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Mitch
Barrett & Carla Gover are a husband-wife songwriting
duo from the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky.
Influenced by the tradiational music of the region, Mitch
received the Kerrville New Folk Award in 1999 and the
pair were winners of Nashville's Chris Austin Songwriting
contest in 1998 and 2000.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2001 |
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A formal showcase performer at the Southwest Regional Folk Alliance in October of 2005, Arlon Bennett is a songsmith from New York who has been a Kerrville New Folk Finalist and also was a Music-to-Life showcase finalist/performer in 2003. He is currently finishing his 3rd CD.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2003, MUSIC TO LIFE 2006 |
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Erik Balkey is a traveling house painter and songwriter from Philadelphia. He travels armed with a guitar and notebook as well as paint brushes, rollers and buckets. His recent release is called Liberty Tree from his side project called Mission Street Project. The recording consists of 18 songs on topics of social relevance, including many co-writes with other American touring songwriters.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2006 |
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The Yorktown Heights, New York couple Mike and Barbara Borok don't remember anymore how or why the call themselves "New Middle Class" but they think it had something to do with wanting to play songs of social relevance. Their decision led to last September's appearance on the main stage at the Southwest Regional Folk Alliance Conference in Kerrville, their songs being played on over 40 radio stations nationwide and becoming the 2003 MUSIC TO LIFE Grand Prize Winner!
MUSIC TO LIFE 2003 |
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Combine Bob Dylan and Tom Lehrer, and you get Loudon Wainright III. Do it on a shoestring budget and record it over an old Dead Milkmen tapeand you get Adam Brodsky. Hailing from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Adam is best know for his brash sense of humor and clever songwriting. He is currently on a national tour promoting his latest cd: Hookers. Hicks and Heebs on Permanent Records.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2003 |
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Bob
Chabot, 2003 MUSIC TO LIFE'S First Runner Up, has used songwrting as a vehicle through which to give voice to people whose stories we might not otherwise hear; ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances...the courage it takes to battle injustice, and to keep hope alive. He writes about the joy and pain of living, about children, grandmothers, coyotes and carphones. An MTL finalist in 2001, Bob has released a fivesong CD "On a Farm with a Pond and a Goat" and is presently at work on a second album.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2001, MUSIC TO LIFE 2003 |
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Melissa Crabtree has been living her life as an outdoor guide and musician, guiding river trips on the grand canyon and singing on the boat. She released her first CD while touring across the country in a vegetable-oil powered van, to protest the country’s petroleum addiction. She has received awards for her music at Telluride and was among the 10 finalists in the songwriter showcase at Rocky Mountain Folksfest and Tucson Free Folk Festival.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2006 |
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Annie Dinerman is the Songwriters Guild recipient of the 2006 Abe Olman Scholarship for Excellence in Songwriting. She also holds Backstage Bistro Award for Songwriter of the Year and a MAC award for Outstanding Special Musical Material. Her song, “Child in Me Again” was recorded by Kathy Lee Gifford on her “Born For You” CD and received multimedia acclaim.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2006 |
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A Native of Berkeley, California, Rachel Garlin is a guitar-toting former junior high school teacher who began her musical career while serving in the Teach for America Corps in Phoenix, Arizona. Last year, Garlin and fellow musician Melissa Crabtree toured across the country in an alternative fuel "veggie van" that runs on recycled vegetable oil. The two singer-songwriters sought to share their original music as well as raise awareness about oil dependency and the environment.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2003
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Spook
Handy hails from New Brunswick, New Jersey, the
'geographic center of the Northeast Corridor'. Spook primarily
writes about spiritual freedom. He was six years old when
"I had the profound realization" he says, "that
God exists not only in the church but in the words and
music of song."
MUSIC TO LIFE 2001 |
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Eric
Hansen began playing guitar and singing
at family gatherings in Highland, Indiana at the
age of nine. He played in Chicago coffee houses throughout
his teens and then studied guitar, voice and musical
composition at Chicago Musical College. After four
years as both songwriter and performer with Chicago's
Free Street Theater, he moved to New York working
for 17 years in musicals, plays, radio plays, commercials,
soap opera, cabarets and night clubs.
MUSIC
TO LIFE 2003 |
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Since 1995, the folk and soul partnership of multi-instrumentalist Miriam Davidson and songwriter Kiya Heartwood has toured extensively, performing at The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago and festivals including the National Women's Music Festival, the Kerrville Folk Festival, the Clearwater Folk Festival, the South Florida Folk Festival and the Philadelphia Folk Festival. They have six CD's on the Terrakin label including their latest, Underdog produced by Mark Hallman.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2003, MUSIC TO LIFE 2006 |
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Rob Heath is first and foremost a storyteller who just happens to be a songwriter. He’s written for Glen Campbell Music, Criterion/Atlantic Music and Don Goodman Music. His single “I Believe” was recently released over the Internet to radio stations worldwide receiving 188 requests for his most recent album COUPLE OF TIMES ROUND THE SUN.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2006 |
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Oregon
songwriter Eileen
Hemphill-Haley credits many influences ranging
from Emmy Lou Harris to Bonnie Raitt, Woody Guthrie
to the Allman Brothers. A finalist in last year's Kerrville
New Folk Contest, her songs reveal an artist who has
clearly found her own voice.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2001 |
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Sprinkling performances all over the United States from the Mountain Stage in West Virginia to the Woody Guthrie Memorial Festival in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tim Henderson is considered by many to be one of America's outstanding folk song writers. His newest CD "The Wind Knows My Name" follows five previous releases and his book of lyrics "Sweeping Up Dreams".
MUSIC TO LIFE 2003 |
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Melissa
Javors won the Kerrville New Folk Award competition
in 1981. Her songs have been performed by several popular
artists including Peter, Paul and Mary. Likewise, co-writer Lisa Aschmann's work has been featured in many
films and television programs.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2001 |
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Kate Long makes her living in a variety of ways. She is a newspaper writing coach, radio producer, editor and performing songwriter. A West Virgina native, she is rooted in Appalachian traditional music, but writes in several genres. 2003 MUSIC TO LIFE's Second Runner-Up, Kate has three CD's of her songs. One of them, "Who'll Watch the Homeplace" was an International Bluegrass Music Association Song of the Year.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2003 |
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Coming of age in Washington Square during the folk revival of the 1960's, Kate Power has been playing concerts, coffeehouses and festivals since age 15. She has independently and collectively helped to shape the face of folk music in the Pacific Northwest through her work with husband and music partner, Steve Einhorn, and their popular music center, Artichoke Music.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2006 |
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Steven
Rizzo was born and raised in Bryan, Texas. He formed
his own country band while in college, playing dance halls,
wedding receptions and festivals throughout cebtral and
eastern Texas. After a move to Nashville, Rizzo won a
songwriting contest at the Gibson Guitar Cafe and had
the good fortune to meet Wade Quick who soon became
his close friend and main co-writer.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2001 |
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John Seay is a Baltimore native who started songwriting at age 12 (1961). He actively ‘gigs’ in the mid-Atlantic area, runs a recording studio and produces other songwriters. He has six solo CD’s, was a finalist at Newsong Festival in 2002, and Susquehanna Festival in 2006. Seay’s songs have been recorded by Charly McClain, Lea Salonga (Tony Award Winner) and numerous others.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2006 |
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Tracy
Spring is an award-winning singer songwriter from
Bellingham, Washington. An accomplished guitarist and
mountain dulcimer player, her 1995 release Life and
Art, was named best album of the year by the folk
and Acoustic Music Exchange on the internet. In 1998,
she won the NW Emerging Songwriter's Contest at Lakefolk
in Washington State.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2001 |
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Sara
Thomsen grew up with a family that loved to sing.
From listening to lullabies to singing at family gatherings
and in church and school choirs, her life has been filled
with music. She began piano lessons early and in the ninth
grade was introduced to the guitar; the instrument that
has become her constant companion. She is a staunch supporter
of struggles for human dignity, ecological sustainability,
and is deeply connected to a life of spiritual practice.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2001 |
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With
a background in environmental activism and social justice, Michael Veitch worked for many years for the
Vermont Public Interest Research Group as a statewide
recycling advocate and an all around 'hell-raiser'! Commenting
on being a singer-songwriter, he says "The politician
in me sees the strength in a well-timed message, delivered
through a song. And the musician in me shivers when a
great melody comes pouring out. It may just be the best
of all possible worlds."
MUSIC TO LIFE 2001 |
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A Kerrville New Folk finalist of 1999 with four independent CD's and a new one on the way, Amy Webb carries on the pioneering spirit inherited from Native American great-grandmothers on both branches of her family tree. Her name literally means "beloved song weaver". The Miami Hearald named her one of the "50 to make a difference in the next century"- the one songwriter among philanthropists, activists and cultural visionaries.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2003, MUSIC TO LIFE 2006 |
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Zane Williams was born in Abilene, Texas and moved to Nashville in 2000. He and his wife Jodi have traveled to over 400 colleges nationwide where Zane plays as a solo coffee house act on the NACA circuit. The Williams drive a van that runs on recycled vegetable oil, volunteer often with a family of Somalian refugees and are currently hand-stiching the artwork for Zane’s new CD released in 2006.
MUSIC TO LIFE 2006 |
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For
20 years, Maryland native David
Zee has served as both a performer and composer.
As Musical DIrector for the political comedy troupe Gross
National Product, his musical scores have supported programs
on Discovery Channel, Home and Garden Television and PBS.
Past credits include a New York FIlm Festival award for
original music in the Corporate Division.
MUSIC
TO LIFE 2001 |
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