Like many Redmond residents, John Cartmell wears multiple hats.

You might know him as a nutritionist. Through his Diet Advisor business (www.dietadvisor.com) he helps people with health issues from obesity to cancer, diabetes and digestive disorders and has just published an e-book called “Fibromyalgia, A Nutritional Approach to Prevention, Treatment and Cure,” available at his Web site and at Amazon.com.

He’s also a songwriter and singer featured on Ourstage, a worldwide Web site which gives musical artists a chance to get feedback from average folks. (See www.ourstage.com)

For the month of April 2008, Cartmell’s “Love Lasts Forever” was ranked number one for Washington state and 173rd overall in Ourstage’s Contemporary/Soft Rock category. Also in that category, his song “Is It Really You” was number eight in Washington.

And in Washington’s Ourstage Pop category, he had a number one song, a duet version of “When She’s Near,” and his remix of “Love Lasts Forever” was number 17.

What’s noteworthy, said his manager, Carol Patton, is that Ourstage is not so much a contest as “a new kind of format for music, which is much freer, not locked in to (the musical tastes of) deejays or radio programmers or payola. It’s people-driven. They play what they like, over and over.” So that’s how songs are ranked.

She met Cartmell through a songwriters’ association in Eastern Washington, was impressed by his voice and his uplifting messages and has been helping him to find his target audience.

Meanwhile, he continues his earnest research into illnesses which can be traced to dietary problems. He calls himself more of a songwriter than a performer and commented, “The closest I get to performing is that I do karaoke regularly. I do lots of pop songs, from Sinatra to Red Hot Chili Peppers, some country and classic rock.”

Because he remains committed to his health practice, he doesn’t spend a significant portion of his time on his music. “I can go weeks or months without writing a song because I don’t like to force it — if it comes, it comes. I come up with the melody first and then fit in words. Most people do it otherwise but I go with the mood that moves the music. This way it comes from the heart,” Cartmell explained.

Mary Stevens Decker can be reached at mdecker@reporternewspapers.com or at (425) 867-0353, ext 5052.