... I felt the butterflies all over again. But Ijust talked to the crowd for a few minutes and they seemed to love it. Everything just fell into place.”

He didn’t sing the song he’d received in his revelation. That didn’t come until after he’d met Phyllis Partee and members of her choir, The Ensemble, during jams sponsored by the Rowan Blues and Jazz Society.

“I played ‘Misty’ for him,”Partee says, recalling when she first met Dickey. “You cross paths with people at certain times in your life for certain reasons, and I’ve stopped questioning why. If this is to be, I just hold myself up to let it happen. “

Partee calls Dickey “a very interesting man.”

“He’s led a very interesting life, to have survived and come to this point,” she says. “And he’s very honest. I respect that, and I respect him.”

She respected him enough to agree to accompany him with her voice and keyboard skills when he asked if she would help with the testimonial.

“I’d never done a recording before, but I needed the experience,” she says. But more than the experience she would gain from performing the song, Partee says she was more attracted to feeling the song —which Dickey calls “Harold Dickey:My Testimonial, Peace Be With You Be Still” —gives her.

“Ilove simple songs with a simple message,”Partee says. “Life in turmoil, things going wrong. A lot of times it doesn’t even have to be turmoil; you can be too busy. But you just have to be still and let the peace flow through you.”

Teresa Vinson, a member of The Ensemble, who accompanies Dickey, agrees.

“I can feel a calmness settling even over myself as Ising it,”Vinson says. “And I don’t like to sing anything I can’t feel, because if I can’t feel it I don’t think anybody else can feel it. (The song) not only gives his testimony, but it tells the next person to be still. It could save a life.”

Partee says the song does its job. “(It does) what a song is supposed to do — take you away where you can forget.”

“The song really takes me somewhere,”Dickey says. “It makes me glad to be here in Salisbury. I feel good about all this.”

Dickey says he’s on the right track now:He’s been recovering from his addictions for the past five months and is keeping his performing skills sharp, doing sessions at Escape the Daily Grind in Spencer and Las Palmas in Salisbury.

Though he only started singing gospel music about a year ago, Dickey says he’s determined to reach listeners immediately because “there’s something in this song for somebody.”

“This is God’s way of showing me what to do and I’m committed to do it,”Dickey says. “All I have is my word, and if I say I’ll do it, you can depend on that.”

Dickey says although the entire album on which the single will appear will not be finished before the year is over, he and The Ensemble are anxious to perfect their music and voices for the track, which they are recording at Hit Music Studios/Wind Records in Spencer, within the next few months.

Though Dickey is not back in the game he’s used to, he’s happy to be playing for a new team.

“He’s strong,”Vinson comments. “I know he had to be strong to survive. … And he’s still fighting.”