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Song Contest Winner and Finishers in the 2024 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest

You can listen to all of the Top Ten Songs if you scroll down past the Top Three winners.

Winner- Jim Bickerstaff, “Sister Mary”

All of the Top Three finalists will be performing their winning song at the Will McLean Music Festival scheduled for March 8th – 10th, 2024 at the Florida Sand Music Ranch near Brooksville.

Jim Bickerstaff says winning the Will McLean song contest is more than an honor, “It is recognition by my peers in a community of fine writers, performers, and humans … a validation of my creative efforts.”   He says the late Margaret Longhill, who was instrumental in starting not only the Will McLean Festival, but also the Will McLean Foundation, is the main reason he ever wrote any songs about Florida, “She wore her vision on her sleeve, and she is the person that made room for a Georgia boy in the Florida Folk community. ” 

“I first met Margaret Longhill in the early days of WillFest, before we called it that I think,” says Bickerstaff. The first two he attended were at two different venues near Dunnellon, and the following year, Longhill moved it to what was then called the Sertoma Youth Ranch and now called Florida Sand Ranch. He says, “Jim Billie invited me to play with him at the festival, and like everyone who ever came within range of Margaret’s magnetic field, I assumed an orbit and became a thread in the tapestry she was continuously weaving. Margaret had a sizable influence on everyone she met as well as on people who have no idea who she was. She was a purposeful woman and a good soul. I will never forget Sister Mary,” says Bickerstaff.

He says the primary message of his winning song, “Sister Mary,” is that we still have work to do preserving Florida and the rest of the planet for that matter. With Margaret gone, we are left to carry on her vision with art, music, and fighting for balance between development and conservation.”   Bridge –  What used to be is gone forever, time don’t go back to where it’s been. But as we step into tomorrow, are we going to let this happen once again?   The secondary message says Bickerstaff, “A testimony to the fact that Margaret was here and did this thing.”   Second Verse Sister Mary beckons all the flowers in the field to gather for the Native son Then they blow like dandelions, scattered to the wind, singing songs of old Florida.  He adds, “I think it is important to understand that the planet will shrug us off like a rash once we destroy our ability to survive here. A few hundred thousand years after we become extinct, there will be little sign that we ever existed. Yet, our longevity is largely in our hands if we learn to coexist within the delicate balance that makes this planet inhabitable by humans.”  3rd Verse Floods and raging hurricanes have come and they have gone But nothing any man can do can keep away the dawn.

Bickerstaff credits the musicians for “Sister Mary” as: Terry Feller – Drums, Bob Wray – Bass, Clayton Ivey – Wurlitzer Piano, Pat Severs – Acoustic Guitar, Johnny B – Dobro, Donny Carpenter – Fiddle, Jim Bickerstaff – Vocals & Acoustic Guitar.

As a four-year house engineer for legendary producer, Johnny Sandlin, Bickerstaff has worked at the top of the music business as an audio engineer for groups such as Widespread Panic, Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit & The Dixie Dregs on releases by Capricorn Records and Warner Brothers Music. Additional projects and artists include Scott Boyer, Tommy Talton, Chuck Leavell, Butch Trucks, Eddie Hinton, Loretta Lynn, Roger Hawkins, Randall Bramblett, T Lavitz, David Hood, John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, Gladys Knight, Kelvin Holly, Spanky Alford, and others.

As an independent producer and engineer, Bickerstaff has worked with Jupiter Coyote, Chief Jim Billie, Sarah McCulloch, Jeannie Fitchen, Mindy Simmons, Raiford Starke, Joey Errigo, Clyde Walker, Sam Pacetti, Vassar Clements, John McEuen, Bela Fleck, Upsala, and other Indie artists.

As a writer and performer, Bickerstaff has released three albums of his music. He retired from Duke Energy in June, 2023 and has leaned into performing and production full-time again. In 2020 Bickerstaff placed third in the song contest with “Jim Billie, Chief of the Seminole.”

2nd Place Finisher, Amy Carol Webb- “Carry It On”

Amy Carol Webb says as a child she always knew that she wanted to be a musician and a minister when she grew up. Her father was a music teacher and a gospel preacher like his father before him. Her mother was a singer, Bible-school teacher and Mom to the kids of the neighborhood wherever they lived – and they lived a lot of places throughout Oklahoma, and Texas.

“Our house was like growing up in a practice hall as all us kids learned and experimented, what with the four of us singing and playing guitars, drums, trombone, tuba, piano, sax….it was a lovely kind of chaos. Music was breathing to me. Still is,” said Webb.

Upon graduating college with a BSE in Performing Arts, Webb says she set out for a career in marketing, music performance, production and education, in Los Angeles. As a performer and songwriter, she toured the US, Canada, Mexico and Japan, and played from the Kennedy Center to the stages of some of the most hallowed music festivals, universities and conferences.

As an educator Webb has taught music, creative writing, songwriting and life-skills development from the halls of the University of Miami to the cells of maximum security women’s prisons in Florida.

In the realm of Justice Music, Webb is a Charter Fellow of Noel Paul Stookey’s “Music2Life Foundation,” working for justice through music. In 2010 she graduated Summa Cum Laude from seminary at Andover Newton Theological School and was ordained the following year by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Boca Raton, where she served for three years as a student and intern. Presently, she works as a Board Certified hospice Chaplain and bereavement group facilitator and is Consulting Minister to the River of Grass Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Davie, Florida.

She continues to provide concerts and workshops, and compose and record new music. In 2013 she released her 10th CD, Moments: Music – Mantra – Mystery, a celebration of devotional music from the world’s spiritual traditions as well as new Unitarian Universalist hymns and chants. Her justice anthem, STAND!, debuted at the 2010 Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly with a 150 voice choir and has been taken up by UU congregations and justice champions around the world – along with the call to action Tell Somebody! released at the UUA General Assembly 2012, and the invitation to reverence, On Holy Ground.

Webb says, “I am privileged to travel widely within the acoustic music community and the Unitarian Universalist movement preaching, singing, speaking, facilitating a variety of workshops focused to deepen, strengthen, amplify and edify – including fifteen years of service to SUUSI (Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute) with four years on the Board. In service to the larger faith community, I regularly speak, sing and teach at interfaith events, welcoming denominations, and also have served on the Board of the Ecumenical Institute at St. Thomas University in Miami.”

Webb is no stranger to the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest. In 2002 she placed first with her song Turtle Tears. That same year she also placed third for her song Rivers Roll On. Webb has been a consistent headliner at the Will McLean Music Festival and other music festivals across the state including the Florida Folk Festival, the Gamble Rogers Music Festival and the South Florida Folk and Acoustic Music Festival.

Tie: 3rd Place Finisher, Lis Williamson- “Land of Flowers”

Elisabeth Williamson is a singer-songwriter residing in the Sandhills of her native Florida. She has been performing in Florida for many decades with her husband, Lon, in various groups over the years, The Driftwoods, The Gatorbone Band, Valla Turner Williamson and so many more. She and her husband Lon have recorded and produced more than 75 records of all original Florida folk music for the Florida folk singer-songwriter community which she describes as a deeply fulfilling endeavor. Her song, The Land of Flowers, was inspired by her lifetime of observance of the changing state of the state of Florida as well as a commentary that, “we must remain vigilant to preserve what’s left of her natural beauty.”

Lis Williamson is no stranger to the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest as she has taken home the first place prize on two occasions. In 2013 she won for her song F-L-O-R-I-D-A and in 2007 she won first place for her song Florida Cracker Girl. Several of Lis and Lon Williamson’s music recordings can be heard in the nationally distributed public television documentary, From Novel to Movie: The Yearling in Florida.

Williamson, who has been a player and lead singer in bluegrass bands, country bands, folk trios, madrigals and jazz ensembles has performed in thousands of venues, from festivals to honkytonks, wine bars, churches and barns as well as weddings, christenings, funerals, gourmet restaurants and rodeos around the country. She is active with the Gamble Rogers Music Festival Board. You can catch her performing most often at a variety of venues in the St. Augustine area.

Tie- 3rd Place finisher, Kurt Fortmeyer- “Pelicans

Kurt Fortmeyer describes himself as a neo-traditional hobo, bluesman, honkytonking folksinger and songwriter. He says he was born in a barn, and raised in a stable environment, or so he might tell an unwitting listener in one of his sillier moments. He lived in North Carolina, California, Hawaii, and Maryland, before starting the first grade in Texas. A long-time lover of music, Fortmeyer joined his first band at the age of thirteen, and started writing songs almost right away. By the age of 19, he was turning into more of a solo singer/songwriter, with the occasional stints in blues, country, and rock bands.

In the 1970s, he hitchhiked coast-to-coast with a guitar and a burlap sack full of clothes. In the 1980s, he met his wife, and mostly came in off the road. With the help of friends, he built the house where his kids grew up in eastern North Carolina. In the 1990s, he and his wife opened a coffeehouse that became a haven for songwriters, and in the early part of this century, they moved to the Nashville area, where they now live in a holler in the hills northwest of town.

Fortmeyer has performed at the world-famous Bluebird Cafe in Nashville for almost 20 years. He has been a featured performer at the North Carolina Museum of History, and The Bluegrass Hall of Fame and Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky. His recordings have been played on radio stations around the world, and are available on most streaming platforms.

He describes his inspiration for writing his song Pelicans, “I was writing a “Coastal Country” kind of song with a producer friend of mine and his artist, when I came up with a line about a pelican. My friend went off on me. “Nobody’s going to sing a song with the word ‘pelican’ in it. It’s a clunky word, and an ugly bird. A seagull is the iconic ocean bird. It has to be a seagull.” I told him “You can find seagulls at the landfill, but if you see pelicans, you know you’re at the coast.” He insisted on a seagull, and since it was for his artist, and they bought my lunch, I relented. On the way home, I started thinking about about it, and his comment stuck in my craw. When I got home, I started working on Pelicans.

4th Through 10th Place Finishers:

4th place- Chad Spikes- “Days Long Gone

5th place- Chad Spikes- “Ghost of the Suwannee”

Tie 6th place- Cindy Bear and Susan Grandy- “Suwannee River in White Springs”

Tie 6th place- Chad Spikes- “Apalachee Sky”

7th place- David Beede- “The Melrose Song”

8th place- Dale & Lisa Dollar- “Ochlockonee”

9th place- Scott Campbell- “Bloody Buckets Bridge”

10th place- Bob Patterson- “Santa Fe”

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Song Contest Winner and Finishers in the 2021 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest

To hear all the Top Ten Songs scroll down past the Top Three Winners
Winner Scott Jackson (photo by Gail Carson)
Florida Highway

Scott Jackson from Summerfield, FL works as a dentist by day and a musician by night and any other free time he has. Jackson is the 2021 winner of the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest with the song, “Florida Highway.”

“Florida Highway came to me as I was thinking about going home and where I grew up,” says Jackson. “The feelings of a place familiar, but also realizing that the friends and family associated with a certain place, is what really makes it home.” He placed fourth in the contest in 2020 and performed the song on the Cypress Stage during a “Songwriters In The Round” set.

Jackson also won second place in this year’s contest with his song, “Freedom Had to Wait,” a civil war tune about the bloody “Battle of Olustee.”

Freedom Had to Wait

“The battle took place 100 years before I was born, yet there are similarities that take place today,” says Jackson. “The way this year has been going, not only with division, but with social unrest, made me think that even though we have come a long way, we still have a ways to go.”

Jackson was born in Hialeah, Florida. He says music was an instant part of his life, “Our father was a guitar player, as well as a banjo player. My dad taught me how to play the banjo when I was five years old and I played a lot of bluegrass music growing up. As I got older, my sister turned me on to acoustic folk music, which included James Taylor, Jim Croce, and Paul Simon.”

He says he started playing the guitar as a teenager and really grew attached to the folk music scene. He only started writing within the last 10 years or so, and then, only a handful of tunes. He is looking forward to playing at festivals either solo, or with his music buddy and orthodontist, Andy Cohen, in the group Wound Tight

Third Place Finisher- The Duo “Bear and Robert

Cindy Bear and Franc Robert

The third place finisher in the 2021 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest is the duo, “Bear and Robert” with the song, “7-Mile.” Cindy says, “7 Mile” was written as a song of healing for the son and family of an old friend, who left us too soon this year,

“It was inspired by the story of his extraordinary life as an avid fisherman, a Veteran, and to how much he loved his son, his family, and returning to his Florida home. His dream of teaching his boy how to fish began to come true when he was still in diapers, and the first time he took him fishing in the Florida Keys shortly after that was one of the proudest days of his life. They shared a lifetime of adventures while fishing all over Florida, but their trips to the Keys were always extra special.”

She adds the song also explores the parallels of how fishing is a lot like life,

“No matter the weather, if you are following your passion with someone you love, you will always remember those times as the best days of your life. 

Together the acoustic sound of “Bear and Robert” has been described as a deep well of Folk, Blues and Americana with a high-energy je ne sais quoi! They have played Folk, Blues, and Acoustic music festivals, house concerts, charity fundraisers, and venues all over Florida, the Mississippi Delta, at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee, and internationally in Canada. Franc has also toured solo and with his previous bands from the Southeastern U.S. up through Canada. They also both love performing with their electric blues-rock band, the “Black Water Swamp Band.” 

The singer-songwriter duo also placed 9th in the contest with the song, “Pollen Rag,” a song Cindy describes as a funny take on pollen in Florida which has an apocalyptic effect on our olfactory senses! She says The song was born on the ukulele, and inspired by the extremely heavy pollen season in Florida this year, and written after camping for 5 days at a music festival in the spring.

Pollen Rag

“The pine pollen was so thick on our blue van that it literally turned green! When we tried to rinse it off before we left, there were these huge, endless clumps of yellow pollen and brown catkins that kept sloughing off to the ground, and all we could think of was how many pounds of pollen we had shaken off that weekend every time we sneezed!”  

Bear and Robert released their first acoustic CD, “Hearts in Blues” in 2019, and Franc has recorded and released six solo/band CD’s with the Back Alley Blues Band, and the Box Car Tourists. A CD of Cindy Bear’s original folk songs is currently in motion!

Cindy and Franc are active volunteers and supporters of Florida folk music by bringing artists and opportunities together across the state as active board members of the North Florida Folk Network (NFFN). Cindy is also a board member for the Florida Music Food Initiative (FMFI), which helps feed the hungry and homeless in Florida. She says, “Be the change, one song at a time.” 

The “Top Three” contestants in the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest usually perform at the annual Festival in March. The pandemic caused the cancellation for 2021. Scott Jackson and “Bear and Robert” will perform at the next Will McLean Festival scheduled for March of 2022.

Here is the list of the Top Ten Songs for 2020.

Scroll down to hear the audio of all the Top Ten Songs.

Listen to all the songs in the 2021 Top Ten:

1st place, Florida Highway by Scott Jackson, Summerfield, FL
2nd place, Freedom Had to Wait by Scott Jackson, Summerfield, FL
3rd place, 7 Mile, Cindy Bear and Franc Robert, Jacksonville, FL
Tie for 4th place, Okeechobee by Razz Taylor from Arcadia, FL
Tie for 4th place, Take Care of the Santa Fe by Jane Fallon of Dunedin, FL
5th place, State of Confusion by Paul Smithson, Eustis, FL
6th place, Old Marble Stage by Bob Patterson, St. Augustine, FL
7th place, The Fountain of Youth by the Lubben Brothers, West Palm Beach, FL
8th place, Ancient City Moon by Don Cooper, St. Augustine, FL
9th place, The Pollen Rag by Cindy Bear and Franc Robert, Jacksonville, FL
Tie 10th place, Saving Safety Harbor by Jane Fallon, Dunedin, FL
Tie 10th place, Rosewood by Greg Thomas, Inverness, FL
Tie 10th place, The Old Man and the Sea by Bertie Higgins, Tarpon Springs, FL

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2019 Winner and Finishers of the Will McLean Best New FL Song Contest

Winner of the 2019 Will McLean Song Contest Bob Patterson
Bob Patterson’s winning song “Silver Springs”

Bob Patterson  from St. Augustine is the 2019 winner of the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest for, “Silver Springs.” The song has a musical message about the current plight of not only one of the largest artesian springs in the world, but one of the most beautiful springs in Florida located in Marion County. Patterson recalls the day he first saw the spring.

It was in the early 70s when Gamble Rogers showed up at his house in St. Augustine in his old Mustang pulling a boat. Will McLean was with him. The three headed to Gore’s Landing north of Ocala, launched the boat into the Ocklawaha River and headed down to the Silver River and into the headspring.

At the time said Patterson, “It was producing 99.8% pure artesian spring water. Now it’s polluted and it’s getting worse and worse. So there was a sense of urgency about writing that song.”

Patterson didn’t start out writing environmental songs. He recalls a night around 1969 when Will McLean stayed at his house. During a late night music session Patterson sang one of his songs for Will.

“They were kind of those “Baby, Oh Baby” kind of songs,” recalled Patterson. “Will, who was always so ingratiating, would say, “Aww, that’s just wonderful. That’s beautiful Bob. Why don’t you write songs like that about Florida.”

McLean would be proud of Patterson’s songs today. In 2005 he placed in the top three of the Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest with a song called, “Lullabye of the Rivers.” It’s become somewhat of an anthem around the state. More importantly, it’s been used by educators to teach students about the natural history, geography, ecology and the state of health of Florida’s Rivers.

“The idea is if we don’t teach the kids about the environment, we can’t expect them to grow up wanting to protect it,” said Patterson. He hopes to obtain funding to create a DVD that could be used in schools to teach more educators how to utilize music in their science and history classes.

Patterson, along with the second and third place finishers of the song contest will be featured at the 2019 Will McLean Festival March 8th thru the 10th at the Sertoma Youth Ranch near Brooksville. This year he also tied for fourth place with his song, “Me and Margaret,” a song referring to the longtime Matriarch of the Florida folk scene, the late Margaret Longhill. Longhill died in 2018, just a few days before the 29th Will McLean Festival, the festival she started thirty years ago.

As one of the original founders of the Gamble Rogers Folk Festival, Patterson has functioned as the event’s Artistic Director for 24 years. In 2011 the Stetson Kennedy Foundation awarded him the ‘Fellow Man and Mother Earth Award’ for his work in actively keeping folk culture alive in Florida.

Patterson was a 2011 first place winner in the North Florida Folk Network song writing contest in the category of Best Florida Song. In 2014 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Florida Storytelling Association.

He has been a featured performer at the annual Florida Folk Festival at White Springs for more than 45 years and was recently inducted into the St Augustine Music Hall of Fame. In addition to critically acclaimed CDs Patterson has authored two books, Forgotten Tales of Florida, and, Dorothy. Both books are loaded with Florida folk lore and history and have become very popular in the folk community and beyond.

2nd place finisher Paul Smithson
Paul Smithson’s 2nd place song “Ninety-One Days”

Paul Smithson, is the 2nd place finisher in the 2019 contest for his song, “Ninety-One Days” about the late former Governor Lawton Chiles and the way he was known for walking across the state of Florida as he campaigned for office.

Smithson spent his early years in New York. He relocated in his early teens and considers Florida his home.  He has lived most of his life (aside from a 10 year hiatus in California) in Lake County, Florida.  Smithson, who lives in Eustis, Florida says his first memories of the Sunshine State were the citrus groves that used to dominate the landscape.  He watched these groves freeze out in the 80s, to be replaced by strip malls and subdivisions.

At 56, Smithson says he has witnessed the state he fell in love with evolve into something other than what it was, but he also knows that Florida is persistent.  There remains the swamps, prairies, and pined forests of Ocala, the Canaveral Seashore, and the numerous lakes of central Florida, to name only a few of his favorite haunts.

He has taught literature and composition since 1998, beginning at the University of Central Florida, sojourning through California, and ending up back in central Florida.  He currently teaches AP Literature and AP U.S. History at his Alma Mater: Eustis High School (class of 1980).

Smithson says his musical/songwriting influences include Kris Kristofferson, Guy Clark, Billy Joe Shaver, and Steve Earle.  His interest in Florida history began with Gilbert King’s The Devil in the Grove, a book documenting the story of political corruption and racial injustice in 1940s-1950s Lake County.  Smithson says he was so moved and inspired by the book that he composed, recorded, and released a CD by the same title.  The CD contains songs that provide both a narrative and a variety of points of view of the major and minor players.

Smithson’s song, “The Last Train Out of Fernandina,” tied for fourth place in this year’s contest. He currently performs with John French as Smithson & French.  This duo focuses on songwriting, harmonizing, and generally simply having a good time doing it. 

3rd place finisher Razz Taylor
Razz Taylor’s 3rd place song “Arcadia Cowboy”

Razz Taylor is a singer-songwriter and performing independent recording artist living in Arcadia in south Florida.  He was raised along the shores of Lake Okeechobee in South Florida and began singing for friends and family when he was just six years old.

Taylor’s 3rd place song, “Arcadia Cowboy” is about living in a small town in Florida and not wanting to be tied down. 

His song, “Okeechobee,” which placed sixth in this year’s contest, is an autobiography about growing up hunting and fishing on the big water of Lake Okeechobee and the yearning of wanting to return to those childhood days.

Taylor says he is deeply influenced by traditional country music with a twist of the Oklahoma and Texas sound of red dirt country music.  You can find his music on cdbaby, iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and You Tube. You can find him on Facebook at RazzTaylor and the Mystic River band.

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These Diamonds

scan0005The late Will McLean spent his life writing songs to save Florida through music.  Now the foundation named after the father of Florida folk is marketing an environmental CD trying to continue McLean’s lifelong mission.  The acoustic CD features musicians from across the Sunshine State singing about a wide variety of environmental stories and issues.  As Donna Green-Townsend reports even the CD title, These Diamonds carries a story behind it.

Florida musicians included on the CD are:

The Eagles Fly – Mindy Simmons

Lullaby of the Rivers – Bob Patterson

Rose and the Gold – Mem Semmes

Cracker CowmanFrank Thomas

Florida Pines – Paul Garfinkel

Paw Prints in the Sand – Ken Skeens

These Diamonds – Grant Livingston

Turtle Tears – Amy Carol Webb

Rand McNally Map of Florida – Jim Bickerstaff

Plumes – Steve Blackwell

Apalachicola Doin’ Time – Dale Crider

Song For Our Children – Mary Ann Dinella

 

2005 Will McLean Song Contest Winner and Finishers

Here are the winner, 2nd, and 3rd place finishers of the 2007 Will McLean Best New Florida Song Contest

Bruce Tetley
1st place winner Bruce Tetley

Winner  Bruce Tetley “Dodgin’ A Hurricane”

Cathy DeWitt
2nd place Cathy DeWitt

2nd place Cathy DeWitt “My Heart Belongs to Florida”

Lucia Jenkins3rd place (tie) Lucia Jenkins “Here To Stay”

Bob Patterson
3rd place (tie) Bob Patterson

3rd place (tie) Bob Patterson “Lullabye of the Rivers”

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