Over 40 singer-songwriters applied for this competition. The preliminary judges listened to all of the artists and chose their top 12. They will perform from 10-12 in a random order. Michael Stock, Bob Lind, and Susan Moss will be our final judges for this event. The 3 “top winners” will be announced at 5:15 pm. Check out the Singer-Songwriter page for their bios and to listen to their perform.
Lynn was one of the 3 singer-songwriter finalists at last year’s South Florida Folk and Acoustic Music Festival. We are excited to have her back again to perform on our stage.
Born in the upper Mississippi River town of La Crosse, Wisconsin, Lynn Biddick started playing the piano at age five. She wrote her first song at age nine while riding a bicycle. “My creative work has always had a multi-tasking element running through it,” says the singer-songwriter. “I have never done just one thing at a time.”
Biddick moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music where she majored in piano and composition. She started busking in Boston and Cambridge, which led to gigs in clubs and coffeehouses across New England.
Her interest in songwriting eventually took her to Nashville, where she recorded an EP with producer Brad Jones (Josh Rouse, Jill Sobule). One of the songs, “Open Road,” would go on to win the songwriting contest at Merlefest. While in Nashville, she also founded the “Born To Cook” songwriter show with Gillian Welch.
Biddick has returned to La Crosse where she continues her multi-tasking ways as a singer, musician and recording artist. She has released 2 albums, Ghost In The Bed and Everybody’s Blue on Momentous records. She also teaches music, directs choirs, and appears monthly in Rivertown Songwriter’s Showcase at the historic dancehall turned music venue, Leo and Leona’s.
Jason Baker is a singer-songwriter & folksinger from Vermont performing topical, original, folk-roots songs with a modern lyrical viewpoint, mixed with traditional folk, on guitar, banjo, ukulele & harmonica.
2019 New England Music Awards Nominee for “Best in Vermont”
Nov/Dec American Songwriter Magazine Lyric Contest Honorable Mention for the song “Christmastime Blues”
Finalist in the Songs For Social Change 2019 Song Contest for the song “something that’s never been done before”
Composed and performs theme music for “Vermont Talks” podcast (vermonttalks.com)
Finalist in the “Solo Male” Category of the Blues & Roots Radio International Song Contest 2022 for the song “The Dream Of Peace”
Finalist in the Songs For Social Change 2022 Song Contest for the song “It Doesn’t Go Away”
Vermont Folklife Traditional Arts Apprentice, 2022-23 Cohort, “Long Neck Banjo”, Master: Rik Palieri
Steering Committee Member, The People’s Music Network for Songs of Freedom and Struggle, Elected January 2024
Monique Byrne and Andy Rogovin perform moving and inspirational songs that are sometimes joyful, sometimes wistful, and oftentimes, poignant, and that reflect a mutual passion for life, family and humanity. Their intimately blended vocal harmonies are mixed with an expressive and unique instrumental style that is best described as “a banjo-guitar romance.” Crowes Pasture’s style of intimate and soulful folk transports and connects listeners through universal experiences in their “skillfully crafted, emotional songwriting” (Chris Eastburn, award-winning composer).
Crowes Pasture has made waves with two EPs and three full-length albums in just six-years time. Their CD, “Slow It Down”, was released in June 2019 at the legendary Club Passim. Since its release, the title track earned Crowes Pasture a #1 song, and the album debuted at #5 on the Folk Alliance International Charts. Since the release of their first album, “Edge of America,” the duo has had eight Top 10 Songs on the Folk Charts, including “Take Back the Red White and Blue” (January 2022), their cover of Mary Gauthier’s “Mercy Now” (June 2019), and the timely and topical song, “Quarantine” (January 2021).
Over the past few years, Crowes Pasture has performed at a number of renowned east coast music venues including Club Passim, Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockwood Music Hall, The Bull Run, and Circle of Friends Coffeehouse and has been a supporting act for The Small Glories and The Kennedys. The duo has been twice honored with nominations as “Roots Act of the Year” by the New England Music Awards (2019 and 2022) and as “Americana Artist of the Year” by the Boston Music Awards (2019). They were named finalists for Best Group/Duo in the 2020 International Acoustic Music Awards, and for Best Group/Duo in the 2021 IAMAs, for their song “A Virtue and a Call”. The duo has toured recently throughout Southern Ontario and Quebec, and is currently recording their third full length album with award-winning producer Eric Lichter of Dirt Floor Studios.
The duo takes its name from the salt marsh and tidal flats known as Crowes Pasture, hidden away on the north side of Cape Cod, where the ocean tides recede twice a day to reveal intricate patterns on the shifting sands. This recurring cycle of creation and discovery evokes their own musical journey.
Carla Sciaky is a multi-instrumentalist-folksinger-songwriter based in Denver, Colorado. As a soloist, she toured the US extensively throughout the 1980s and 90s, recording first on her own Propinquity Records and later on Green Linnet and Alacazam Records, compiling a discography of eight solo albums and appearing on many group efforts, compilations, and colleagues’ collections. Her songwriting won her awards and/or recognition in such arenas as the Kerrville New Song Competition, the Louisville, Kentucky songwriting competition, the Colorado Arts and Humanities Fellowship for Composition, the Billboard Songwriting Competition, and the Colorado, Utah, and Kansas Artist in Residence programs in the schools.
Born in Texas and raised in Kentucky, Daniel grew up in a family of songwriters, with both his father and grandmother crafting melodies and lyrics. He wrote his first song at 8 years old, surrounded by a family fit for country songs – the old kind about struggle and lonesomeness, mistakes among enduring love. The melodies and legends were all around him in his family, and it all seeped in.
Living now in Paducah, KY, Neihoff honed his skills while playing at church and learning from masterful guitar player, Cheryl Yates. Over the years, whether it was for paying gigs or for open mics, Neihoff turned heads with his voice and rewarded the interest with his lyrics. At 20, his first audition for a set at Nashville’s iconic Bluebird Cafe was successful. Neihoff’s debut album reached number 32 on the iTunes singer/songwriter charts, further solidifying his place in the music world.
His accolades are impressive: he won the Kerrville New Folk Competition in 2019, was a 3-time finalist of Songwriter Serenade, placed 3rd in the Woody Guthrie songwriter contest, and won the Rocky Mountain Songwriters Contest in 2023. Neihoff has also been featured on PBS and received praise from Lori Walsh, host of In The Moment on SDPB, who said, “Daniel Neihoff, you are just what we need.” We are hearing the launch of a voice familiar and unique that feels as if it began quite a while ago.
Carla Ulbrich <Ohl-brick> is a guitar comic/ comical singer-songwriter who is often compared to Tom Lehrer or Weird Al. She has a love of the absurdities of ordinary life, a somewhat twisted viewpoint, and a way with words. She has performed in 34 states and 3 countries.
Carla’s 9 albums have won her numerous awards and have been featured on the BBC, Dr. Demento, Sirius XM Comedy Radio, Pandora, and NPR’s Morning Edition.
Hank Woji
A self-described “Jersey Shore Ex-Pat turned West Texas Desert Rat,” Hank Woji cut his musical teeth as a bassist in the vibrant Asbury Park, New Jersey music scene of the 1980s & 90s, playing in some of the Garden State’s most dynamic and innovative bands.
Then in March of 2001 he moved to Houston, fell in with a community of great Texas songwriters, and found a new musical voice as a Singer Songwriter.
But, destiny turned a page and it was his chance move, in 2009, to the far West Texas desert town of Terlingua that has most reshaped his life and his music.
Critics have described Hank’s music as “acoustic-wielding, sharply observed, Americana all the way” and being “in the best tradition of the Texas troubadours like Guy Clarke, Townes Van Zandt and Butch Hancock” and that “His troubadour style also comes very close to the style of Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger, or as we heard on ‘Nebraska’ from Bruce Springsteen.”
Of his recently released 6th CD, Tony Award winning songwriter, Anaïs Mitchell says: “Highways, Gamblers, Devils and Dreams is a sprawling meditation on mythic American themes, Hank is a warm-hearted and precise troubadour of the old school.”
“Highways, Gamblers, Devils and Dreams” debuted in September 2023 at #5 on the Euro Americana chart and #3 on the U.S. FAI Folk Music chart.
Over his 20+ year songwriter career, Hank has performed with such notable artists as: Jonathan Byrd, Jaimee Harris, Grant Peeples, Bob Livingston, David Amram, Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Pete Seeger.
Since founding her own label MPress Records over two decades ago, NYC-based Billboard charting alt-pop artist Rachael Sage has steadily released a slew of vibrant, dynamic albums described by Goldmine Magazine as “mesmerizing…thoughtful, pensive and flush with an emotional flourish, all carefully and adeptly executed.” She has toured with an eclectic list of artists including Ani DiFranco, Beth Hart, Howard Jones, and Grammy® winners Shawn Colvin and Judy Collins – with whom she also recorded a critically-acclaimed duet of Neil Young’s “Helpless”. In addition to being a six-time Independent Music Award-winning musician and producer, Sage is also a John Lennon Contest Grand Prize winner who has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, SXSW, and toured globally from Japan to Berlin with her band, The Sequins. She is a philanthropic advocate who has raised money for a wide range of causes, including WHY Hunger, American Refugee Committee, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital and National Network For Youth (NN4Y). Her latest full-length album, The Other Side and its companion album of acoustic reimaginings, Another Side are both out now on MPress/Universal/Virgin, and her new album Canopy will be released in 2025.
Jason performs a vast repertoire of songs from the singer songwriter era of the 1970’s, otherwise known as mellow rock. Highlighted with material from his musical heroes Neil Young, James Taylor, Paul Simon, Harry Chapin, and countless others of the genre.
Jason has recorded four CDs containing original songs including Since 1969, Piece of the Sun, Lost in Vacation, and his current CD A Hawaiian Music Tribute, which is a collection of cover songs by Hawaii songwriters.
Over the last few years and several gigs in Hawaii, Jason has added the ukulele to his act. Breaking the stereotype of the instrument by covering songs by the Beatles, Frankie Valli and Queen. He includes many songs from what has been called the Hawaiian music renaissance of the 70’s, featuring artists such as Cecilio and Kapono, Kalapana, Ka’au Crater Boys, Olomana, Keola and Kapono Beamer and many others. Jason has said that although the songs he learned in Hawaii may not be new, it was new to him, and gave him the ability to explore a different style of music and enhance creativity. It also gave Jason the chance to learn, through its music, the history, the stories, and discovery of the heart and soul of Hawaii.
KillBillies are a folk/roots band that had their origins in 2010.
Ben Childs leads the band through multiple genres, tying it all together with their signature “banjo and bass” sound. From festivals to rock clubs and live streams to living rooms this exciting trio will get you smiling and dancing along before you know it.
Their new single “Promised Dream” is available now on all streaming services along with their two full studio albums. You can listen to them on the music page of this website. Come join the fun and see them live!
Musicians:
Ben Childs: Guitar, Sax, Mandolin, Snare, Vox
James Galiano: Banjo, Kick, Vox
Hector Diaz: Standup Bass, Acoustic Bass, Vox
Anne Hills is one of the most beloved voices of the contemporary folk music scene, receiving awards and recognition for her live performances, her unique solo and collaborative recording projects, and her overall artistry and benefit work. Her song “Follow That Road” was the title cut of the Martha’s Vineyard Songwriter Retreat and has been a certified folk classic since the late 1990s. Whether she is singing her own songs, the words of six-year-old Opal Whiteley, or her song settings of the Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley; accompanied with her guitar, banjo, or simply a Tibetan bell, she puts her whole heart and soul into the moment. You won’t want to miss a chance to hear her songs and stories in person. She tours extensively, winning over audiences with her warm, lively and humorous performances. The AllMusic Guide says, “A stunning soprano tone has made Anne Hills one of contemporary music’s premiere vocalists … Her knack for writing heartfelt songs [has] brought her to the upper echelon of her craft.” and Tom Paxton says, “Anne Hills is such an exquisite singer that it’s understandable that people might be swept up in the pure beauty of her voice and thereby overlook her writing. That would be a mistake. For me, Anne’s writing, in songs like ‘Follow That Road’ and many others, is as direct, melodic and deep as any work being done today. She is quite simply one of my absolute favorite songwriters.”
Since dropping out of college in 2007, Jacob Johnson has journeyed across the country in six minivans (so far), captivating audiences with his highly caffeinated brand of acoustic guitar playing. Known for his energetic performances, Jacob has had the privilege of sharing the stage with Grammy winners like Tommy Emmanuel, and Victor Wooten, as well as esteemed musicians including Phil Keaggy, Marcus King, and Tim Reynolds. Beyond his guitar prowess, Jacob has proven himself as a talented songwriter, garnering recognition as the Don Gibson Songwriter Award Grand Prize Winner, Nashville Connection Songwriter of the Year, and a Finalist for the Freshgrass No Depression Songwriter Award. His ability to craft captivating and heartfelt songs has earned him performances at prestigious music festivals such as the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in New York, the Walnut Valley Festival in Kansas, the Wildflower Music Festival in Texas, and countless others. Jacob currently resides in Greenville, SC that is the college he dropped out of.
Ukulele-toting-mouth-trumpeting-songster Victoria Vox and guitar-slinging-singing-jokester Jack Maher reconnected 18 years after first meeting at the Berklee College of Music (Boston, MA). Both established performers in their own right, the moniker Jack & the Vox was almost too good to be true! Since eloping in 2016, the two have been writing and performing together in between their own gigs. Stylistically it’s a bit Americana, jazz, folk, and pop, but really, there are no boundaries. Both hold degrees in Songwriting from Berklee and have the passion for making music. In 2019, the two carved out 6 weeks together to tour the East Coast (US), Canada, Czech Republic, the U.K., and Germany, just a few months before being confined to their home during the Coronavirus pandemic. The two took to the internet performing a series of shows called “the Best Medicine Show”, which they have filmed a total of 151 episodes to date.
Joe Jencks is an 25-year veteran of the international folk circuit, an award-winning songwriter, and celebrated vocalist based in Chicago. Merging conservatory training with his Irish roots and working-class upbringing, Joe delivers engaged musical narratives filled with heart, soul, groove and grit. Having penned several #1 Folksongs including the ever-relevant Lady of The Harbor, Jencks was also co-founder of the harmony trio, Brother Sun. From Festivals like Falcon Ridge, Kerrville, Mariposa, and Old Songs, to venues like Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, Jencks has enthralled diverse audiences with his approachable style. Joe is noted for his unique merging of musical beauty, social consciousness, and spiritual exploration. Blending well-crafted instrumentals and vivid songwriting, Jencks serves it all up with a lyric baritone voice that has the edgy richness of a good sea-salt caramel.
Mad Agnes has won hearts on two continents with their signature intricate harmonies, compelling songwriting, and passionate delivery. The genre-bending trio—Margo Hennebach, Adrienne Jones and Mark Saunders—creates an exciting, inclusive performance, delivering new original songs, selections from their thirteen album catalog, story telling and impromptu vocal improv.
In their current iteration, Mad Agnes uses primarily one microphone around which they form and re-form, early-radio style. Their ease with one another on stage invites the audience into their world of human connection and spontaneous fun. Well-crafted instrumentation – using guitars, mandolin, ukulele, piano, melodica, an inventive keyboard and three-part harmonies as tight as jeans from the dryer – enthralls audiences again and again.
